History of S

	Revision 5 . . (edit) July 10, 2001 2:47 am by Lee Daniel Crocker
	Revision 4 . . June 2, 2001 10:49 pm by Wathiik
	Revision 3 . . June 2, 2001 10:49 pm by Wathiik

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Difference (from prior major revision) (minor diff, author diff)

Changed: 1c1

Semitic Šîn (bow) was pronounced as /S/ as the modern English digraph SH. In Greek, there was only one phoneme /s/ and no /S/, so Greek Σιγμα (Sigma) came to represent the Greek /s/ phoneme. The name Sigma probably comes from the Semitic letter Sâmek and not šîn. In Etruscan and Latin, the /s/ value was maintained, and only in Modern languages, S came to represent other sounds, like /S/ in Hungarian or /z/ in English and French (in English RISE and French LISER 'to read')

Semitic Šîn (bow) was pronounced as /S/ as the modern English digraph SH. In Greek, there was only one phoneme /s/ and no /S/, so Greek σιγμα (sigma) came to represent the Greek /s/ phoneme. The name "sigma" probably comes from the Semitic letter "Sâmek" and not "Šîn". In Etruscan and Latin, the /s/ value was maintained, and only in modern languages, S came to represent other sounds, like /S/ in Hungarian or /z/ in English and French (in English RISE and French LISER to read).