Crayon Palace

Thursday, June 2, 2016

The Letter "D" is for: dance, disciples, drink, duck, daisy, drawers, doll and dandelion

D stands for Duck, Doris and Drummer.

The next letter D, came from a representation of a door - "daleth" (dahleth). It probably pictures the door of a tent. A custom that prevails among the Arabs and in a number of countries gave particular importance to the door of a tent - a stranger, or even an enemy, if he entered through the door of a tent must receive food, drink and shelter. "Daleth" became "delta" with the Greeks and D (day) with the Romans, who, of course, rounded the angle.

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The Letter "E" is for Eskimos and elephants

The house picture gave us B, the door, D, and the window, E. "He" (hay) meant to look, to see, or window, and one writer asserts our familiar street cry "hey, there" can be traced to these ancient times. One side bar of the window was lost early.

The Greeks at first used this sound for the long "e" (epsilon) but afterwards employed the character H or "eta" for the long sound. The Romans at first made no change except to call it "eh."

This is the letter that occurs so frequently in English words, and many no doubt recall the interesting use that Poe makes of this fact in his story "The Gold Bug."

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The Letter "F" is for: fox, feathers, folding, freshly, frog, farmer, fire engine, fairy and fish

F stands for Fish, for Francis and Feel

Our letter order does not agree with that of the Phoenicians or the early Greeks. Our sixth letter, F, is missing in classical Greek, but it is found in earlier writings. It comes from a Phoenician representation of a hook or nail (?) "vau." The Hebrew form resembles the latter object. The nail was important in shipbuilding, a common industry of the early traders. When the Greeks used this letter they called it "digamma" (double gamma) and its form represented one "gamma" (Greek c) superimposed over the other. The Romans called it F (ef) and during the reign of Emperor Claudius the consonant V was represented by the F inverted. This was done because the Latin alphabet had but one character to represent U and V and OCTAVIA became OCTA(F upside down)A.

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The Letter "G" is for: glasses, giant, geese, garbage, grapefruit, gingerbread, gossip and gardener

G stands for Goat, for Great and for Good.

The "ship of the desert," the camel, gave its name to the third letter. Our name for this animal is" traceable back to the Phoenician "gimel" (ghe'mel) or "gamel" (gah'mel).The long neck and the peculiar angle of the neck in relation to the head could easily be represented. The Greeks made changes similar to those in other letters- they improved the shape and changed the name to "gamma." The Romans did not forget the curve and gave it both the hard and soft sounds (kay and gay). Later on, about the third century A. D., to distinguish the "g" sound from the "k" sound they added a little bar below the opening. Thus we get both C and G from the picture of the camel.

Stevenson said that when he was a child the capital G always impressed him as a genii swooping down to drink out of a handsome cup. Kipling's story of the invention of the alphabet is filled with similar delightful stories of the picture origin of letter forms.

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The Letter "H" is for: hearing, hat, house, horse and hare

H stands for Hog, for Harry and Hood

Two fence posts and three horizontal boards gave us our eighth letter, H. The fence was called "cheth" (haith). The Greeks omitted the upper and lower boards thus making it like our H, and called it "eta" (ata). The Romans gave it a soft sound H (hah) just as we do today.

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The Letter "I" is for iceskates, iron and igloo

I stands for Inn, Ivanhoe and Igloo.

When the Romans received it, it was simply a vertical stroke, I (ee) which represented the same long "e" sound as it did with the Greeks, but later they used it both as a consonant and vowel, differentiating the consonant by making the letter I longer, J; but they did not give a distinct letter form for the capital J until the sixteenth century.

The small j came into being nearly a century later. The dot over the i was first introduced in a thirteenth century manuscript.

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The Letter "J" is for jungle, jigsaw puzzle, jacket, jack-in-the-box, Jack and Jill

J stands for Judge, for Jack and for Jill.

The parts of the human body also played an important part in giving form to the letters of the alphabet. The early peoples recognized the value of the hand and the head and these members gave rise to the letters I and K, and Q and R respectively. The hand in profile bent at the knuckles and wrist gives us the character "yod" (the hand) as used by the Phoenicians. The Greeks, who always liked to have their words end in vowels, added "a" and called it "Iota" (e-o'ta). When the Romans received it, it was simply a vertical stroke, I (ee) which represented the same long "e" sound as it did with the Greeks, but later they used it both as a consonant and vowel, differentiating the consonant by making the letter I longer, J; but they did not give a distinct letter form for the capital J until the sixteenth century.

The small j came into being nearly a century later. The dot over the i was first introduced in a thirteenth century manuscript.

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The Illuminated Letter "J" at The Grimm Scriptorium

The Letter "K" is for king and kites

K stands for King, for Kate, and for Kill.

The silhouette of the open hand, with its radiating lines, discloses the origin of the letter K, "kaph," which signified hollow or palm. We know that palmistry was practiced by the ancients, and probably the association of reading the hand and writing influenced the inclusion of this character. The Greeks added their favorite vowel sound, "a," again and thus obtained their "Kappa." The Romans had no need for this letter at first, as C furnished the same sound. When they did accept it, they made no change.

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the Letter "L" is for lantern, laugh, lost time, and lemur

L stands for Lion, for Lawyer, and Land.

The ox goad or whip lash, "lamed" (lah' med) gave rise to the next letter. Herding oxen and sheep was the important occupation of the slaves of the Phoenicians and hence the last, an object so unfamiliar to us, was easily recognized by them. The Greeks again added an "a" and called it "lambda" and made it in the form of an inverted V. The Romans, strangely, adhered more closely to the original form than did the Greeks.

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The Letter "M" is for music and market

M stands for Magpie, for Martha and Mend.

The Phoenicians were lovers of the sea, and from this source two letters were derived, M and N. They explored not only all of the Mediterranean shore at an early date, but they also sailed boldly through the gates of Gibraltar, and "beyond the world" where they found Britain. They were the first navigators that sailed by night and it is said they discovered the north star. Therefore it is not surprising that water "mem" (maim) is the source of M and that fish, "nun" (noon) the source of N. The letter M has changed but little in form, it is the Greek letter "Mu" and the Roman M (em). The head of the fish, from which the letter N is pictured, was simplified even more than the head of the ox, in A. It no doubt represents the fisherman's viewpoint - not a swimming fish but a suspended one. The Greeks reversed the stroke and called it "Nu" and the Romans did not change its form but called it N (en).

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The Illuminated Letter "M" at The Grimm Scriptorium
I have more coloring pages of Musical instruments and choirs singing Music at Color The Bible
Free Primmer Pages about "M" for Manners: Jimmy Sliderlegs, Untidy Tom, Kitchen Manners, Slovenly Kate
Read about teaching good Manners to children at Thrifty Scissors
M is for Milk Primer Page

The Letter "N" is for nest and native

N stands for Nag, for Nanny, and Notes.

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The Letter "O" is for: octupus, owl, ornaments, overalls, office workers and opera

O stands for Owl, for Orchard, and Oats.

In Phoenicia, as in Egypt, China and Mexico, the eye is one of the commonest elements found in the writing. It was called "Ayin" (ah-yin). The Greeks used it for two sounds now designated by "omicron," little "o," and "omega," great "o," the letter which, strangely, was placed at the end of the Greek alphabet. We find in the Bible: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." How many today would think of using the alphabet for such an important illustration? It is easy to trace the Roman O (oh) from its Greek parent, "omicron."

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