There are many things in this world that are older than you might think. For example, the Pope’s title of “Pontiff” predates Christianity by almost a millennium. The mouse driven computer with a mouse, hypertext links and videoconferencing dates back to 1968. But while some things are older than you think, other things are newer, …
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve looked at letters of the alphabet that didn’t quite make the cut. Some of the these letters were added to the alphabet and later dropped, whereas others were proposed additions that never got adopted. Some spelling reformers, however, have not been content to add a new letter here …
Over the centuries, many spelling reforms have tried to add new letters to the alphabet. Given that the Emperor Claudius couldn’t pull this off, you might think that no new letters have been added since ancient times. In fact, we’ve gained three new letters. “W” came about in the Early Middle Ages, as a doubling …
In previous installments of this series, we’ve looked at letters of the alphabet made and lost in the days of ancient Greece and Rome. Now let’s look at some of the Old English Letters that never made it into our modern alphabet. Anglo-Saxon Innovations After the Fall of Rome, the Latin Alphabet gradually spread across …
Last week, we looked at some of the letters dropped from the Greek Alphabet — letters that never even made it into Latin. This week, we’ll look at the Claudian Letters, three new letters introduced by the Roman Emperor Claudius. But first, a little background on the Latin Alphabet. Etruscan Influence On its way from …
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