mother-alphabet

Updated: May 14, 2025

It is plain that the more delicate distinctions of sound were duly felt by the introducers of the alphabet, men of culture and masters of two languages; but after the national writing Became wholly detached from the Hellenic mother-alphabet, the -mediae- and their -tenues- gradually came to coincide, and the sibilants and vowels were thrown into disorder transpositions or rather destructions of sound, of which the first in particular is entirely foreign to the Greek.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome, Book I : The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy

It is plain that the more delicate distinctions of sound were duly felt by the introducers of the alphabet, men of culture and masters of two languages; but after the national writing Became wholly detached from the Hellenic mother-alphabet, the -mediae- and their -tenues- gradually came to coincide, and the sibilants and vowels were thrown into disorder transpositions or rather destructions of sound, of which the first in particular is entirely foreign to the Greek.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5)