Alphabet Essay: The letter R
Monica Silva
Radiant R
Every word in the English language derives from 26 seemingly simple letters. Each letter has gone through a unique transition in order to end up how it is today. Some letters have been erased, while some added, and others just transformed. The complex journey of the written language can somewhat be seen through the transition of R. The letter R is one of the letters that has been around since the very beginning of writing. R is a unique letter in its pronunciation, history and its place in cultural artifacts as well as math and sciences. While looking at the English alphabet, one would come across the eighteenth letter of the alphabet; R. R can be classified as an ancestor for written language today. While most letters have been around for a very long time, R is one that has residency and that has not had a very large change throughout history. R is a letter that has appeared in some of the oldest writings found. These include inscriptions from the Semitic culture. In these writings, R was represented by something that looked like a “human head in profile” (David Sacks 283) (figure 1). They called this symbol resh, which translates to ‘head’ in the Semitic language. This letter also appears in the Phoenician alphabet. At this time it still represented the word ‘head’ but its shape had changed. The illustration turned from a human head profile to something that looked a lot like a modern day backwards P (figure 2). This illustration could still be classified as a human head, just with more defined, longer neck. As the Greeks studied the Phoenician alphabet, they took great influence on their letters and took a large part of it as basis for their own alphabet. As for the letter R, they did not change it much from what it had originally been. They decided to only modify its name so that it would fit better into the sound of their language, thus it became rho. This had “no special meaning in Greek aside from the letter” (Sacks 285). In
Radiant R
Every word in the English language derives from 26 seemingly simple letters. Each letter has gone through a unique transition in order to end up how it is today. Some letters have been erased, while some added, and others just transformed. The complex journey of the written language can somewhat be seen through the transition of R. The letter R is one of the letters that has been around since the very beginning of writing. R is a unique letter in its pronunciation, history and its place in cultural artifacts as well as math and sciences. While looking at the English alphabet, one would come across the eighteenth letter of the alphabet; R. R can be classified as an ancestor for written language today. While most letters have been around for a very long time, R is one that has residency and that has not had a very large change throughout history. R is a letter that has appeared in some of the oldest writings found. These include inscriptions from the Semitic culture. In these writings, R was represented by something that looked like a “human head in profile” (David Sacks 283) (figure 1). They called this symbol resh, which translates to ‘head’ in the Semitic language. This letter also appears in the Phoenician alphabet. At this time it still represented the word ‘head’ but its shape had changed. The illustration turned from a human head profile to something that looked a lot like a modern day backwards P (figure 2). This illustration could still be classified as a human head, just with more defined, longer neck. As the Greeks studied the Phoenician alphabet, they took great influence on their letters and took a large part of it as basis for their own alphabet. As for the letter R, they did not change it much from what it had originally been. They decided to only modify its name so that it would fit better into the sound of their language, thus it became rho. This had “no special meaning in Greek aside from the letter” (Sacks 285). In
Cited: Jensen, William. “The Universal Gas Constant.” Ask the Historian. 80 (2003):1-2. Web. 28 Sep. 2013. O’Connor, J. The Real numbers: Attempts to understand. 2005. Web. 28 Sep. 2013. “R” Wikipedia. n.p. 23 Sep. 2013. Web. 28 Sep. 2013. Sacks, David. Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet from A to Z. New York: Broadway Books, 2003. Print.