W. This labial letter is supposed by Taylor and others to be very late and merely a double U or double V, and dating no earlier than mediæval times.[1] But leading Assyriologists[2] find that the Sumerian pictogram of a pair of ears was pronounced by the Sumerians Wa, We and Wi, which is now through its compound Wa-ur, "to hear, hearken "[3] disclosed as the Sumerian source of our English word for "Ear," from which, as in Latin, the initial W has dropped out.[4] The Sumerian sign for Ma or Mu had also the value occasionally of Wa or Wu.[5]
The Sumerian parent of the letter W is now seen to be the above-cited pictogram of a pair of ears (see Plate II, col. 1) with the phonetic value of Wa, We, Wi. This pictogram sign is found in substantially its Sumerian form in the owner's marks on Early Egyptian pottery,[6] and throughout most of the other alphabets (see Plate II).
In the Brito-Phœnician of Partolan, the W appears to be written like an erect U sign with the ends of its top limbs bent over.[7] In Runes it has the value of V.
X. This form of sign is found graved on Early Egyptian pottery as owner's marks from the Pre-dynastic period downwards; but it is such a common geometrical form of mark for objects that its mere occurrence there does not
- ↑ TA, 2, 189; and similarly Borlase (BC. p. 462).
- ↑ BW. p. 179. Profs. Sayce, Pinches, passim, and Langdon, LSG. 38.
- ↑ Cp. Br. 7978 and MD. 1055.
- ↑ See Waur, "to hear, hearken or listen" in Dict. (WSAD.). This Waur, presumably survives besides "ear, hear" in the words, "ware, war-ily a-ware, be-ware," etc., in sense of Waur, "to hear, listen." Its Akkad synonym Uznu is also disclosed as the source of the Greek Ous, "Ear," whence comes the word "Aus-cultate," to hearken or listen, and the Latin, Heus, "hark!"
- ↑ Thus the word Mulu or "man" was pronounced regularly in the reign of Khammurabi, King of Babylon, c. 2150 B.C. as Wula, now seen to be the source of the Indo-Persian Wala, man or person.
- ↑ See PA. Table IV, 1. 45, where the signs are classed as M, and Table V, 11. 5 and 8.
- ↑ WPOB. 29-32. It is possible, but less probable, that this may be long U.
