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THE ALPHABET There are a few other names whose meaning is still uncertain; these are he, which according to Dunand was made up simply by the consonanth followed by the vowel e (as there was no Phænician or Hebrew word beginning with that aspirate); zayin, which is explained by some scholars as "weapon," by others as a substitution for sayit, "olive," etc.; according to Dunand it was connected with the Hebrew root 'an, and indicated "balance," in Hebrew moznayim; kheth, according to Dunand, means "fence" or "barrier"; feth is explained by Dunand as "ball” or "clew" (for instance, of wool or cotton); lamed may indicate, according
inand, the rod of the teacher; samekh is generally explained, as mentioned above, as "fish"; Dunand's explanation as "support," "fulcrum," seems to be more satisfactory; sade, which according to some scholars means "step, stair(s)" or "nose," or else, "scythe," javelin," is explained by Dunand as being connected with the root ywd, and may indicate "(fishing-hook," "(fishing-rod."
Dunand holds that the Semitic names of the letters are very ancient: originally they were pure Phænician, and the Greeks adopted them from the Phoenicians, as for instance is shown by the names gamna and ro, derived from the original gamal and rosh, while the Semitic names were later changed under Aramaic influence into gimel and resh.
The value of each letter of the Semitic alphabet was, and still is, that of the first letter of its name; this device is known as the acrophonic principle. Thus, the value of beth is b; of gimel, is g; of daleth, d; of he, h; wut, w; zayin, 2; kheth, kh, and so forth.
ORDER OF LETTERS
The Hebrew order of the letters seems to be the oldest. The order of the letters follows the acrostics in Lamentations, 1-4, Proverbs 31, 10-31, Psalms 25 (the qoph is missing), 34, 111, 112, etc. In the excavations of the Wellcome-Marston Archäological Expedition at Lachish (southern Palestine), a schoolboy's scribbling, including the scratching of the first five letters of the early Hebrew alphabet in their conventional order, was found on the vertical face of the upper step of the staircase which led up to the Palace. "It is the first example of the Hebrew alphabet being learnt systematically" (Inge): It belongs at least to the sixth century B.C.
There is some appearance of phonetic grouping in the order of the letters of the North Semitic alphabet, but this may be accidental.
MAIN BRANCHES OF EARLY ALPHABETS I have already mentioned the early North Semitic inscriptions (Fig. 107-108), belonging to the last centuries of the second millennium B.C. At the end of this millennium, with the definite or temporary political
