OBS. 7.—­The names originally given to the letters were not mere notations of sound, intended solely to express or make known the powers of the several characters then in use; nor ought even the modern names of our present letters, though formed with special reference to their sounds, to be considered such.  Expressions of mere sound, such as the notations in a pronouncing dictionary, having no reference to what is meant by the sound, do not constitute words at all; because they are not those acknowledged signs to which a meaning has been attached, and are consequently without that significance which is an essential property of words.  But, in every language, there must be a series of sounds by which the alphabetical characters are commonly known in speech; and which, as they are the acknowledged names of these particular objects, must be entitled to a place among the words of the language.  It is a great error to judge otherwise; and a greater to make it a “trifling question” in grammar, whether a given letter shall be called by one name or by an other.  Who shall say that Daleth, Delta, and Dee, are not three real words, each equally important in the language to which it properly belongs?  Such names have always been in use wherever literature has been cultivated; and as the forms and powers of the letters have been changed by the nations, and have become different in different languages, there has necessarily followed a change of the names.  For, whatever inconvenience scholars may find in the diversity which has thence arisen, to name these elements in a set of foreign terms, inconsistent with the genius of the language to be learned, would surely be attended with a tenfold greater.  We derived our letters, and their names too, from the Romans; but this is no good reason why the latter should be spelled and pronounced as we suppose they were spelled and pronounced in Rome.

OBS. 8.—­The names of the twenty-two letters in Hebrew, are, without dispute, proper words; for they are not only significant of the letters thus named, but have in general, if not in every instance, some other meaning in that language.  Thus the mysterious ciphers which the English reader meets with, and wonders over, as he reads the 119th Psalm, may be resolved, according to some of the Hebrew grammars, as follows:—­

[Hebrew:  Aleph] Aleph, A, an ox, or a leader; [Hebrew:  Beth] Beth, Bee, house; [Hebrew:  Gimel] Gimel, Gee, a camel; [Hebrew:  Dalet] Daleth, Dee, a door; [Hebrew:  he] He, E, she, or behold; [Hebrew:  vav] Vau, U, a hook, or a nail; [Hebrew:  zajin] Zain, Zee, armour; [Hebrew:  het] Cheth, or Heth, Aitch, a hedge; [Hebrew:  tet] Teth, Tee, a serpent, or a scroll; [Hebrew:  jod] Jod, or Yod, I, or Wy, a hand shut; [Hebrew:  kaf] Caph, Cee, a hollow hand, or a cup; [Hebrew:  lamed] Lamed, Ell, an ox-goad; [Hebrew:  mem] Mem, Em, a stain, or spot; [Hebrew:  nun] Nun, En, a fish, or a snake; [Hebrew:  samekh] Samech, Ess, a basis, or support; [Hebrew:  ayin] Ain, or Oin, O, an eye, or a well; [Hebrew:  pe] Pe, Pee, a lip, or mouth; [Hebrew:  tsadi] Tzaddi, or Tsadhe, Tee-zee, (i. e. tz, or ts,) a hunter’s pole; [Hebrew:  qof] Koph, Kue, or Kay, an ape; [Hebrew:  resh] Resch, or Resh, Ar, a head; [Hebrew:  shin] Schin, or Sin, Ess-aitch, or Ess, a tooth; [Hebrew:  tav] Tau, or Thau, Tee, or Tee-aitch, a cross, or mark.