These English names of the Hebrew letters are written with much less uniformity than those of the Greek, because there has been more dispute respecting their powers.  This is directly contrary to what one would have expected; since the Hebrew names are words originally significant of other things than the letters, and the Greek are not.  The original pronunciation of both languages is admitted to be lost, or involved in so much obscurity that little can be positively affirmed about it; and yet, where least was known, grammarians have produced the most diversity; aiming at disputed sounds in the one case, but generally preferring a correspondence of letters in the other.

OBS. 9.—­The word alphabet is derived from the first two names in the following series.  The Greek letters are twenty-four; which are formed, named, and sounded, thus:—­

[Greek:  A a], Alpha, a; [Greek:  B, b], Beta, b; [Greek:  G g], Gamma, g hard; [Greek:  D d], Delta, d; [Greek:  E e], Epsilon, e short; [Greek:  Z z], Zeta, z; [Greek:  AE ae], Eta, e long; [Greek:  TH Th th], Theta, th; [Greek:  I i], Iota, i; [Greek K k], Kappa, k; [Greek:  L l], Lambda, l; [Greek:  M m], Mu, m; [Greek:  N n], Nu, n; [Greek:  X x], Xi, x; [Greek:  O o], Omicron, o short; [Greek:  P p], Pi, p; [Greek:  R r] Rho, r; [Greek:  S s s], Sigma, s; [Greek:  T t], Tau, t; [Greek:  Y y], Upsilon, u; [Greek:  PH ph], Phi, ph; [Greek:  CH ch], Chi, ch; [Greek:  PS ps], Psi, ps; [Greek:  O o], Omega, o long.

Of these names, our English dictionaries explain the first and the last; and Webster has defined Iota, and Zeta, but without reference to the meaning of the former in Greek. Beta, Delta, Lambda, and perhaps some others, are also found in the etymologies or definitions of Johnson and Webster, both of whom spell the word Lambda and its derivative lambdoidal without the silent b, which is commonly, if not always, inserted by the authors of our Greek grammars, and which Worcester, more properly, retains.

OBS. 10.—­The reader will observe that the foregoing names, whether Greek or Hebrew, are in general much less simple than those which our letters now bear; and if he has ever attempted to spell aloud in either of those languages, he cannot but be sensible of the great advantage which was gained when to each letter there was given a short name, expressive, as ours mostly are, of its ordinary power.  This improvement appears to have been introduced by the Romans, whose names for the letters were even more simple than our own.  But so negligent in respect to them have been the Latin grammarians, both ancient and modern, that few even of the learned can tell what they really were in that language; or how they differed, either in orthography or sound, from those of the English or the French, the Hebrew or the Greek.  Most of them, however, may yet be ascertained from Priscian, and some others of note among the ancient philologists;