History of the letter "S"

S, the 19th letter in the English alphabet, was the 21st letter in the ancient Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets and the 18th letter int the classical Greek alphabet. The Hebrews and Phoenicians called it shin. The Greeks called it sigma.

Phoenician letter names were also used as words. The letter name shin, for example, was also the Phoenician word for "tooth." Some language scholars believe that the form of letter shin was a simplified picture of a tooth. The letter shin looked like this:


The Greeks based their alphabet on that of Phoenicians. I adapting the Phoenician alphabet to their own laguage, the Greeks made several changes in it. They added some letters of their own and modified the old Phoenician letter forms. The letter shin, or sigma, was turned on its side. By the 5th century B.C. it was written this way:


The Romans learned the alphabet from the Etruscans, an ancient people who conquered a third of Italy and ruled in Rome by the end of the 6th century B.C. The Etrusan alphabet was based on a Greek model. The Etrusan letter form for S, however, differed slightly from the Greek version:


The Romans rounded the Etruscan form of the letter. The English alphabet and the alphabets of most Eurpean countries are descendants of the Roman alphabet. Roman soldiers and officials carried their alphabet to the conquered nations of the vast Roman Empire. The S used in English today is the same as the S of the Romans.

In English, S has two main sounds: an S sound, as in the word "has." The S sound is made by forcing the breath thrugh the lips with the tongue behind the lower teeth. The position of the tongue may vary, but the vocal cords are always relaxed. The Z sound is produced the same way, except that the vocal cords vibrate. The letter usually has the S sound at the beginning of a word, as in "salt," or when the S's come together, as in "assassin." The Z sound usually comes when the S is between two vowels, as in the word "reason." Among the exceptions to these rules are the words "dessert" and evasive." The letter S also has a SH sound, as in the words "sugar," "sure," and "mission." In some words, such as "isle" and "aisle," the S is silent. English words in which the S is silent have bee borrowed from Old French.

The letter S is also found in many abbreviations. In chemistry S is the abbreviation for sulfur, Sc stands for scandium, Sb stands for antinomy, and Sn stands for tin. In geography S stands for south or southern. The letters S.S. before the name of a ship, as in S.S. United States, mean steamship. In school an S may indicate either a satisfactory or a superior grade. In Great Britain s.is the abbreviation for shilling, a coin worth about 14 American cents. In many organization names S stands for society, as in PSA for Photographic Society of America.

See also: Hebrews | Phoenicians | The Greeks | The Romans