602 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
With the discussion of the digamma, which originated from the 
Cypriote syllabic sign ué, we leave the Cypriote vowel signs and 
come now to the signs for open syllables with initial consonant. 
I shall first discuss the three ‘‘ emphatic” consonants @, /, and P. 
The characteristic peculiarity of their enunciation is that they are 
followed by a vowel of the sound-color of u and o. At first sight the 
striking resemblance between those Canaanite signs and the Cypriote 
syllabic signs for tu, su, and ku might be considered merely a decep- 
tive coincidence, but this idea is considerably weakened when it is 
observed that the Canaanites merely chose the Cypriote syllabic signs 
with inherent u for representing those three consonants which, as it 
were, were predisposed for u. 
The Cypriote syllabic sign for tu appears as k, fr, fr, hy, and fy. 
From this sign originated the Canaanite @ by drawing together 
the external lines into a circle, while the cross inside the Canaanite 
sign represents the interior strokes T of the Cypriote prototype. 
The Cypriote syllabic sign for su looks like }, and}. The pen 
was thus given four strokes. I do not think it requires much imagi- 
nation to recognize the Cypriote prototype in the Canaanite 1’; 
the long bar to the left is the same in each. The triple-toothed lne 
to the right is a cursive contraction of the disconnected short lines of 
the Cypriote sign. 
The Cypriote sign for ku looks like 3<, more rarely like ¥«. In 
this I see the prototype of the Canaanite @. Already in the less 
frequent Cypriote form there is a beginning made toward rounding up 
the confusion of points and rays; in the Canaanite P they were fully 
contracted into a circle with a slight depression below, which is easily 
explained from the form of the Cypriote prototype. Here also a 
remarkable coincidence must be noticed. When the Canaanite P 
migrated to the Greeks as «0z7a (koppa) it obtained in most cases 
the value of a « before oandu. I assume that this is due to the 
emphatic quality of the Canaanite sound discussed above, and that 
it is not a relic of the Cypriote sign which is its basis. Still less 
can this be the case with the Latin Q which originated from the ® 
and which in combination can be used as ku—just as the Cypriote 3. 
In the three signs just discussed we have found a definite reason 
why the Canaanites selected the Cypriote syllables terminating in u. 
Otherwise it might have been expected that they would have pre- 
ferred those terminating in e; for the syllabic signs in e occur most 
frequently in Cypriote as mere consonants. Not only can they, ac- 
cording to fixed rules, have the value of mere consonants in the 
middle of a word like the other syllabic signs, but they are admis- 
sible at the beginning of a word only as consonants. Thus only 
Si V Va | é, i. e., e-ta-li-o-ne = "HO aX10v (Edalion), and ! Y 8 O ae 
i. @., pa-si-le-u-se = Baoideds (basileus) are possible. As the 
Canaanites simplified the syllabic writing known to them so as to 
