338 PHONETIC ANOMALIES OBSERVED IN SOME 
6. In regard, finally, to the vowel y, it would be difficult to say 
for what reason it was made to represent in Latin words the Greek 
upsilon, and why it should be called in French e Grec, did we not 
discover that in modern Greek this letter is pronounced ee. Ac- 
cording to the Grammars for Romaic, yyy, strange to say, is 
Pseechee; and so to the Romans the word must have sounded when 
they wrote it down as Psyche. 
But that the wpsilon in very early times had not invariably this 
sound, may be gathered from Saguntum, which, though known to 
derive its name as well as its origin frow ZaxvvOos, the modern 
Zante, was still by Roman historians written with the w unchanged. 
—One of the characteristic archaisms of Ennius was, to pronounce 
the upsilon as u. We feel as if the Roman Chaucer ought to call 
Pyrrhus, Burrus: Phryges, Bruges, &c., as we are told he did. 
Again, that y does not well express the w-sound in Sypia is clear 
from, the ancient as well as the modern name of Tyre, viz. Tsour, 
itself probably the stem of Svpia.—Cheke oddly gives Surri for 
Syria.—Similarly Assowan—a name familiar to voyagers on the Nile 
—also preserves the same sound of upsilon, Assowan being in Greek 
letters Sujv7, z.e. Syene, from which comes Syenite. 
It was possibly the easy interchange of y with uw that suggested 
to the old chroniclers, Brute, as the name of the eponymous hero of 
« Ynys Prytain,’’* the island of Britain. 
These mingled u and e (2) sounds of upsilon led at one time to 
perplexing anomalies and confusions in connexion with “satire” and 
“ satirical.” These words in French and Spanish, and in the Eng- 
lish of the last century, exhibit ay. Two distinct things had come 
to be confounded—the Greek Sarvpor, dramatic productions in which 
“satyrs’? were actors;—and the Latin saturae—at a later period 
satirae— dishes full of mixed fruits,” literally,—and then, “ free 
* We cannot but be acquainted with several selections from the animai kingdom which 
are supposed to symbolize our race and nation; in regard to one of them, Italus = Vetulus 
(whence veau and veal) may help to keep us in countenance; but the generic term con- 
tained in the name mentioned above would seem, without explanation, to be earrying 
symbolism too far. ‘“ Brute” is here, however, a highly honourable human appellation. 
He was a Trojan Prince, a near relative of Aneas, the equally veritable founder of the . 
Roman line of kings. Geoffrey of Monmouth (1152) goes very minutely into his histery. 
In the “Tragedy of Locrine,” attributed with some shew of reason to Shakspeare, this 
founder of the British line of kings ig one of the dramatis persone. Although supposed 
to be speaking before the time of the building of Rome, he is made, by a bold prolepsis, te 
gay, when presenting a bride, Guendeline to Locrine, who is his son, that she is— 
“A gift more rich than are the wealthy mines 
Found in the bowels of America.” 
