Kitap 1
4.7
It is not every ear that can appreciate the correct sound of the different letters. It is fully as hard as to distinguish the different notes in music. But all teachers of literature will condescend to such minutiae: they will discuss for instance whether certain necessary letters are absent from the alphabet, not indeed when we are writing Greek words (for then we borrow two letters Y and Z. from them), but in the case of genuine Latin words:
4.8
for example in words such as seruus and uulgus we feel the lack of the Aeolic digamma; there is also a sound intermediate between u and i, for we do not pronounce optimum as we do opimum, while in here the sound is neither exactly e or i.
4.9
Again there is the question whether certain letters are not superfluous, not to mention the mark of the aspirate, to which, if it is required at all, there should be a corresponding symbol to indicate the opposite: for instance k, which is also used as an abbreviation for certain nouns, and q, which, though slanted slightly more by us, resembles both in sound and shape the Greek koppa, now used by the Greeks solely as a numerical sign K = Kaeso, Kalendae, 'Karthago, Kaput, Kalumnia, etc. The q -sound can be expressed by c. Koppa (ZZZ) as a numeral = 90. : there is also x, the last letter of our own alphabet, which we could dispense with as easily as with psi.
