st pronunciation of a language is not necessary to an
understanding of it when written, the existing nations have severally, in a
great measure, accommodated themselves, in their manner of reading this and
other ancient tongues.

OBS. 11.--As the Latin language is now printed, its
letters are twenty-five. Like the French, it has all that belong to the
English alphabet, except the _Double-u_. But, till the first Punic war, the
Romans wrote C for G, and doubtless gave it the power as well as the place
of the Gamma or Gimel. It then seems to have slid into K; but they used it
also for S, as we do now. The ancient Saxons, generally pronounced C as K,
but sometimes as Ch. Their G was either guttural, or like our Y. In some of
the early English grammars the name of the latter is written _Ghee_. The
letter F, when first invented, was called, from its shape, Digamma, and
afterwards Ef. J, when it was first distinguished from I, was called by the
Hebrew name Jod, and afterwards Je. V, when first distinguished from U, was
called Vau, then Va, then Ve. Y, when the Romans first borrowed it from the
Greeks, was called Ypsilon; and Z, from the same source, was called Zeta;
and, as these two letters were used only in words of Greek origin, I know
not whether they ever received from the Romans any shorter names. In
Schneider's Latin Grammar, the letters are named in the following manner;
except Je and Ve, which are omitted by this author: "A, Be, Ce, De, E, Ef,
Ge, Ha, I, [Je,] Ka, El, Em, En, O, Pe, Cu, Er, Es, Te, U, [Ve,] Ix,
Ypsilon, Zeta." And this I suppose to be the most proper way of writing
their names _in Latin_, unless we have sufficient authority for shortening
Ypsilon into Y, sounded as short _i_, and for changing Zeta into Ez.

OBS. 12.--In many, if not in all languages, the five vowels, A, E, I, O, U,
name themselves; but they name themselves differently to the ear, according
to the different ways of uttering them in different languages. And as the
name of a consonant necessarily requires one or more vowels, that also may
be affected in the same manner. But in every language there should be a
known way both of writing and of speaking every name in the series; and
that, if there is nothing to hinder, should be made conformable to _the
genius of the language_. I do not say that the names above can be regularly
declined in Latin; but in English it is as easy to speak of two Dees as of
two trees, of two Kays as of two days, o