THE LETTER R - THE 18TH LETTER OF THE ALPHABET. The letter corresponding to modern R in the ancient Semitic alphabet was 4 (resh). Greek rho is found in a form practically unchanged in the early inscriptions from the island of Thera. The same form also occurs in early inscriptions from Attica and Corinth and in the Chalcidic alphabet. The most usual Greek form was rounded p and this is the form in which the letter occurs in the Lydian alphabet. A form D in which the loop is extended to the bottom of the vertical stroke also occurs in both the eastern and western alphabets. This was the form of the letter in the Umbrian and Oscan alphabets of Italy, although it is not found in Etruscan, the form in which is P or q. In the latter, however, the loop reaches nearly to the ground. In the Chalcidic alphabet a form & with an additional oblique stroke occurred, and this was taken over into Latin and exaggerated, so that we find the forms ,Q and R. The last of the three survived.
The minuscule form has been subject to many variations. In cursive Latin of the 6th century occurred a form in which the loop has disappeared, the three right-hand oblique strokes, or the loop and oblique stroke, being reduced to a single stroke. The Irish form in the 7th century was it in which a similar process had taken place, but the remnants of the loop and oblique stroke had become extended in a horizontal direction. On the basis of
this was formed the Carolingian in which the vertical stroke was not extended below the line. The Carolingian form is the minuscule T of modern printing, but in handwriting it still con tends with the form resembling the Latin cursive tradition.
The sound represented by the letter has been the liquid, formed by contact between the tip of the tongue and the palate. The tip of the tongue is sometimes also rolled. In certain conti nental countries the sound is pronounced farther back in the mouth than in England. In southern England the sound is a very weak one, and when final is completely dropped (e.g., in the words mother, steamer, etc.). The ancients recognised a difference in the sound as pronounced by the Greeks and Romans. The Greek R was probably unvoiced or whispered, a fact expressed by placing the rough breathing over the letter when initial and by spelling Greek words containing this letter, when they were borrowed into Latin and the modern languages, by the combination rh.