LYTTA. [ans.'s/1mm.] is the labial letter of the liquid series. For the various forms of the characters by which it has been denoted in the chief European languages, see Attauesr.
The changes to which it is liable are chiefly as follows:— I. if is interchanged with ts. Thus ts, at the end of Latin eases and tenses, is generally represented by an n in Greek. Similarly the German dative ilia and accusative ihn have been confounded in the English hies, which is at once dative and accusative. So again the German laden, buses, &sex, Paden, are in English, bottom, bosom, bosom or broom, fathoms. And even in the Greek language, notwithstanding its aversion to a final al, inscriptions exhibit such forms as von actotata, tins, inFa Oevxat, fic., where the nasal is modified so as to accord with the initial letter of the following word.
2. if with b. Thus in Latin, hients co-exists with Merano tutneo with (titer, stomas with globus, farms with _tabula. This interchange explains the form of stemma, the superlative of sub, of sumo for subimo, and perhaps that of ,ndior, as the comparative of beaus or Was, the old form of bonus ; whence bent, belles, OiArepoi, ararterrer, aemorer, &c. Again Operas is equivalent to iterres and so related to the Latin mor-i and the Sanskrit mri. In our own language husband is a corruption of horseman, dahlias, the correlative of housewife.
3. if with p. Hence the Greek forms elm°, reruatutt, &c., for ow, yrrvrpat, &e. So the Greek preposition erre has a form Tact, and the Greek aaavaaer is in Latin phimbuni.
4. if with r. This is particularly the case in the Welsh language. Hence the name Roman was transferred into that tongue with a r (or rather an f, which is pronounced as r) in place of the m; and the Latin alPINU is believed to bo identical with the Welsh Afox, pronounced Aeon. The Latin language too has promulgare, apparently for psOetd 5. all with to probably. This interchange follows easily from the last, and is a natural step towards the next The German mit seems to be identical with our own triti. In Greek too pia, "one," and the particle per (which also appears to denote " one," and no to cottespond to as " two," probably a corruption of EueLseem to have passed through a form Fia, Fir, before they became to and Ir. Compare the old Latin
one and the English one as it is pronounced.
6. if disappearing. This appears to have been the case even at the beginning of words. See what is said above; and compare the Greek pixies with axpa. Aox)ucto with exatcw, the Latin manes with the Teutonic hand, the Latin mere-re with the English earn. At the end of words at least, the loss of an as is very common, particularly after o. Thus the Greek and Latin verb often has the person ending in a, where analogy would lead to ore ; scribe*, rano. Compare in Latin the words ram, in9 ea nt, besides the other tenses seribebani,seribani, &c.; and in Greek the middle form Torn:1144u, Turrea-at, Ivy-rel.-at, which would seem to have been formed from an old active, TUTIOP, Turner, TV'S? T y with the addition of a fixed suffix denoting self. In Latin all the adverbs ending in o, signifying motion to, appear to have lout an m, namely, quo, eo &c. Hence adeo, ?mood, occur in conjunction with a preposition which elsewhere requires an accusative. Again, an m has been lest in postea a ntea, postille,&e.; compare postgliam,anteguain, &e. Lastly, the use of lifer( ntea, refert Cieeronis, interest mea, &c., are probably to be explained by the full forms, rein Pert meam , rem feet Vietnam, inter revs est meant. Such a use of rca accords well with the phrases, in rem means at, e re tua est.
7. if, like the other liquids, but not so frequently, is liable to change its position with regard to the vowel of a root. Thus in Greek the root 'UM. may take the form ran; and Eana-or has derivatives where the a is next to the E.
The letter M, or rather a symbol somewhat like it, for which modern printers have found it convenient to substitute that letter, was used by the Romans to denote a thousand. It is commonly said that this character was thus used because it is the initial of mills; but see NUMERALS.