FThis is the sixth letter of the English alphabet as it was
of the Latin. In the ordinary Greek alphabet the symbol
has disappeared, although it survived far into historical
times in many Greek dialects as Ϝ, the digamma, the
use of which in early times was inductively proved by Bentley,
when comparatively little was known of the local alphabets
and dialects of Greece. The so-called stigma ϛ, which serves
for the numeral 6, is all that remains to represent it. This
symbol derives its name from its resemblance in medieval MSS.
to the abbreviation for στ. The symbol occupying the same position
in the Phoenician alphabet was Vau (
), which seems
to be represented by the Greek Υ, the Latin V, at the end of
the early alphabet. Many authorities therefore contend that
F is only a modification of the preceding symbol E and has
nothing to do with the symbol Vau. In some early Latin
inscriptions F is represented by ||, as E is by ||. It must be
admitted that the resemblance between the sixth symbol of
the Phoenician alphabet and the corresponding symbol of the
European alphabet is not striking. But the position of the
limbs of symbols in early alphabets often varies surprisingly.
In Greek, besides Ϝ we find for f in Pamphylia (the only Greek
district in Asia which possesses the symbol) 
, and in Boeotia,
Thessaly, Tarentum, Cumae and on Chalcidian vases of Italy the
form 
, though except at Cumae and on the vases the form F
exists contemporaneously with or even earlier. At the little
town of Falerii (Civita Castellana), whose alphabet is undoubtedly
of the same origin as the Latin, F takes the form 
. Though
uncertain, therefore, it seems not impossible that the original
symbol of the Phoenician alphabet, which was a consonant like
the English w, may have been differentiated in Greek into two
symbols, one indicating the consonant value w and retaining
the position of the Phoenician consonant Vau, the other having
the vowel value u, which ultimately most dialects changed to
a modified sound like French u or German ü. Be this as it may,
the value of the symbol Ϝ in Greek was w, a bilabial voiced
sound, not the labio-dental unvoiced sound which we call f.
When the Romans adopted the Greek alphabet they took over
the symbols with their Greek values. But Greek had no sound
corresponding to the Latin f, for φ was pronounced p-h, like the
final sound of lip in ordinary English or the initial sound of pig
in Irish English. Consequently in the very old inscription
on a gold fibula found at Praeneste and published in 1887 (see
Alphabet) the Latin f is represented by FB. Later, as Latin
did not use F for the consonant written as v in vis, &c. , H was
dropped and F received a new special value in Latin as representative
of the unvoiced labio-dental spirant. In the Oscan
and Umbrian dialects, whose alphabet was borrowed from
Etruscan, a special form appears for f, viz. 
, the old form
being kept for the other consonant v (i.e. English w). The
has generally been asserted to be developed out of the second
element in the combination FB, its upper and lower halves
being first converted into lozenges, 
, which naturally changed
to when inscribed without lifting the writing or incising implement.
Recent discoveries, however, make this doubtful
(see Alphabet). (P. Gi.)