by Sumerians as a variation of one of the many Sumerian forms of U, of which there are no less than six different signs transliterated with this U value by Assyriologists, so that it is probable they were not all sounded as simple U, though no attempt seems to have been made to find which of these signs, if any, was used with an O sound.[1]
It seems to me that as the Sumerians had evolved such a fully vocalic system of writing, so common a sound as O was hardly likely to be left unrecognized by a special sign, and all the more so as one of the U signs possesses the identical form of O. This is the Sumerian circle sign for "Sun, Moon, well, hole or opening," with U as a common phonetic value in current transliteration;[2] and one of its defined meanings is "call out, speak,"[3] which was more likely to have the value of O! than of U!
This circle-sign is the form of the letter O as it occurs throughout the Cadmean and Greek alphabets down to modern times (see Plate II). It is found on Egyptian pottery from the Pre-dynastic period downwards; but no O letter or "sound" is recognized in Egyptian hieroglyphs.
In the "Semitic" Phoenician alphabet, as arbitrarily compiled by Semitic scholars from the Hebrew, this O sign occupies the same relative position as O in our modern alphabet, between N and P, with the exception that an S is intruded before it (as in the Hebrew), just as in the Greek alphabet X is intruded before it. Yet, notwithstanding this position for it and its O shape, it is called by Semitic scholars by the Hebrew name of Ayin or "Eye," and is given the value of Ā. But in the Brito-Phcenician of Partolan this O is clearly given the value of O in the bilingual version of that inscription.[4]
The reason for these variations in the value of this O sign is now disclosed by its Sumerian parent. This circle-
