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XYSTUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 890 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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XYSTUS , the See also:

Greek architectural See also:term for the covered See also:portico of the gymnasium, in which the exercises took See also:place during the See also:winter or in See also:rainy See also:weather; this was known as the uvrbs Spoµos, from its polished See also:floor (uav, to See also:polish). The See also:Romans applied the term to the See also:garden walk in front of the porticoes, which was divided into See also:flower beds with See also:borders of See also:box, and to a See also:promenade between rows of large trees. y the twenty-fifth See also:letter of the See also:English See also:alphabet, one of four variants (u, v, w, y) which have been See also:developed out of one Greek See also:symbol. It was taken into the See also:Roman alphabet as a See also:form distinct from V in the 1st See also:century B.C., when it was desired to represent the See also:sound of the Greek u more accurately than could be done by the See also:ordinary Roman alphabet. Many Greek words had been borrowed from Greek See also:long before this and pronounced like genuine Latin words. Thus the proper name Ilvppos was borrowed as Burrus, clspiryes as See also:Bruges. But with the growth of See also:literary knowledge this was See also:felt to be a very inexact See also:representation of the Greek sounds, and the words were respelt as See also:Pyrrhus and Phryges. The philosopher See also:Pythagoras is said to have regarded this letter as a symbol of human See also:life (Servius, on See also:Virgil, Aeneid vi. 136). To this there are various references in the Roman poets. Two lines of See also:Persius (iii. 56-57) seem to throw some See also:light upon the particular form of Y intended.

" Et tibi quae Samios diduxit littera ramos surgentem dextro monstravit limite callem," These lines appear to imply that the letter took the form y, which can only be one of the See also:

oldest forms (Y) written from right to See also:left. The straight road is the difficult, the deviating See also:line is the easier path of See also:vice. Anglo-Saxon took over the Roman Y with its Roman value of the "modified u" (u), and employed it accordingly for the sound which arose from a u sound under the See also:influence of an i in the following syllable: fyllan, " fill," cp. See also:Gothic fulljan; mils, " See also:mouse," plural mks, from an earlier lost mksis. The y sounds were often confused with i, whence, in See also:modern English, mice. The vowel use was the only use of the old symbol. The consonant Y is of a different origin. The See also:early English g (always hard as in See also:gig) was palatalized before e and i sounds into a consonant i (i) or y, which was written in See also:Middle English with the symbol 3. With this letter also was written the See also:original consonant i O, which appears in Latin as i (j) in iugum, iuvencus. This Latin sound seems, at least initially, to have represented two originally See also:separate sounds, for Greek represents the first sound of iugum by (i"ury6v), while in other words it represents a i (y) of other See also:languages by the " rough breathing " (lc or '): i yvbs, " See also:holy," is the same word as the See also:Sanskrit yajnas. The English words that correspond etymologically to iugum and iuvencus are " yoke " and " See also:young." In See also:Northern English the symbol 3 survived longer than in the See also:southern See also:part of the See also:island, and in Scottish documents of the 16th century was confused with z. From this cause various Scottish names that were never pronounced with z are so spelt, as Menzies (Mengies), Dalziel, Cadzow.

In others like See also:

Mackenzie, z is now universally pronounced, though as See also:late as the middle of the r8th century See also:Lord Karnes declared that to hear Mackenzie pronounced with a z turned his See also:stomach. (P.

End of Article: XYSTUS

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