EZZOLIED

ezzolied, or anegenge, an old german poem, written by ezzo, a scholar of bamberg. it was written about 1060, but not, as one authority asserts, composed while the author was making a pilgrimage to jerusalem. the subject of the poem is the life of christ. very popular during the later middle ages, the _ezzolied_ had a great influence on the poetry of south germany, and is valuable as a monument of the poetical literature of the time. the text is printed in the _denkmaler deutscher poesie und prosa aus dem 8-12. jahrhundert_ (berlin, 1892) of c.v. mullenhoff and w. scherer. f this 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 f, 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_ [symbol], 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 [greek: st]. the symbol occupying the same position in the phoenician alphabet was vau ([symbol] [symbol]), which seems to be represented by the greek [upsilon], 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 [symbol], as e is by [symbol]. 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 f we find for _f_ in pamphylia (the only greek district in asia which possesses the symbol) [symbol], and in boeotia, thessaly, tarentum, cumae and on chalcidian vases of italy the form [symbol], though except at cumae and on the vases the form f exists contemporaneously with [symbol] 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 [symbol]. 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 _u_. be this as it may, the value of the symbol f 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 [phi] 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. 8, the old form [symbol] being kept for the other consonant _v_ (i.e. english _w_). the 8 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, [symbol], which naturally changed to 8 when inscribed without lifting the writing or incising implement. recent discoveries, however, make this doubtful (see alphabet). (p. gi.)