![]() A form with a dot in the centre occurs in Thera, and this is paralleled in the large Etruscan form. ![]() In Corinth and in the inscriptions from Abu Simbel in Egypt there is a form with an offset dot. The form of the letter on the Moabite Stone was small o, and this small form appears in early Greek inscriptions from Thera and Corinth. Vowels were not expressed alphabetically in Semitic. The Greeks in adapting the Semitic alphabet to their own use used this letter ( omicron) to express the vowel o, as the letters ʾaleph, he, cheth, and yod were used to express vowels. The Semitic form may have derived from an earlier sign representing an eye. O, the fourth vowel of the modern alphabet, corresponding to the Semitic ʿayin, which represented a breathing and not a vowel.
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