01 October 2012

K is for Kappa

The Greek letter K is named Kappa.
It is thought to have been derived from the Phoenician letter Kaph:
The word Kaph "is thought to have been derived from a pictogram of a hand (in both modern Arabic and modern Hebrew, kaph means palm/grip)".

In Dutch, the verb "kappen" means to chop (wood).
(image missing) 


Related is the word "inkeping" (notch).



Also related the heraldic term "keper" (chevron).



K looks more like a notch or chevron, than like a hand.

Earlier I have argued that the Greek word Delta (used for their letter D) can be explained better through Oldfrisian than by the Greek language.

See D is for del-ta (in Westfriesland a "delte" still means a piece of low lying land (laagte).

Two Greek letters-names that have a more plausible explanation through the Dutch/ Frisian language, than through Greek.

Isn't that interesting?

No comments:

Post a Comment