Greek
Both in classical Ancient Greek and in Modern Greek, the letter Ξ represents the sound . In some archaic local variants of the Greek alphabet, this letter was missing. Instead, especially in the dialects of most of the Greek mainland and Euboea, the sound was represented by Χ (which in classical Greek is chi, used for /kʰ/). Because this variant of the Greek alphabet was used in Italy, the Latin alphabet borrowed Χ rather than Ξ as the Latin letter X.
Read more about this topic: Xi (letter)
Famous quotes containing the word greek:
“In all the good Greek of Plato
I lack my roastbeef and potato.
A better man was Aristotle,
Pulling steady on the bottle.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“The decline of a culture
Mourned by scholars who dream of the ghosts of Greek boys.”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)
“The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)