Claudian letters

Claudian letters were developed by, and named after, the Roman Emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54). He introduced three new letters: Illustration of letters introduced into the Roman alphabet as part of an attempted reform by the Emperor Claudius CopyrightedFreeUse © 2004 Chris Horrocks File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Illustration of letters introduced into the Roman alphabet as part of an attempted reform by the Emperor Claudius CopyrightedFreeUse © 2004 Chris Horrocks File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Roman Emperor is the term historians use to refer to rulers of the Roman Empire, after the epoch conventionally named the Roman Republic. ... For other uses, see Claudius (disambiguation). ... Events January 24 - Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar (Caligula), known for his eccentricity and cruel despotism, is assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. ... Events October 13 - Roman Empire emperor Claudius dies after being poisoned by Agrippina, his wife and niece. ...

• a reversed C (antisigma) to replace BS and PS, much like X stood in for CS and GS, and inspired by the Greek Psi. The appearance of this letter is disputed, however, since no inscription bearing it has been found. It may have been represented by two C's back to back, or some other symbol.
• a turned F (digamma inversum) to represent consonantal U (W/V), possibly inspired by the Greek Digamma.
• a half H to represent the sound of Greek Upsilon, a vowel sound between U and I (y) in Latin words such as Olympicus).

These letters were used to a small extent on public inscriptions dating from his reign but their use was abandoned after his death. Their forms were probably chosen to ease the transition, as they could be made from templates for existing letters. Claudius may have been inspired to introduce these changes by a comment his mother Antonia made to him in his youth, to the effect of that he would be as unlikely to become emperor as he would be able to change the alphabet. He may have been inspired by his ancestor Appius Claudius the Censor, who made earlier changes to the Latin alphabet. Claudius did indeed introduce his letters during his own term as censor, using arguments preserved in the historian Tacitus's account of his reign. In time, the letter Y was added to the Latin alphabet, filling the role of the broken "H" which Claudius had promulgated. Psi has multiple meanings: Psi (letter) (Ψ, ψ) of the Greek alphabet Psi (Cyrillic) (Ѱ, ѱ), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek Psi (instant messenger), the popular Jabber client program J/ψ particle, a subatomic particle Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics, ψ Ψ in mathematics is the angle between the tangent and the... W is the twenty-third letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ... V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. ... Digamma (upper case , lower case ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet, used primarily as a Greek numeral. ... Upsilon (upper case , lower case ) is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Julia Antonia Cretica Minor (the younger) (31 January 36 BC - September/October 37 AD) or Antonia the Younger or simply known as Antonia. ... Appius Claudius (PW 123) was a decemvir of the Roman Republic ca 451 BC. Despite being of patrician descent, he supported the plebeian wish for a code of laws, and while in office shared power with their representatives. ... For omission and secrecy, see censorship. ... Gaius Cornelius Tacitus Publius (or: Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (c. ... Y is the twenty-fifth letter of the Latin alphabet. ...

The reversed C is also used in Roman numerals. The system of Roman numerals is a numeral system originating in ancient Rome, and was adapted from Etruscan numerals. ...

These letters—along with lowercase counterparts—have been proposed for addition to Unicode. Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...