I 3] Alphabet and Pronunciation 5 NOTE.—i. Twoof the above 27 Gothic characters were used as numerals only, viz. 11 — 90 and <f — <joo. The letter X occurs only in Xristus (Christ) and one or two other words, where X had probably the sound-value k. The Gothic character ī was used at the beginning of a word and medially after a vowel not belonging to the same syllable, thus īa&q(\. iđdja (/ went) ; f:KjUTl<þ. fra-itib (he devours). 2. When the letters were used as numerals a point was placed before and after them, or a line above them, thus •ΛΛ, ·1·Ι = 3°· 3. In words borrowed from Greek containing υ in the function of a vowel, it is transcribed by y, thus συναγωγή, synagōgē, synagogue, y may be pronounced like the i in English bit. See p. 360. In our transcription the letter }> is borrowed from the OE. or O.Norse alphabet. In some books q, h;, w are represented by kw (kvX hw (hv), ν respectively. A. THE VOWELS. § 8. The Gothic vowel-system is represented by the five elementary letters a, e, i, o, u, and the digraphs ei, iu, ai, and au. Vowel-length was entirely omitted in writing. The sign ~~, placed over vowels, is here used to mark long vowels. The vowels e, ο (uniformly written ē, ō in this grammar) were always long, a, u had both a short and a long quantity, i was a short vowel, the corresponding long vowel of which was expressed by the digraph ei after the analogy of the Greek pronunciation of « in the fourth century, iu was a falling diphthong. Each of the digraphs ai, au was used without distinction in writing to express three different sounds which are here written ái, af, ai and áu, aú, au. A brief description of the sound-values of the above