Izzy, > The ancient shin had a T-sound. SHoR = ox had been ToR as in TauRus. > Compare SHeN = tooth with TaN = jackal and TaNiN = crocodile, both toothy > animals some of whose teeth are visible even when their mouth is closed. > This explains why the Rashi-script shin looks like a tet turned 90 degrees > clockwise, and why the modern hand-written shin looks like a closed tet. > Rather than thinking of it in terms of ancient and modern shin, it is more along the lines of Shin being the only remnant left in Hebrew of two different letters, known as Sin & Tha in most other Semitic languages that retained them). In most of the Northern Semitic languages (except Ugaritic) these two letters merged into one. In many of the South Semitic languages they remained distinct.
> The ancient heh had a dalet+heh = DH- or TH-sound. This makes ToRaH cognate > with TRuTH. > For a start the root that truth comes from is true (Proto-IE 'dru') in which case what you've said here makes no sense. There is however a 'dh' letter in the other Semitic languages, but again, in Hebrew and most other Northern Semitic Languages (except Ugaritic) it ended up merging into another letter. In Hebrew it merged into Zayin, in Aramaic it merged into Dalet. Regards, Abu Rashid.
