It is also possible that the names assigned to the letters even of the Phoenician alphabet were influenced by the hieroglyphs of the Hittites. When the Phoenicians borrowed the letters of the Egyptian alphabet they gave them names beginning in their own language with the sound represented by each letter. _A_ was called _aleph_ because the Phoenician word _aleph_ 'an ox' began with that sound, _k_ was _kaph_ 'the hand' because _kaph_ in Phoenician began with _k_. It was but an early application of the same principle which made our forefathers believe that the child would learn his alphabet more quickly if he was taught that '_A_ was an archer who shot at a frog.'
But the names must have been assigned to the letters not only because they commenced with corresponding sounds, but also because of their fancied resemblance to the objects denoted by the names. Now in some instances the resemblance is by no means clear. The earliest forms of the letters called _kaph_ and _yod_, for example, both of which words signify a 'hand,' have little likeness to the human hand. If we turn to the Hittite hieroglyphs, however, we find among them two representations of the hand, encased in the long Hittite glove, which are almost identical with the Phoenician letters in shape. It is difficult, therefore, to resist the conviction that the letters _kaph_ and _yod_ received their names from Syrians who were familiar with the appearance of the Hittite characters. It is the same in the case of _aleph_. Here too the old Phoenician letter does not in any way resemble an ox, but it bears a very close likeness to the head of a bull, which occupies a prominent place in the Hittite texts. _Aleph_ became the Greek _alpha_ when the Phoenician alphabet was handed on to the Greeks, and in the word _alphabet_ has become part of our own heritage. Like _yod_, which has passed through the Greek _iota_ into the English _jot_, it is thus possible that there are still words in daily use among ourselves which can be traced, if not to the Hittite language, at all events to the Hittite script.
What the language of the Hittites was we have yet to learn. But the proper names preserved on the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments show that it did not belong to the Semitic family of speech, and an analysis of the Hittite inscriptions further makes it evident that it made large use of suffixes. But we must be on our guard against supposing that the language was uniform throughout the district in which the Hittite population lived. Different tribes doubtless spoke different dialects, and some of these dialects probably differed widely from each other. But they all belonged to the same general type and class of language, and may therefore be collectively spoken of as the Hittite language, just as the various dialects of England are collectively termed English. Indeed, we find the same type of language extending far eastward of Kappadokia, if we may trust the proper names recorded in the Assyrian inscriptions. Names of a distinctively Hittite cast are met with as far as the frontiers of the ancient kingdom of Ararat, and it may be that the language of Ararat itself, the so-called Vannic, may belong to the same family of speech. As the cuneiform inscriptions in which this language is embodied have now been deciphered, we shall be able to determine the question as soon as the Hittite texts also render up their secrets.