![]() ![]() Greek omicron gave rise to the corresponding Cyrillic letter O and the early Italic letter to runic ᛟ. In Greek, a variation of the form later came to distinguish this long sound ( Omega, meaning "large O") from the short o (Omicron, meaning "small o"). The letter was adopted with this value in the Old Italic alphabets, including the early Latin alphabet. The use of this Phoenician letter for a vowel sound is due to the early Greek alphabets, which adopted the letter as O "omicron" to represent the vowel /o/. Its original sound value was that of a consonant, probably, the sound represented by the cognate Arabic letter ع ʿayn. ʿeyn, meaning "eye", and indeed its shape originates simply as a drawing of a human eye (possibly inspired by the corresponding Egyptian hieroglyph, cf. ![]() Its graphic form has remained fairly constant from Phoenician times until today. Late Renaissance or early Baroque design of an O, from 1627
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