Le Mat

Adrian Goldwetter

I'm really sad to hear that! Both! gregory!

And the rest of your reply makes no sense because jmd was wrong all along with his opinion on the medieval use of the "V" that you quoted (and I'm not talking about his orthography here concerning medieval matters):

...the 'v' being the same as a 'u' in mediaeval texts

That here complete quoted statement from jmd is simply NOT true.

It is MUCH more complicated.

Because:


The "V":

History

Ancient Corinthian vase depicting Perseus, Andromeda and Ketos. The inscriptions denoting the depicted persons are written in an archaic form of the Greek alphabet. Perseus (Greek: ΠΕΡΣΕΥΣ) is inscribed as ΠΕΡΣΕVΣ (from right to left), using V to represent the vowel .
The letter V comes from the Semitic letter Waw, as do the modern letters F, U, W, and Y.[2] See F for details.

In Greek, the letter upsilon 'Υ' was adapted from waw to represent, at first, the vowel as in "moon". This was later fronted to [y], the front rounded vowel spelled 'ü' in German.

In Latin, a stemless variant shape of the upsilon was borrowed in early times as V—either directly from the Western Greek alphabet or from the Etruscan alphabet as an intermediary—to represent the same /u/ sound, as well as the consonantal /w/. Thus, 'num' — originally spelled 'NVM' — was pronounced /num/ and 'via' was pronounced [ˈwia]. From the 1st century AD on, depending on Vulgar Latin dialect, consonantal /w/ developed into /β/ (kept in Spanish), then later to /v/.

During the Late Middle Ages, two forms of 'v' developed, which were both used for its ancestor /u/ and modern /v/. The pointed form 'v' was written at the beginning of a word, while a rounded form 'u' was used in the middle or end, regardless of sound. So whereas 'valour' and 'excuse' appeared as in modern printing, 'have' and 'upon' were printed as 'haue' and 'vpon'. The first distinction between the letters 'u' and 'v' is recorded in a Gothic script from 1386, where 'v' preceded 'u'. By the mid-16th century, the 'v' form was used to represent the consonant and 'u' the vowel sound, giving us the modern letter 'u'. Capital 'U' was not accepted as a distinct letter until many years later.[3]


For more detailed info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V


The "U":

History

The letter u ultimately comes from the Phoenician letter Waw by way of the letter y. See the letter y for details.

During the late Middle Ages, two forms of 'v' developed, which were both used for its ancestor 'u' and modern 'v'. The pointed form 'v' was written at the beginning of a word, while a rounded form 'u' was used in the middle or end, regardless of sound. So whereas 'valour' and 'excuse' appeared as in modern printing, 'have' and 'upon' were printed 'haue' and 'vpon'. The first recorded use of 'u' and 'v' as distinct letters is in a Gothic alphabet from 1386, where 'v' preceded 'u'. Printers eschewed capital 'U' into the 17th century and the distinction between the two letters was not fully accepted by the French Academy until 1762.[3]

For more detailed info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U


The source: The Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, is the oldest verified alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are consonants, and is described as an abjad,[3] with matres lectionis being used for some vowels in certain late varieties. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia.

The Phoenician alphabet is derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs [4] and became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was directly derived from Phoenician. Another derivative script is the Aramaic alphabet, which was the ancestor of the modern Arabic script. The Modern Hebrew script is a stylistic variant of the Aramaic script. The Greek alphabet (and by extension its descendants such as the Latin, the Cyrillic, and the Coptic) was also derived from Phoenician.

As the letters were originally incised with a stylus, most of the shapes are angular and straight, although more cursive versions are increasingly attested in later times, culminating in the Neo-Punic alphabet of Roman-era North Africa. Phoenician was usually written from right to left, although there are some texts written in boustrophedon.

In 2005, the UNESCO registered the Phoenician alphabet into the Memory of the World Programme as a heritage of Lebanon.[5]

For more detailed info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet


The WAW that is the origin of Greek Ϝ (digamma), Υ (upsilon) and Latin F, V and the derived letters U, W, Y:

Waw (wāw "hook") is the sixth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician wāw Phoenician waw.svg, Aramaic waw Waw.svg, Hebrew vav (also vau) ו, Syriac waw ܘ and Arabic wāw و (sixth in abjadi order; 27th in modern Arabic order).

It represents the consonant [w] (in Modern Hebrew also [v]) and the vowel .


For more detailed info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waw_(letter)



Please note that I only quote from Wikipedia on most occasions to demonstrate that the truth is out there and on the very surface of the ocean of wisdom like a shipload of extra virgin olive oil what could be a start for a wise and healthy diet of thought at your/mine/everybody's fingertips - IF you/me/everybody cares to LOOK and not simply to BELIEVE what someone has SAID.

You may have noticed also that I did edit this reply.
When you should stumble upon my quote from your quote from jmd's quote you should note that I added this time the

...in mediaeval texts

part here because it is of specific importance for his handle on the matter.


Yours truly

Adrina
 

kwaw

P.P.P.P.S. Excuses firemaiden I just saw that I overlooked your link to the TLF before and went there a minute ago. Very colorful was my first impression - and when I read through I found that all the quoted sources are from: 1846 - 1935 - 1870 - 1953 - 1844 - 1811 - 1890 - 1834 - in that order.

TAROT FROM PIERRE MADENIÉ Dijon 1709, France

http://tarot-de-marseille-millennium.com/english/historic_tarots_gallery.html

When you visit the Wiki link I gave above you will find this:

Following your logic you would be able in a 100 years to quote that sentence as PROOF that MAT is indeed a noun in French... ...and was in 1709 ;)

Cotgrave's French-English dictionary, 1611:

FlorioMat_zpsmutargb0.jpg
 

kwaw

Let me summarize:

"V" and "U" are the same.
So - following logic: LEFOV is the same as LEFOU.

Yep!

Le Mat is the same as Le Mât.

Nope. The opposite in fact. The circumflex is not there just for decoration, it has a specific purpose in French, which is to distinguish between homophones, that is, the circumflex means "Le Mât" is not "Le Mat."

That does not mean such homophones could not be used in some coded manner of course. Kabalistic hebrew letter symbolism is replete with homophones.

For myself, I have long been a proponent of there being elements of wordplay in the trumps.

A tree has a bark, but if you hear it bark, the simplest explanation is that there is a dog doing its business behind it.

A picture of a Fool, with the title Le Mat, has the simple explanation that Le Mat means The Fool, though in the case of the Noblet, I suppose it could also mean 'flaccid' (mat), but might become a 'mast' (mât), with a little stimulation. ;)