Re: Why Chi and Not Xi for X in Latin Script?

António Marques wrote:

John Lawler wrote:

In Latin, there was no special ps letter, but the idea of using one
letter to represent ks was still around, and still useful; my guess
is that the continuation of the tradition of /ks/ but not /ps/ was
due to relative frequency in Latin.


IIrc, psi was introduced at a later time for such words as princeps,

The letter, its aspect like a mirrored C, was invented by emperor Claudius in the first century AD, but, as you say, it wasn't much used after the death of Claudius.

but didn't catch on, probably for the low frequency you mentioned, or
maybe because the readers/writers base was larger and didn't bow to
change.


The second seems more likely, IMHO.

--
   Javi
.