'In view of what I had the honor to write to you by the last mail, you would be quite amazed to see SiMOUN denoting the name of Simon, and NaSIA indicating his title of Prince. The short time that I had before the departure of the courier did not allow me to tell you that the letter "O" which appears in the name of Simon is not a proper letter but an aspirate corresponding to the character called ayin; which precedes the pe in the Hebrew alphabet, same as the O called μικρὸν precedes the Π in the Hebrew (sic) alphabet. Now there is no doubt that the ancients rendered this ayin by the omicron, and because of that and for other reasons it should be acknowledged that th eIonic alphabet comes from the Phoenicians who [also] created the so-called Samaritan letters that are seen on ancient Jewish medals. If we were to dwell upon the meaning of the name given to this letter ayin, we would discover that it is [so named] because of its resemblance to an eye, which in Hebrew is called ayin. The letter U, the vowel that follows the "O" in this name of Simon, corresponds to Y ψιλὸν, which is the U in Latin, placed in both [Latin and Greek alphabets] after the T, although it ought to be after the E since it corresponds to the Hebrew vav. If you invert the figure [Hebrew character] that you see on the medals, it becomes [inverted Hebrew character]; that is, not a Ψ but an Y without the small inside stroke that was discarded by those who adopted the letter so that it would be quicker to write. Now, since the Greek Y and the Latin U are the same thing, we see on many Greek medals a well-shaped V instead of Y, because it would appear to be easier to draw two straight lines than two [lines] curving at the top. For the same reason the figure [Hebrew character], which forms the letter M in the name SiMON, becomes [inverted Hebrew character] when inverted, from which, having removed the tail at the top, you will have the letter M of the Greeks and the Latins. On the other hand, without leaving anything of the lamed, both [alphabets] adopted its shape L, as it appears on inscriptions that I have seen, which are about two thousand years old, and on ancient Roman money. In later generations the shape L was considered easier to form, and because of that it was preferred to that of L. I would wander away from my subject if I were to tell you more about it at present. There remains the word NaSIA, about which I should observe that the last letter A is aleph, which is silent after a yod: [The word] is read simply NaSI, as if the aleph were an H, the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet, which would make NaSIH. In order that you can read these two words, Simon and Nasi, in Samaritan characters, here they are in Hebrew [Hebrew script].
I shall add here that [Hebrew script] can be rendered letter by letter in Latin as SiMHON, using the H for the ayin.'
(translation from Minc 1985, pp. 117-19)
