... This latin F, seems to appear in Elis coins long time (400 B.C.) before the Roman occupation ...
Your Latin F is a Greek digamma and FAΛEIΩN was the official name of the city.
Thanks Altamura, very helpful
Based on literature, the
pronunciation of that archaic letter/numeral of the
Greek alphabet F (according to its Phoenician roots) was
wau and it was well known as a sound to Mycenean
Greeks.
Really remarkable the theory that Digamma was the 'ancestor' of the latin letter F (through Etruscans) and the fact that it was
still in use as "
episēmon" during the
Byzantine era (as well as
stigma combining σ-τ as ϛ). Currently partial in use in the Tsakonic dialect in south
Peloponnese (Arcadia) !!
Unfortunately, I
still can not imagine the vocabular concatenation of wau and ΑΛΕΙΩΝ as a common term ... How should that sound like? Walion???