The Anglo-Norman view was different. Modified by the part that, in the combination _th_, was played by the aspirate _h_, it was conceived by the Anglo-Normans, that _ksh_, or _tsh_, differed from _k_, not by the addition of _y_ (expressed by _e_), but by that of _h_. Hence the combination _ch_ as sounded in _chest_. The same was the case with _sh_. This latter statement is a point in the history, not so much of an alphabet, as of an orthography. The preceding sketch, as has been said more than once before, has been given with one view only, _viz._, that of accounting for defective modes of spelling. The history of almost all alphabets is the same. Originally either insufficient, erroneous, or inconsistent, they are transplanted from one language to a different, due alterations and additions rarely being made. s. 266. The reduplication of the consonant following, to express the shortness (dependence) of the preceding vowel, is as old as the classical languages: _terra_, [Greek: thalassa]. The following extract from the Ormulum (written in the thirteenth century) is the fullest recognition of the practice that I have met with. The extract is from Thorpe's Analecta Anglo-Saxonica. And whase wilenn shall this boc, Efft otherr sithe writenn, Himm bidde iec thatt hett write rihht, Swa sum thiss boc himm taechethth; All thwerrt utt affterr thatt itt iss Oppo thiss firrste bisne, Withth all swilc rime als her iss sett, Withth alse fele wordess: {209} And tatt he loke wel thatt he _An boc-staff write twiggess_,[37] Eggwhaer thaer itt uppo thiss boc Iss writenn o thatt wise: Loke he well thatt hett write swa, Forr he ne magg noht elless, On Englissh writenn rihht te word, Thatt wite he wel to sothe. Concerning the various other orthographical expedients, such as the reduplication of the vowel to express its length (_mood_), &c., I can give no satisfactory detailed history. The influence of the Anglo-Norman, a language derived from the Latin, established, in its fullest force, the recognition of the etymological principle.