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The most widely used alphabet on earth is
the one the Romans developed and took with them as they conquered the
Western world. The uppercase letters you're reading are the same
ones the Romans were reading in 600 B.C. Roman publishers developed
the lowercase forms around A.D. 300.
The only changes since then came in
medieval times, when printing began and typographers invented the
"J" to represent the consonant value of "I" and
"V" was divided into "U," "V" and
"W."
The surname Yost is derived from
Iost, a form of an old Christian name, Iodocus. When Europeans began
to adopt surnames, between the year 1000 and 1500, many unrelated people
selected Iodocus or Iost, probably because that was the given name of
their father.
Thus, Iost became Jost.
In America, Yost was gradually adopted as the spelling of the name Jost
because the first letter of the name was pronounced like a "Y"
as in Yes rather than like a "J" as in John.
Thus, there are many families named Jost and Yost and they are not necessarily related.
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