P’s kind of a weird letter, as it seems to have changed form
in each alphabet that preceded ours. Our Latin version of it comes from an Etruscan symbol that looks
more like a backwards 1 (or possibly a 7). Latin took it from the Greek pi, and while these days we mostly know pi as the tiny, table-like Π or π, originally
it taller and missing a leg, similar
to the Etruscan version.
I’ve mentioned this before, but the Greeks were the first in
Europe to create a full alphabet. They based their letters on the Phoenician consonantal alphabet, a cousin
to Hebrew. The Phoenician P is more of a hook rather than the angular symbol
Greek has, plus it’s also facing in the opposite direction. Why it changed so
much is anyone’s guess.
Of course, the story doesn’t end (or begin, rather) there.
Phoenician developed in around 1500 BCE,
but it was created from an already existing consonantal alphabet called Proto-Sinaitic,
which is probably the first of said alphabets to develop.
If you look at the .gif again, you’ll see that the Proto Sinaitic symbol
probably came from the Egyptian hieroglyph for finger,
which is a symbol that again, looks nothing like what we know it as.
TL;DR: P’s form was changed around a lot. I guess no one
liked how they wrote it. And PS: it isn’t related to the letter R at all.
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