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ALPHABET (see also WRITING)
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See also:ALPHABET (see also See also:WRITING) . By the word alphabet, derived from the See also:Greek names for the first two letters—alpha and beta—of the Greek alphabet, is meant a See also:series of conventional symbols each indicating a single See also:sound or See also:combination of sounds. The ideal alphabet would indicate one sound by one See also:symbol, and not more than one sound by the same symbol. Symbols for a combination of sounds are not necessary, though they may be convenient as abbreviations. In the writing of some See also:languages, e.g. See also:Sanskrit, such abbreviations are carried to an extreme; in most Greek See also:MSS. also they are of very frequent occurrence. These contractions, however, may prove too See also:great a See also:strain upon the eyesight or the memory, and thus become a hindrance instead of a help. This was apparently the See also:case in Greek, for though the See also:early printers See also:cast types for all the contractions of the Greek MSS. these have now with one consent been given up. A consonant like x can only be regarded as an See also:abbreviation; it ex-presses nothing that cannot as well be expressed by ks or gz, both of which combinations in different situations it may represent (see X). No alphabet corresponds exactly to the ideal which we have postulated, nor if it did, would it continue See also:long so to do, as the sounds of most languages are continually changing. Hence in the case of dead languages or past forms of living languages, it is often very difficult to define with precision what the sounds of the past See also:epoch were. The study of the See also:history of See also:English See also:pronunciation occupied the See also:late Dr A. J. See also:Ellis for a large See also:part of his See also:life, and the results fill five large volumes. The sounds which are most difficult to define exactly are the vowels; a great variety may be indicated by the same symbol. In the New English See also:Dictionary no fewer than thirteen different nuances of vowel sound are distinguished under the symbol A alone. In English, moreover, the vowel sounds tend to become diphthongs, so that the symbol for the See also:simple sound tends to become the symbol for that combination which we See also:call a diphthong. Thus the long i in ride, See also:wine, &c., has become the diphthong ai, and the name of the symbol I is itself so pronounced. In See also:familiar, if vulgar, dialects, A tends in the same direction. In the "See also:cockney'' See also:dialect, really the dialect of See also:Essex but now no less familiar in See also:Cambridge and See also:Middlesex, the ai sound of is represented by of as in toime, " See also:time," while a has become ai in Kate, See also:pane, &c. In all See also:southern English o becomes more rounded while it is being pronounced, so that it ends with a slight u sound. In the vulgar dialect already mentioned, the sound begins as a more open sound than in the cultivated pronunciation, so that no is really pronounced as naou. It is clear, therefore, that the best alphabet would not long indicate very precisely the sounds which it was intended to represent. See See also:PHONETICS. But the history of the alphabet shows that at no time has it represented any See also:European See also:language with much precision, because it was an importation adapted in a somewhat rough and ready See also:fashion to represent sounds different from those which it represented outside See also:Europe. Wherever the alphabet may have originated, there seems no doubt that its first importation in a See also:form closely resembFng that with which we are familiar in See also:modern times was from the Phoenicians to the Greeks. The Phoenicians were certainly using it with freedom in the 9th See also:century B.C.; with so much freedom, indeed, that they must have been in See also:possession of it for a considerable time before we can trace it. With the materials available up to See also:August 1910 it would be idle here to See also:attempt to trace its earlier history. Great discoveries in See also:Cappadocia, See also:Assyria and See also:Egypt were then only at their beginning, and any statement was liable to be quickly disproved by the See also:appearance of new See also:evidence. The prevalent theory, universally accepted till a few years ago, was that of Vicomte See also:Emmanuel de See also:Rouge, first propounded to the Academie See also:des See also:Inscriptions in 1859, but unnoticed by the See also:world at large till republished, after de Rouge's See also:death, by his son in 1874. According to this view the alphabet was borrowed by the Phoenicians from the cursive (See also:hieratic) form of See also:Egyptian See also:hieroglyphics. The resemblances between some Egyptian symbols and some symbols of the Phoenician alphabet are striking; in other cases the See also:differences are no less remarkable. As a See also:matter of fact the Egyptians might have passed about See also:thirty-five centuries B.C. from the picture writing of hieroglyphs to genuine alphabetic signs.' They did not, however, profit by their See also:discovery, because, amongst the Egyptians, writing was clearly a See also:mystery in both senses--only possible at that See also:period for masters in the See also:craft, and also something, like the writing of medical prescriptions at the See also:present See also:day in Latin, which was not to be made too easily intelligible to the See also:common See also:people. At all periods, moreover, hieroglyphic writing was a See also:branch of decorative See also:art, and it may have been that the See also:ancient Egyptian, like the modern Turk, resented too much lucidity, and liked his See also:literary compositions to be veiled in a certain obscurity. The alphabet devised by the Egyptians consisted of twenty-four letters. Egyptologists are at variance on the question whether this alphabet was the See also:original, or had any See also:influence upon the development of the Phoenician alphabet. " With the See also:papyrus See also:paper," says See also:Professor Breasted,2 " the See also:hand customarily written upon it in Egypt now made its way into See also:Phoenicia, where before the loth century B.C. it See also:developed into an alphabet of consonants, which was quickly transmitted to the Ionian Greeks and thence to Europe." On the other hand, Professor Spiegelberg,3 writing soon after Professor Breasted, says that investigation has not as yet furnished See also:proof that the Phoenician alphabet is of Egyptian origin, though he admits that in some respects the development of the two alphabets, both without vowel signs, is curiously parallel. The most See also:recent view is that of Dr A. J. See also:Evans, who argues ingeniously that the alphabet was taken over from See also:Crete by the " Cherethites and Pelethites " or See also:Philistines, who established for themselves settlements on the See also:coast of See also:Palestine.' From them it passed to the Phoenicians, who were their near neighbours, if not their kinsfolk. Symbols like the letters of the alphabet have been found in European See also:soil painted upon pebbles belonging to a stratum between the See also:Palaeolithic and See also:Neolithic See also:age.6 This was in See also:France at Mas d'Azil on the See also:left See also:bank of the Arize. Else-where several series of such symbols resembling inscriptions have been found scratched on bones of the same period.6 For the history of writing these may be important, but for the history of the alphabet, as we know it, they are not in question. The alphabet may have originated as Dr Evans thinks, but at present the proof is not conclusive. The Greek names of the letters, their forms, and the See also:order of the symbols show that the Greek alphabet as we know it must have been imported by or from a Semitic people, and there is no evidence to contradict ancient tradition that this people was the Phoenicians. The view See also:pro- ' Breasted, History of Egypt (1906), p. 45. 2 Op. cit. p. 484. ' See also:Die Schrift and Sprache der See also:alien.gypter (1907), p. 24. Scripta Minoa, i. (1909), § 10, pp. 77 if. s E. Piette, L'Anthropologie, vii. (1896) pp. 384 if. E. Piette, L'Anthropologie, xvi. (19o5) pp. 8-9. The apparent inscriptions of this period are conveniently collected and figured together in Dechelette's See also:Manuel d'archiologie prehistorique celtique et gallo-romaine, i. (19o8) p. 235.pounded by Deecke7 in 1877, that the Phoenician alphabet had developed out of the late See also:Assyrian See also:cuneiform, never met with much See also:acceptance and has really no evidence in its favour.
The earliest alphabetic document which can be dated with See also:comparative certainty is the famous Moabite See also: The symbols in the Greek alphabet from Y to Sl, or in the numerical alphabet to Z , are not found in the Phoenician alphabet. As already mentioned, the twenty-two symbols of the Phoenician alphabet indicate consonantal sounds only. Greek did not possess so many consonants. The Phoenician alphabet possessed many more aspirates than were required in Greek, which tended more and more to drop all its aspirates. Before history begins it had also lost, except sporadically in out-of-the-way dialects, the semi-vowel i (approximately English y). It therefore made the aspirates A, E, Q and the semi-vowel I into vowels, and apparently converted the semi-vowel Y=w into the vowel,y=u, which it placed at the end of the alphabet and substituted for it as the See also:sixth symbol of the alphabet the See also:letter F with the old value of w. The superfluous sibilants were also adapted in various ways (see below). The discovery of a large number of very archaic inscriptions in the See also:island of See also:Thera, which was made by Freiherr See also:Hiller von Gartringen in 1896, has shown that the earliest Greek Relation-alphabet was even more like the Phoenician than had See also:ship of been heretofore believed. The symbol for /3 in Thera See also:Creek to (a) is nearer than any previously known to the Phoe-Semitic letter (9) though, as not infrequently happens nklan. in the transference of a symbol from one people to another, its position is inverted—a See also:fate which in this alphabet has befallen also (Semitic L, Thera 1), and possibly v (Semitic Vs", Thera M). The era of excavation initiated by Dr See also:Schliemann on,the See also:grand See also:scale has increased our knowledge of Greek inscriptions beyond anything that was earlier dreamt of. Besides the excavations of See also:Athens, See also:Delos, See also:Epidaurus and See also:Delphi, the results of which are most important for the 5th century B.C. and later, the exploration of the sites of See also:Olympia, of the Heraeum near See also:Argos, of See also:Naucratis in Egypt, and of various Cretan towns (above all the ancient Gortyn), has revolutionized our know-ledge of the archaic alphabets of See also:Greece. We can now see how long and laborious was the See also:process by which the Greeks attained to uniformity in writing and in numeration. In no See also: Unfortunately, as yet no See also:record is preserved which can with any probability be dated earlier than the 7th century B.C., and the Phoenician influence had by then nearly ceased. How long this influence lasted we cannot tell. If in Crete a See also:system of writing of an entirely different nature had been developed seven or eight centuries before, there must have been some very important See also:reason for the entire See also:abandonment of the old method and the See also:adoption of a new. In Crete, at least, the excavations show that the old See also:civilization must have ended in a social and See also:political See also:cataclysm. The magnificent See also:palace of Minos—there seems no reason to withhold from it the name of the great See also:prince whom See also:Thucydides recognized as the first to hold the See also:empire of the sea—perished by the flames, and it evidently had been plundered beforehand of everything that a conqueror would regard as valuable. The only force in Greek history which we know that could have produced this See also:change was that of the Dorian See also:conquest. As everywhere in the Peloponnese, except at Argos, there seems to have been a sudden break with the earlier civilization, which can have been occasioned only by the semi-barbarous Dorian tribes, so the same result seems to have followed from the same cause in Thera. The See also:Dorians apparently were without an alphabet, and consequently when Phoenician traders and pirates occupied the See also:place left vacant by the downfall of See also:Minos's empire, the people of the island, and of the See also:sea coasts generally, adopted from them the Phoenician alphabet.' The Greeks who migrated to Cyprus, possibly as the result of the Dorian invasion, adopted a syllabary, not an alphabet (see See also:Plate; also WRITING). That the alphabet was borrowed and adapted independently by different places not widely separated, and that the earliest Greek alphabets did not spread from one or a few centres in Greek lands, seem clear (a) from the different Greek sounds for which the Phoenician symbols were utilized; (b) from the different symbols which were employed to represent sounds which the Phoenicians did not possess, and for which, therefore, they had no symbols. The Phoenician alphabet was an alphabet of consonants only, but all Greek alphabets as yet known agree in employing A, E, I, 0, Y as vowels. On the other hand, a table of Greek alphabets2 will show how widely different the symbols for the same sound were. Except for a single See also:Attic inscription (see Plate), the alphabets of Thera and of See also:Corinth are the oldest Greek alphabets which we possess. Yet at Corinth alongside 3, which is found for the so-called See also:spurious diphthong et (i.e. the Attic et, which does not represent an Indo-European et, but arises by contraction, as in 4tXeirE, or through the lengthening of the vowel sound as the result of the loss of a consonant, as in eips vor for FeFpnuevos) the See also:short a sound is represented by B; t is found at Corinth in its oldest form , and also as , while in Thera it is s. In Thera the w sound of digamma (F) was entirely lost, and therefore is not represented. Both Thera and Corinth employ in the earliest inscriptions for , not E, though in both alphabets the See also:ordinary use as is adopted, no doubt through the influence of See also:trade with other ' In an excellent See also:summary of the different views held as to the origin of the alphabet (See also:Journal of the See also:American See also:Oriental Society, vol. xxii., first half, 1901), Dr J. P. See also:Peters agrees (pp. 191 ff.) that the best test is the See also:etymology of the names of the letters. He shows that " twelve of the letter-names are words with meanings [in the See also:northern dialects of Semitic], all of them indicating simple See also:objects, six of the twelve being parts of the See also:body. The objects denoted by the other six names—ox, See also:house, See also:valve of a See also:door, See also:water, See also:fish and See also:mark or cross—clearly do not belong to any people in a nomadic See also:state, but to a settled, See also:town-abiding See also:population. . Six of the letter-names are not words in any known See also:tongue, and appear to be syllables only. Four letter-names are triliterals, and resemble in their form Semitic words." As ti of the 12 which have meanings are to be found in the Assyrian-Babylonian syllabaries, he suggests a possible Babylonian origin. Different views with regard to some of these symbols are expressed by Lidzbarski, See also:Ephemeris See also:fur semitische Epigraphik, ii. pp. 125 ff. (1906). The earliest tradition of the names is discussed by See also:Noldeke in his Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (1904), pp. 124 if. 2 See, for example, the tables at the end of See also:Roberts's Introduction to Greek See also:Epigraphy (1887) ; or See also:Kirchhoff's Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets (4th ed. 1887); or Larfeld's Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik, vol. i. (1907).725 states. On the other hand, at Cleonae, which is distant not more than 8 or 9 m. from Corinth, an ancient inscription written I3ovcrpodsnSov has recently been discovered, which shows that though Cleonae for B wrote d, like the Corinthian f, and, as at Corinth, wrote B for a vowel sound, the vowel thus represented was not short and long e (e and rt) as at Corinth, but 17 only, as in XPgf A, (ypij is 0). Here ?1 represents e, and the spurious diphthong is represented by et, as in M I (etµev, Doric See also:infinitive =dvat), a form which shows that t has at Cleonae the more modern form I as distinguished from the Corinthian <.3 Regarding three other questions controversy still rages. These are: (a) how Greek utilized the four sibilants (Shin, Samech, Zain and Zade), which it took over from the Phoenician; (b) what was the history of development in the symbols for ¢, x, 4), to (the history of t belongs to both heads) ; (c) the history of the symbol for the digamma F. In the Phoenician alphabet Zain was the seventh letter, occupying the same position and having the same form approximately (2 as the early Greek Z, while in pronunciation it was a voiced s-sound; Samech () followed the symbol for n Greek use of and was the ordinary s-sound, though, as we have seen, phoenician it is in different Greek states at the earliest period as sibilants. well as E; after the symbol for p came Zade (rv), which was a strong palatal s, though in name it corresponds to the Greek Nra; while lastly Shin (W) follows the symbol for r, and was an sh-sound. The Greek name for the sibilant (siy,sa) may simply mean the hissing letter and be a derivative from oij"w; many authorities, however, hold that it is a corruption of the Phoenician Samech. Unfortunately, it is not clear how many sibilants were distinguished in Greek pronunciation, nor over what areas a particular pronunciation extended. There is, however, considerable evidence in support of the view that Greek oo representing the sound arising from Ky, xy, ry, Oy was pronounced as sh CO, while i- representing gy, dy was pronounced in some districts zh (z).4 On an inscription of See also:Halicarnassus, a town which stood in ancient Carian territory, the sound of oo in 'AXucapvaov&mv is represented by T, as it is also in the Carian name Panyassis (lIavvhTws, geni- tive), though the ordinary * is also found in the same inscription. The same variation occurs at the neighbouring Teos and at See also:Ephesus, while the coins of Mesembria in See also:Thrace show regularly See also:META and M ET AM B P I A N 11N, where T represents the sound which resulted from the See also:fusion of See also:fly, and which appears in See also:Homer as See also:act in µ&Coos, while in later Greek it becomes µ&oos.b This symbol T is in all probability the early form of the letter which was known to the Greeks as See also:San (0as) and in modern times as Sampi, and which is utilized as the See also:numeral for 900 in the shape ?A. According to See also:Herodotus (i. 139), San was only the Dorian name for the letter which the See also:Ionians called Sigma. This would bring it into connexion with the Phoenician W (Shin), which, turned through a right See also:angle, is possibly the Greek E , though some forms of Zade on old See also:Hebrew coins and gems ( ) equally resemble the Greek letter. From other forms of See also:Sade, however, the other early form of o, viz. M, is probably derived. The confusion is thus extreme: the name Zade assimilated in Greek to the names ira and Ora. becomes Nra, though the form is that of Zain; the name of Samech is possibly the origin of Sigma, while the form of Samech is that of = which has not taken over a Phoenician name. It is probable that the form N.A is an abbreviation in writing from right to left of the earlier M, and 4S of the four stroke g. That the confusion of the sibilants was not confined to the Greeks only, but that pronunciation varied within a small See also:area even among the Semitic stock, is shown by the difficulty which the Ephraimites found in pronouncing " See also:shibboleth " (See also:Judges xii. 6). For the history of the additional symbols which are not Phoenician, we must begin with y. There is no Greek alphabet in which the symbol is not represented. But the Phoenician form History corresponding to it is the consonant w, and occupies the position of the Greek digamma as sixth in the series. of the See also:gamma. Whence did the Greeks obtain the digamma? The point is not clear, but probably the Greeks acted here as they did in the case of the vowel i and the consonant y, adopting the consonant symbol for the vowel sound. As, however, except in Cyprus, See also:Pamphylia and Argos, the only y sound which survived in Greek 3 Cp. See also:Frankel, Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum Peloponnesi, i., No. 1607. 4 See Witton, in American Journal of See also:Philology, xix. pp. 420 if., and Lagercrantz, Zur griechischen Lautgeschichte (See also:Upsala, 1898). See Foat, " Tsade and Sampi " (Journal of Hellenic Studies, See also:xxv. pp. 338 if., See also:xxvi. p. 286). A number of ingenious points often uncertain are raised by A. Gercke, " Zur Geschichte des altesten griechischen Alphabets " (See also:Hermes, xli., 1906, pp. S40 ff.). the glide between i and another vowel as in sub. =diva—is never ! represented, there was no occasion to use the Phoenician Jod in a See also:double See also:function. With Vau it was different; the u-sound existed in some form in all dialects, the w-sound survived in many far into See also:historical times. The Phoenician symbol having been adopted for the vowel sound, whence came the new symbol F or [ for the digamma? Hitherto there have been two views. Most authorities have held that the new form was derived from E by dropping the lowermost crossbar; some have held that it developed out of the old Vau, a view which is not impossible in itself and has the similar development in Aramaic (Tema) in its favour. But as Dr Evans has found a form like the digamma among his most recent types of symbols, and as we have no intermediate forms which will prove the development of f from 'i' , though the form found at Oaxos in Crete, viz. AI, shows a form sufficiently unlike F, it is necessary to suspend See also:judgment. The Greek aspirates were not the sounds which we represent by ph, th, ch (Scotch), but corresponded rather to the sound of the final consonants in such words as See also:lip, See also:bit, lick, the breath being Greek audible after the formation of the consonant. It is not aspirates, clear that Greek took over c with this value, for in one &a Theran inscription e are found combined as See also:equivalent to T—l-1, while the See also:regular See also:representation of ' and x is n and K 8, or 9 (koppa) respectively. In the great Gortyn inscription from Crete and occasionally in Thera, Il (in Crete in the form C) and K are used alone for 4) and x, just as conversely even in the 5th century the name of See also:Themistocles has been found upon an ostrakon spelt 001Lo0oaa?)S. Such confusions show that even to Greek ears the distinction between the sounds was very small. To have re-corded it in writing at all shows considerable progress in the observation of sounds. Such progress is more easily indicated by changes in the symbols among a people whose acquaintance with the art is not of long See also:standing nor very familiar. English, though possessing sounds comparable to the Greek 0, ¢, x, has never made any attempt to represent them in writing. On the other hand, no doubt Athens in 403 B.C. officially adopted the Ionic alphabet and gave up the old Attic alphabet. The political situation in Athens, however, at this time was as exceptional as the See also:French Revolution, and offered an opportunity not likely to recur for the adoption of a system in widely extended use which private individuals had been employing for a long time. The history of the symbols ¢ and x is altogether unknown. The very numerous theories on the subject have generally been founded on a principle which itself is in need of proof, viz. that these symbols must have arisen by differentiation from others already existing in the alphabet. The explanation is possible, but it is not easy to see why, for example, the symbol 9 or = Koppa, the Latin. Q, should have been utilized for a sound so different as p-h; nor, again, why the symbol for 0 (e) by losing its See also:cross stroke should become 4r, seeing that the sounds of B and ¢ outside Aeolic (a dialect which is not here in question) are never confused. On the other hand, if we remember the large number of symbols belonging to the pre-historic script, it will seers at least as easy to believe that the persons who, by adding new letters to the Phoenician alphabet, attempted to bring the symbols rnore into accordance with the sounds of the Greek language, may have borrowed from this older script. It is now generally admitted that the improvements of the alphabet were made by traders in the interests of See also:commerce, and that these improvements began from the great Greek See also:emporia of See also:Asia See also:Minor, above all from See also:Miletus. Symbols exactly like ¢, x, and,, (®, X, *) are found in the Carian alphabet, and transliterated by Professor See also:Sayce r as v (and ii), h and kh respectively. If the Carian alphabet goes back to the prehistoric script, why should not Miletus have borrowed them from it? We have already seen that, in the earliest alphabets of Thera and Corinth, the ordinary symbol for E in the Ionic alphabet was used for This usage brought in its See also:train another—the use of 4,/, not for 4, as in Ionic, but for in the name AAEWA CORA ='AXs ayboa, and similarly in Melos, PA `Y 111(VA l ECM = IIpatiebbeos.1 This experiment, for it was no more, belongs apparently to the latter part of the 6th 1 See especially Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology for 1895, p. 40; cf. also Kalinka, Neue Jahrbiicher fiir Philologie, iii. (1899), p. 683. Similar forms are also found in the Safa inscriptions (See also:South Semitic) with similar values, and Practorius argues (Z.D.M.G. lvi., 1902, pp. 677 if., and again, lviii., 1904, pp. 725 f.) that these were somehow borrowed by Greek in the 8th century rec., while in lxii. pp. 283 if. he argues that the reason why the Greeks borrowed 8 for the aspirated t was its form, the cross in ® being regarded as T and the surrounding circle as a variety of ^ an occasional form of a the aspirate. Here also (p. 287) as. in his Ursprung des kanaanaischen Alphabets, pp. 13 f., he argues that the two forms of the digamma F and [, and also the South Semitic m = co, could all have developed from the See also:Cyprian I =we. But proof is impossible without evidence of the intermediate steps. Inscriptiones Graecae, xii., fast. iii. Nos. 811. 1149.century, and was soon given up. As the Ionians kept the form which the people of Thera used for in the same position in their alphabet as Samech occupied in the Phoenician alphabet, there can be no doubt as to its origin. The symbol • which the Chalcidian Greeks used in the 6th century B.C. for I may be derived, according to the most widely accepted theory, from a See also:primitive form of Samech which is recorded only in the abeccdaria of the Chalcidian colonies in See also:Italy. In this case the borrowing of the Greek alphabet must long precede any Phoenician record we possess. But it is not probable that the Ionic and Phoenician developed independently from the closed form. Kretschmer, however, in several publications' takes a different view. He thinks that the guttural See also:element in t was a spirant, and therefore different from x, which is an aspirate. He points out that in See also:Naxos, in a 6th-century inscription,' in NaIiou, E;oxos and .13phou is represented by 0 *, the first element in which he regards as a form of Q =h. As x is found in the same inscription (in the form x), the guttural element must have been different, else would have been spelt x*. See also:Attica and most of the See also:Cyclades kept x for the guttural element in E (written X5. or • 5) and for x as well. On the See also:west of the Aegean a new symbol y+ was invented for the aspirate value, and this spread over the See also:main-See also:land and was carried by emigrants to See also:Rhodes, See also:Sicily and Italy. The sign x was kept in the western See also:group for the guttural spirant in which was written X *; but, as this spirant occurred nowhere else, the combination was often abbreviated, and X was used for X precisely as in the See also:Italic alphabets we shall find that F =f develops out of a combination FH. The development of symbols for the long vowels ri and w was also the See also:work of the Ionians. The h-sound ceased at a very early period to exist in Ionic, and by 80o B.C. was ignored in writing. The symbol 8 or H was then employed for the long opene-sound, a use suggested by the name of the letter, which, by the loss of the aspirate, had passed from Heta to Eta. About the same period, and probably as a sequel to this change, the Greeks of Miletus developed Q for the long open 6-sound, a form which in all probability is differentiated out of O. Centuries passed, however, before this symbol was generally adopted, Athens using only 0 for o, w and ou, the spurious diphthong, until the adoption of the whole Ionic alphabet in 403 B.C.' The discoveries of the last See also:quarter of the 19th century carried back our knowledge of the Latin alphabet by at least two centuries, although the monuments of an early age which have been discovered are only three. (a) In 188o was discovered between the Quirinal and Viminal hills a little earthenware pot of a curious shape, being, as it were, three vessels radiating from a centre, each with a See also:separate mouth at the See also:top.6 See also:Round the sides of the triangle formed by the three vessels and under the mouths runs an inscription of considerable length. The use for which the pot was intended and the purport of the inscription have been much disputed, there being at least as many interpretations as there are words in the inscription. The date is probably the early part of the 4th century n.c. Though found in See also:Rome, the See also:vessel is small enough to be easily portable, and might therefore have been brought from elsewhere in Italy. It is equally possible that the See also:potter who The inscribed the words upon it was not a native of Rome. Dvenos In. One or two points in the inscription make it doubtful scription. whether the Latin upon it is really the Latin of Rome. It is generally known as the Dvenos inscription, from the name of the maker who wrote on the vessel from right to left the inscription, part of which is DVENOS MED FECED (=feat). (b) The second of these early records is the inscription on a See also:gold fibula found at See also:Praeneste and published in 1887. The inscription runs from right to left, and is in letters which show more clearly than ever that the See also:Roman alphabet is borrowed from the alphabets of the Chalcidian Greek colonies in Italy. Its date cannot be later than the 5th and is possibly as early as the 6th century B.C. The words are MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED NVMASIOI, " See also:Marius made me for Numasius." The symbol for M has still five strokes, s has the angular form S, s. The The Praeneste inscription is earlier than the Latin change of s between fibula, vowels into r, for Numasioi is the See also:dative of the older form which corresponds to the later Numerius. The verb form ' See especially Athenische Mitteilungen, xxi. p. 426. ' Figured in Roberts's Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, p. 65. Details of the history of the individual letters will be found in separate articles. B.It is figured most accessibly in Egbert's Introduction to the Study of Latin Inscrifitions, n. 16. Latin alphabet, is remarkable. In the Dvenos inscription the perfect of facia is feted; here it is a reduplicated form with the same vowel as the present. The spelling also is interesting. The symbol K is still in ordinary use, and not merely used for abbreviations as in the classical age. But most remarkable is the representation of Latin F by FH. The reason for this is clear. The value of F in the Greek alphabet is w and not f as in Latin. Greek had no sound corresponding to Latin F, consequently an attempt is made by combining F and H to indicate the difference of sound. See also:Etruscan uses FH in the same way. As Latin, however, made the symbol V indicate not only the vowel sound u, but also the consonant sound v (i.e. English w), the sign for the digamma F was left unemployed, and as FH was a cumbrous method of representing a sound which did not exist in Greek, the second element came to be left out in writing. Thus F came to be the representative of the unvoiced labiodental spirant instead of that for the bilabial voiced spirant. Whether the form fefaked was ever See also:good Latin in Rome may be doubted, for the See also:Romans, in spite of the few See also:miles that separate Praeneste from Rome, were inclined to sneer at the pronunciation and See also:idiom of the Praenestines (cf. See also:Plautus, Triu. 609, Truc. 691 ; See also:Quintilian i. 5, 56). (c) The last, and in some respects the most important, of these records was found in 1899 under an ancient See also:pavement in the Contitium at the See also:north-west corner of the Roman See also:Forum. It is engraved upon the four sides and one bevelled edge of a See also:pillar, the top of which has been broken off. As the Forum in- writing i s 0ovalPoO766v, beginning at the bottom of scriptlon. the pillar and See also:running upwards and down again, no single See also:line of the inscription is See also:complete. Probably more than half the pillar is lost, so that it is not possible to make out the sense with certainty. The inscription is probably not older than that on the fibula from Praeneste, but has the additional See also:interest of being undoubtedly couched in the Latin of Rome. The surviving portion of the inscription contains examples of all the letters of the early alphabet, though the forms of F and B are fragmentary and doubtful. As in the Praenestine inscription, the alphabet is still the western (Chalcidian) alphabet. K is still in use as an ordinary consonant, and not limited to a symbol for abbreviations as in the classical period. The rounded form of -y is found with the value of G in R ECE I, which is probably the dative of rex. H has still the closed form 9, M has the five-stroke form, S is the three-stroke.., tending tobecomerounded. R appears in the Greek form without a tail, and V and Y are both found for the same sound. The manner of writing up and down instead of backwards and forwards across the stone is obviously appropriate to a See also:surface which is of considerable length, but comparatively narrow, a connected sense being thus much easier to observe than in writing across a narrow surface where, as in the gravestones of Melos, three lines are required for a single word. The form of the monument corresponds to that which we are told was given to the revolving wooden pillars on which the See also:laws of See also:Solon were painted. That the writing of Solon's laws, which was 0ovorpodsh66v, was also See also:vertical is rendered probable by the phrase 6 KCLTwOev v6pos in See also:Demosthenes' speech Against Aristocrales, § 28, for which See also:Harpocration is unable to See also:supply a satisfactory explanation. The differentiation of the Roman alphabet from the Greek is brought about (a) by utilizing the digamma for the unvoiced labio- dental spirant F; (b) by dropping out the aspirates 0, di, Differen- x (V/ in the Chalcidian alphabet, whence the Roman is tiatlon of derived) from the alphabet proper and employing them from Greomanek only as numerals, 0 (0) being gradually modified till it alphabet. was identified with C as though the initial of centum, See also:loo. Similarly© became in time identified with M as though the initial of mille, l000, and the See also:side strokes of x in the above form wwere flattened out till it became 1, and ultimately L, 5o. (c) After 350 B.C., at latest, there was in Latin no sound corresponding to z, which was therefore dropped. In the Chalcidian alphabet the symbol for x was placed after the symbols common to all Greek alphabets, a position which x retains in the Latin (and also in the Faliscan) alphabet. K in time passed out of use except as an abbreviation, its place being taken by C, which, as we have seen, N in the earliest inscription still g. Three points here require ex- planation: (t) Why K See also:fell into disuse; (2) why C took the place of K; (3) why the new symbol G was put in the place of the lost Z. It is clear that C must have become an equivalent of K before the latter fell out of use. There is some evidence which seems to point to a pronunciation of the voiced mutes which, like the South See also:German pronunciation of g, d, b, but slightly differentiated them from the unvoiced mutes, so that confusion might easily arise. The Etruscans, who were separated from the Romans only by the See also:Tiber, gradually lost the voiced mutes. But another cause was perhaps more po.ent. C and IC, as k was frequently written, would easily beconfused in writing, and Professor Hempl (Transactions of the American Philological Association for 1899, pp. 24 ff.) shows that the Chalcidian form of j—Z developed into shapes which might have partaken of the confusion. Owing to this confusion, the new symbol G, differentiated from C, took the place of the useless 2. In abbreviations, however, C remained as before in the value of G, as in the names See also:Gaius and Gnaeus. Y and Z were added in the last century of the See also:republic for use in transliterating Greek words containing v and .' The dialect which was most closely akin to Latin was Faliscan. The men of See also:Falerii, however, regularly took the side of the Etruscans in See also:wars with Rome, and it is clear that the civilization of the old Falerii, destroyed for its See also:rebellion in 241 B.C., was Etruscan and not Roman in See also:character. See also:Peculiar to this alphabet is the form for Much more important than the scanty remains of Faliscan is the Oscan alphabet. The history of this alphabet is different from that of Rome. It is certain from the symbols which they develop or drop that the people of See also:Campania and Samnium borrowed their alphabet from the Etruscans, who held dominion in Campania from the 8th to the 5th century n.c. Previous to the Punic wars Campania had reached a higher See also:stage of civilization than Rome. Unfortunately, the remains of that civilization arc very scanty, and our knowledge of the See also:official alphabet outside See also:Capua, and at a later period See also:Pompeii, is practically confined to two important inscriptions, the tabula Agnonensis, now in the See also:British Museum, and the See also:Cippus Abellanus, which is now kept in the Episcopal See also:Seminary at See also:Nola. Of Etruscan origin also is the Umbrian alphabet, represented first and foremost in the bronze tablets from See also:Gubbio (the ancient See also:Iguvium). The Etruscan alphabet, like the Latin, was of Chalcidian origin. That it was borrowed at an early date is shown by the fact that most of its numerous inscriptions run from right to left, though some are written (3ovaepo4n lov. That it took over the whole Chalcidian alphabet is rendered probable by the survival in Umbrian and Oscan, its daughter alphabets, of forms which are not found in Etruscan itself. This mysterious language, despite the existence of more than 600o inscriptions, and the publication in 1892 of a See also:book written in the language and handed down to us by the See also:accident of its use to See also:pack an Egyptian See also:mummy, remains as obscure as ever, but apparently it underwent very great phonetic changes at an early period, so that the voiced mutes B, D, G disappeared. Of the existence of the vowel 0 there is no evidence. If it ever existed in Etruscan, it had been lost before the Oscans and Umbrians borrowed their alphabets. On the other hand, both of their alphabets preserve B and Umbrian G in the form >. Etruscan also retained this symbol in the form j, and utilized it exactly as Latin did to replace A. Oscan, in order to represent D, introduced later a form 9, thus creating confusion between the symbols for d and for r. This form was adopted for d because Q had already been borrowed from Etruscan as the symbol for r, although q is also found on Etruscan inscriptions. For the Greek digamma Etruscan used both 1 and •-, but the former only was borrowed by the other languages. Etruscan, like Latin, used En (from right to left) to represent the sound of Latin F, but, unlike Latin, adopted B not a as the single symbol. This form it then wrote as two lozenges $, whence developed a later sign, 8, which is used also in Umbrian and Oscan. As the old digamma was kept, this new sign was placed after those borrowed from the Chalcidian alphabet. Similarly it used 4' and 2 for the Chalcidian ; Umbrian borrowed the first, Oscan the second form. The form for h was still closed 8, which Etruscan passed on to Oscan, while Umbrian modified it to 0. The form for m has five strokes; from a later form Hi the Oscan form was borrowed. Of the two sibilants, M and or S, Oscan adopted only Umbrian both M and the rounded form S. is found on Etruscan inscriptions, but hot in the alphabet series preserved; neither Umbrian nor Oscan has this form. T appears in Etruscan as y, )‘, and X; of these Umbrian borrows the first two, while Oscan has a form T like Latin. Etruscan took over the three Greek aspirates, 0, ¢, x, in their Chalcidian forms; 0 survives in Umbrian as 0, the others naturally disappear. Both Umbrian and Oscan devised two new symbols. Umbrian Gardthausen, Ursprung and Entwickelung der griechischlateinischen Schrift " (Germanisch-romanische Itlonatsschrift, i. (1909), pp. 337 ff.) argues for a " proto-Tyrrhenian " alphabet from which Etruscan, Umbrian and Oscan descended as one group, and Faliscan and Latin as the other. Evidence in favour of such a position for the Latin alphabet is not forthcoming. took over from Etruscan perhaps the sign q, but gave it the new value of a spirant which developed out of an earlier d-sound, but which is written in the Latin alphabet with rs. The second Umbrian symbol was d, which was the representative of an s-sound developed by palatalizing an earlier k. In Oscan, which had an o-sound, but no symbol for it, a new sign was invented by placing a dot between the legs of the symbol for u—V. This, however, is found only in the best-written documents, and on some materials the dot cannot be distinguished. The symbol I- was invented for the open i-sound and close 0-sound.' At a much later epoch it was introduced into the Latin alphabet by the See also:emperor See also:Claudius to represent y, and the sound which was written as i or u in See also:maximus, maxumus, &c. Besides the Italic alphabets already mentioned, which are all derived from the alphabet of the Chalcidian Greek colonists in Italy, there were at least four other alphabets in use in different parts of Italy: (I) the Messapian of the south-See also:east part of the See also:peninsula, in which the inscriptions of the Illyrian dialect in use there were written, an alphabet which, according to See also:Pauli (Alt-italische Forschungen, iii. See also:chap. ii.) was borrowed from the Locrian alphabet; (2) the See also:Sabellic alphabet, derived from that of Corinth and Corcyra, and found in a few inscriptions of eastern-central Italy; (3) the alphabet of the See also:Veneti of north-east Italy derived from the Elean; (4) the alphabet of See also:Sondrio (between Lakes See also:Como and See also:Garda), which Pauli, on the insufficient ground that it possesses no symbols corresponding to ¢ and x, derives from a source at the same stage of development as the oldest alphabets of Thera, Melos and Crete. From the fact that upon the Galassi See also:vase (unearthed at Cervetri, but probably a.product of See also:Caere), which is now in the Gregorian Museum of the Vatican, a syllabary is found along with one of the most archaic Greek alphabets, and that a similar combination was found upon the See also:wall of a See also:tomb at Colle, near See also:Siena, it has been argued that syllabic preceded alphabetic writing in Italy. But a syllabary where each syllable is made by the combinations of a symbol for a consonant with that for a vowel can furnish no proof of the existence of a syllabary in the strict sense, where each symbol represents a syllable; it is rather evidence against the existence of such writing. , The syllabary upon the Galassi vase indicates in all probability that the vase, which resembles an See also:ink-See also:bottle, be-longed to a See also:child, for whose edification the syllables pa, pi, pe, pu and the See also:rest were intended. The evidence adduced from the Latin grammarians, and from abbreviations on Latin inscriptions like Tubs for lubens, is not sufficient to establish the theory.
It has been argued that the See also:runes of the See also:Teutonic peoples have been derived from a form of the Etruscan alphabet, in-
7eutoelc scriptions in which are spread over a great part of MRCS. northern Italy, but of which the most characteristic
are found in the neighbourhood of See also:Lugano, and in See also:Tirol near See also:Innsbruck, See also:Botzen and See also:Trent. The Danish See also:scholar L. F. A. Wimmer, in his great work Die Runenschrift (See also:Berlin, 1887), contends that the resemblance, though striking, is superficial. Wimmer's own view is that the runes were developed from the Latin alphabet in use at the end of the and century A.D. Wimmer supports his thesis with great learning and ingenuity, and when See also:allowance is made for the fact that a script to be written upon See also:wood, as the runes were, of See also:necessity avoids See also:horizontal lines which run along the See also:fibres of the wood, and would therefore be indistinct, most of the runic signs thus receive a plausible explanation. The strongest See also:argument for the derivation from the Latin alphabet is undoubtedly the value off attaching to ; for, as we have seen, the Greek value of this symbol is w, and its value as f arises only by abbreviation from FH. On the other hand, several of Wimmer's equations are undoubtedly forced. Even if we See also: Moreover, the date of the borrowing seems too late. The runes are found in all Teutonic countries, and the Romans were in close contact with the Germans on the See also:Rhine before the beginning
' For further details of these alphabets, see See also:Conway, The Italic Dialects, ii. pp. 458 if. The recent discovery by Keil and Premerstein (Denkschriften der Wiener Akademie, fill., 1908) of Lydian inscriptions containing the symbol a suggests that the old derivation of the Etruscans from See also:Lydia may be true and that they brought this symbol with them (see See also:article on F). But the inscriptions are not yet deciphered, so that conclusive proof is still wanting.of the Christian era. We hear of See also:correspondence between the Romans and German chieftains in the early days of the empire. It is See also:strange, therefore, if the Roman alphabet, which formed the See also:model for the runes, was that of two whole centuries later, and even then the formal alphabet of inscriptions. By that time the Teutons were likely to have more convenient materials than wood whereon to write, so that the See also:adaptation of the forms would not have been necessary. That the Germans were familiar with some sort of marks on wood at a much earlier period is shown by See also:Tacitus's Germania, chap. x. There we are told that for purposes of See also:divination certain signs were scratched on slips of wood from a See also:fruit-bearing See also:tree (including, no doubt, the See also:beech; cp. book, German See also:Buck, and Buchstabe, a letter of the alphabet); the slips were thrown down promiscuously on a See also: Each See also:man then pro-See also:cures a piece of wood or stone, on which he puts a private mark. These lots are put in a heap, and an outsider is called in who throws one See also:lot or kaivel upon each heap of fish. Each fisherman then finds his kaivel, and the heap on which it lies is his. This system of " casting kaivels," as it is called, is certainly of great antiquity. But its existence will not help to prove an early knowledge of See also:reading or writing, for in order that everything may be See also:fair, it is clear that the See also:umpire should not be able to identify the lot as belonging to a particular individual. It has, however, been contended that a system of primitive runes existed whence some at least of the later runes were borrowed, and the ownership marks of the Lapps, who have no knowledge of reading and writing, have been regarded as borrowed from these early Teutonic runes .2 Be this as it may, the resemblances between the runic and the Mediterranean alphabets are too great to admit of denial that it is from a Greek alphabet, whether directly or indirectly, that the runes are derived. That Wimmer postdates the introduction of the runic alphabet seems clear from the archaic forms and method of writing. It is very unlikely that a people borrowing an alphabet which was uniformly written from left to right should have used it in order to write from right to left, or (3ovvrpod&bv. Hence Hempl contends3 that Wimmer's view must be discarded, and that the runes were derived about 600 B.C. from a western Greek alphabet which closely resembled the Formello alphabet (one of the ancient Chalcidian abecedaria) and the Sabellic and North Etruscan alphabets. He thus fixes the date at the same period as See also:Isaac See also: If this view (which is identical with Taylor's) be true, we have a parallel in the Armenian alphabet, which is similarly used for a new value of the sounds. Hempl, on the other hand, contends that the sound-shifting had already taken place, and, arguing that several of the symbols have changed places (e.g. V f and a, C) u and 8 b, because at this time b was a bilabial spirant and not a stop), ultimately obtains an order—a b d e f z kgw h i j . p r s t u l m n tt o. As neither Gundermann nor Hempl has published the full evidence for his view, no definite conclusion at the moment is possible. 2 R. M. See also:Meyer, See also:Paul Braune and Sievers' Beitrage, xxi. (1896), pp. 162 if. 3 In a paper published in the See also:volume of Philologische Studien, presented as a " Festgabe " to Professor Sievers in 1896, and in a second paper in the Journal of Germanic Philology, ii. (1899), pp. 370 if. * See Literaturblatt fur germanische and romanische Philologie for 1897, See also:col. 429 f. In one of the earliest runic records which we possess, the See also:pendant found at Vadstena in See also:Sweden in 1774, and dating from about gam A.D. 600 (see Plate). the signs are divided up into three wining. series of eight (the twenty See also:fourth, being omitted for want of See also:room). Upon the basis of this See also:division a system of See also:cryptography (in the sense that the symbols are unintelligible without knowledge of the runic alphabet) was developed, wherein the series and the position within the series of the letter indicated, were each represented by straight strokes, the strokes for the series being shorter than those for the runes, or the series being represented by strokes to the left, the runes by strokes to the right, of a medial line.' From this system probably developed the ogam writing employed among the See also:Celtic peoples of See also:Britain and See also:Ireland. The ogam inscriptions in See also:Wales are frequently accompanied by Latin legends, and they date probably as far back as the 5th and 6th centuries A D. Hence the connexion between See also:Celt and Teuton as regards writing must go back to a period preceding the See also:Viking inroads of the 8th century. Taylor, however, conjectures (The Alphabet, ii. p 227) that the ogams originated in See also:Pembroke, " where there was a very ancient Teutonic See also:settlement, possibly of See also:Jutes, who, as is indicated by the evidence of runic inscriptions found in See also:Kent, seem to have been the only Teutonic people of southern Britain who were acquainted with the See also:Gothic Futhoro." However this may be, the ogam alphabet shows some knowledge of phonetics and some attempt to classify the sounds accordingly. The symbols are as follows':729 much discussion authorities on See also:Slavonic seem generally agreed that it was the Glagolitic (the name is derived from the Old Bulgarian, i.e old ecclesiastical Slavonic glagolu, " word "). According to Professor Leskien (Grammatik der altbulgarischen (alt kirchenslavischen) Sprache, See also:Heidelberg, 1909, p. xxi.), See also:Cyril had probably made a prolonged and careful study of Slavonic before proceeding on his missionary See also:journey, and probably in the first instance with a view to See also:preaching the See also:Gospel to the Slays of See also:Macedonia and See also:Bulgaria, who were much nearer his own See also:home, Thessalonica, than were those of See also:Moravia. The Glagolitic was founded upon the ordinary Greek minuscule writing of the period, as was shown by Dr Isaac Taylor,' though the writing of the letters separately without abbreviations and an obvious attempt at See also:artistic effect has gradually differentiated it from Greek writing. This alphabet, which is much more difficult to read than the bolder See also:Cyrillic founded on the Greek uncial, survived for ordinary purposes in Croatia and in the islands of the Quarnero till the 17th century. The Servians and Russians apparently always used the Cyrillic, and its advantages gradually ousted the Glagolitic elsewhere, though the service book in the old ecclesiastical language which is used by the Roman See also:Catholic Croats is in Glagolitic.4
While the Carian and Lycian were probably See also:independent of the Greek in origin, so, too, at the opposite end of the Mediterranean was the Iberian. On the other hand, the Phrygian was phrygian. very closely akin to the Greek in alphabet as well as in
linguistic character. The Greek alphabet, with which it was most
Symbols of Ogam Alphabet.
m g rig //(T z) r a o u e i
/ I l l / I l / I I I I I I l t 111 I 111 1 1
I /I /11 See also:Ill/ /ill/ I II III IPI I II See also:Iit
A d t e q
1 II III 1111 11111
I I I H H H H H I
b t v s n
The form of the ogam alphabet made it easy to carve hastily; hence in the old sagas, when a See also:hero is killed we find the common See also:formula, " His See also:grave was dug and his stone was raised, and his name was written in ogam." According to Sophus See also: Such an elaborate alphabet could hardly have been invented except by a scholar, and tradition, probably rightly, has attached the See also:credit for its invention to Cyril (originally See also:Constantine), who along with his See also:brother See also:Methodius proceeded in A.D. 863 to Moravia from See also:Constantinople, for the purpose of converting the Slavonic inhabitants to See also:Christianity. The only question which concerns us here is which of the two alphabets was the earlier in use, and after
A See also:species of cryptography exactly like this, based upon the
abjad '' order of the Arabic letters, is still in use among the Eastern Persians (E G. See also: Professor RhSis, who at one time considered runes and ogam to be connected, now thinks that ogam was the invention of a grammarian in South Wales who was familiar with Latin letters. closely connected, was the Western, for the evidence is strongly in favour of the form '0 having the value of x, not ¢, in Phrygian, as it certainly has in the Etruscan inscription found on See also:Lemnos in 1886, which is in an alphabet practically identical. To a much later era belongs the Armenian alphabet, which, according to tradition, was revealed to See also:Bishop Mesrob in a See also:dream. The land might have been Grecized had it not, about Armenian. A.D. 387, been divided between See also:Persia and See also:Byzantium, the greater part falling to the former, who discouraged Greek and favoured See also:Syriac, which the Christian Armenians did not understand. As those within See also:Persian territory were forbidden to learn Greek, an Armenian Christian literature became a necessity. Taylor contends that the alphabet is Iranian in origin, but the circuits. stances justify Gardthausen and Hubschmann in claiming it for Greek. That some symbols are like Persian only shows that Mesrob was not able to rid himself of the influences under which he lived. Of the later development of Phoenician amongst Phoenician people little need be said here. It can be traced in the graffiti of the mercenaries of See also:Psammetichus at See also:Abu Simbel in Upper Egypt, where Greeks, Carians and Phoenicians all cut their names upon the legs of the See also:colossal statues. Still later it is found on the See also:stele of Byblos, and on the See also:sarcophagus of Eshmunazar (about 300 s.c.). The most numerous inscriptions come from the excavations in See also:Carthage, the ancient colony of See also:Sidon. One See also:general feature characterizes them all, though they differ somewhat in detail. The symbols become longer and thinner; in fact, cease to be the script of monuments and become the script of a busy trading people. While the Phoenician alphabet was thus fertile in developing daughter alphabets in the West, the progress of writing was no less great in the East, first among the Semitic peoples, and through them among other peoples still more remote. The carrying of the alphabet to the Greeks by the Phoenicians at an early period affords no See also:clue to the period when Semitic ingenuity constructed an alphabet out of a heterogeneous multitude of signs. If it be possible to assign to some of the monuments discovered in See also:Arabia by See also:Glaser a date not later than 15c.00 s.c., the origin of the alphabet and its dissemination are carried back to a much earlier period than had hitherto been supposed. Next in date amongst Semitic records of the Phoenician type to the bowl of Baal-Lebanon and the Moabite stone comes the Hebrew inscription found in the See also:tunnel at the See also:Pool of Siloam in 1881, which possibly See also:dates back to the reign of See also:Hezekiah (700 B.C.). The only other early records are See also:seals with Hebrew inscriptions and potters' marks upon See also:clay vessels found in See also:Lachish and other towns.' ' Archie fur slavische Philologie, V. 191 ff., where the Glagolitic and the cursive Greek, the Cyrillic and the Greek uncial are set side by side in facsimile. 4 For further details and references to literature see the introduction to Leskien's Grammatik (not to be confused with his Handbuch), from which this is abbreviated. s These are figured most accessibly in Lidzbarski's article on the alphabet in the Jewish See also:Encyclopaedia, vol. i. (19o1); see also his table of symbols added to the 27th edition of Gesenius' Hebraischer Grammatik (1902). Like the Phoenician, these Hebrew signs are distinctly cursive in character, but, as the See also:legend on the coins of the See also:Maccabees shows, became stereotyped for monumental use, while the See also:Jews after the See also:exile gradually adopted the Aramaic writing, whence the square Hebrew script is descended. The See also:Samaritans alone See also:stuck fast to the old Hebrew as part of their contention that they, and not the Jews, were the true See also:Hebrews. The oldest records in Aramaic were found at Sindjirli, in the north of See also:Syria, in 189o, and date to about 800 B.C. At this epoch the Aramaic alphabet, or at any See also:rate the alphabet of these Aramaic. records, is but little different from that shown upon the Moabite stone. Either two sounds are confused under one symbol, or these records represent a dialect which, like Hebrew and Assyrian, shows sh, z, and c, where the ordinary Aramaic representation is t, d, and t, the Arabic tb, dh, and th. The Aramaic became in time by far the most important of the northern Semitic alphabets. Even while long and important documents in Assyria were still written on clay tablets, in cuneiform, a See also:docket or precis of the contents was made upon the side in Aramaic, which thus became the alphabet of cursive writing—a fact which explains its later development. Two changes, the inception of which is early, but the completion of which belongs to the Persian period, gave the impulse which Aramaic obeyed in all its later developments. These were (a) the opening of the heads of letters, so that beth daleth , and resh 4 become respectively y, y, and L-+, while O becomes first U and ultimately V. In the later development the heads tend to be reduced in See also:size, and finally to disappear. (b) As was natural in cursive writing, angles tend to become rounded, and the tails of the letters, which in Phoenician are very long, are curved round in the See also:middle of words so as to join on to the succeeding letter. These characteristics were naturally emphasized in the Aramaic writing on papyrus which, beginning about 50o B.C., during the Persian See also:sovereignty in Egypt, lasted on there till about 200 B.C. The See also:gradual development of this script into the square Hebrew, and the more ornamental writing of See also:Palmyra, may be traced in the See also:works of Berger and Lidzbarski'1
In the land of the See also:Nabataeans, a people of Arabian origin, the Aramaic alphabet was employed in a form which ultimately de-Arab;c. veloped into the modern Arabic alphabet. Probably the
earliest example of the Aramaic script in Arabia is the stele of Tema, in north-western Arabia, whereon is commemorated the See also:establishment of a See also:worship of an Aramaic divinity. This monument, now in the Louvre, is not later than the 5th century B.C. In it the writing preserves its ancient form, the heads of the closed letters being only very slightly opened. The Nabataean inscriptions belong to a different epoch and a different See also:style. They were first discovered by See also: Another form of the Aramaic alphabet, namely, the so-called Estrangela writing which was in use amongst the Christians of northern Syria, was carried by Nestorian missionaries into Central Asia and became the ancestor of a multitude of alphabets spreading through the Turkomans as far east as See also:Manchuria. There still remains a branch of the Semitic languages which, except for oae or two of the languages belonging to it, was practically South unknown till recent years. This is the South Semitic. Semitic. Till the 19th century the earliest form known of this alphabet was the Ethiopian or Geez, in which Christian documents have been preserved from the early centuries of our era, and which is still used by the Abyssinians for liturgical purposes. The travels of two English See also:naval See also:officers, Wellsted and Cruttenden, through See also:Yemen in southern Arabia in 1835, first called See also:attention to the earlier monuments of Arabia. Fulgence See also:Fresnel first established the importance of the inscriptions discovered by these Englishmen, and in 1843, when French See also:consul at Jeddah, obtained through a French traveller, See also:Francois See also:Arnaud, See also:information about other monuments of the same See also:kind. In 1869 See also:Joseph See also:Halevy brought back 'See Berger's Histoire de l'ecriture dans l'antiquite, p. 252 ff.; Lidzbarski, Nordsemitische Epigraphik, p. 186 if., from whom this summary is taken. Lidzbarski's second volume and G. A. See also:Cooke's Textbook of North-Semitic Inscriptions (See also:Oxford, 1903) contain the most convenient collections of Northern Semitic inscriptions for the student's purposes.nearly seven See also:hundred inscriptions from Yemen, and this number has been increased from other quarters by several thousands, through the See also:energy of several adventurous scholars, but chiefly by Eduard Glaser's repeated journeys. The south Arabian inscriptions to which the terms Himyaritic and Sabaean are applied fall into two See also:groups, the Sabaean proper and the Minaean. These are distinguished by differences in See also:grammar and phraseology rather than in alphabet. The relative age of the Minaean and Sabaean monuments is a matter of dispute amongst Semitic scholars. Inscriptions in a kindred dialect were brought from El-01a, in the north of the Hedjaz, by Professor Euting. To these D. H. Miiller z gave the See also:title of Lihyanite, from the name of the tribe (Lihjan) to which they belong. Their date is supposed to be earlier than that of the Sabaean and Minaean. Minaean inscriptions were found at the same place, the Minaeans having had a trading station there. In 1893 J. See also:Theodore See also:Bent copied carefully at Yeha in See also:Abyssinia a few inscriptions, some of which had been already copied in 1814 by the English traveller See also:Salt. These inscriptions are of the greatest importance, because they demonstrate, according to D. H. See also:Milner,' that the Sabaean¢ had colonized Abyssinia as early as loon B.C. Other inscriptions copied by Bent at Aksum belong to the 4th century A.D. and later. Two of the earliest are written in Sabaean characters, but in the language which is known as Geez or Ethiopic. From about A.D. 500 Ethiopic was written in an alphabet which according to Muller was no gradual growth but an ingenious See also:device of a Greek scholar of this period at the See also:court of Abyssinia. The Sabaean, like other Semitic, inscriptions are generally written from right to left, but a few are /3overpottiniov; the Ethiopic is written from left to right, and makes a marked advance upon the ordnary Semitic manner of writing by indicating the vowels. This is done by varying the form of the consonant according to the vowel which follows it. The Ethiopic system is thus rather a syllabary than an alphabet. It is noticeable that the changes thus established were made upon the basis of the old Sabaean script, which in its oldest form is evidently closely related to the old Phoenician, though it would be premature to say that the Sabaean alphabet is derived from the Phoenician. It is as likely, considering the date of both, that they are equally descendants from an older source. The characteristics of the Sabaean are great squareness and boldness in outline. It has twenty-nine symbols, whereby it is enabled to differentiate certain sounds which are not distinguished from one another in the writing of the northern Semites. As we have seen, it is a tendency in northern Semitic to open the heads of letters, and therefore it is possible that the Sabaean form for Jod 4 may be older4 than the Phoenician A,. Similarly if Pe means mouth, Hommel is right in contending that the Sabaean is more like the See also:object than the Phoenician ,), if we suppose the form, like or the Phoenician W and for the Phoenician 141, turned through an angle of 90°. So also if Kaf corresponds to the Babylonian Kappu, " hollow-hand," the Sabaean form FI which Hommel5 interprets as the outline of the hand with the fingers turned in and the thumb raised is a better pictograph than the various meaningless forms of k (1, &c.). The See also:rock inscriptions in the See also:wild See also:district of Safah near See also:Damascus which have been collected by Halevy are also written in an Arabic dialect, but, owing chiefly to their careless See also:execution, they are to a large extent unintelligible. The character appears to be akin to the Sabaean. It has been suggested that they were the work of Arabs who had wandered thus far from the south. There still remain for discussion the alphabets of the Indo-European peoples of Persia and See also:India from which the other alphabets of the Farther East are descended. When See also:Darius in 516 B.C. caused the great See also:Behistun inscription to be engraved, it was Persia. the cuneiform writing, already long in use for the languages of See also:Mesopotamia, that was adopted for this purpose. We have seen that at See also:Babylon itself the Aramaic language and character were well known. It is probable therefore, a priori, that from the Aramaic alphabet the later writing of Persia should be developed. The conclusion is confirmed by the coins, the only records with Iranian script which go back so far; but the special form of Aramaic from which the Iranian alphabet is derived must at present be left undecided. The later developments of the Iranian alphabet are the See also:Pahlavi and the Zend, in which the MSS. of the Avesta are written. Of these See also:manuscripts none is older than the 13th century A.D. The Pahlavi is properly the alphabet of the See also:Sassanid kings who ruled in Persia from A.D. 226 till the Arab conquest in the 7th century A.D. Under the Sassanids the old Persian worship, which had fallen with the Achaemenid See also:dynasty in See also: 5 Hommel, Sud-arabische Chrestomathie (See also:Munich, 1893), p. 5. had been neglected by the subsequent Arsacid line, was revived and the remains of its liturgical literature collected. The name is, however, also applied to the alphabet on the coins of the See also:Parthian or Arsacid dynasty, which in its beginnings was clearly under Greek influence; while later, when a knowledge of Greek had disappeared, the attempts to imitate the old legends are as See also:grotesque as those in western Europe to copy the inscriptions on Roman coins. The relationship between the Pahlavi and the Aramaic is clearest in the records written in the " Chaldaeo-Pahlavi " characters; the a conclusion which is not invalidated by the fact that some important modifications are found beyond this area, nor by Dr See also:Stein's discovery of a great See also:mass of documents in this alphabet at See also:Khotan in See also:Turkestan, for, according to tradition, the ancient inhabitants of Khotan were emigrants banished in the time of King Agoka from the area to which Buhler assigns this alphabet (see Stein's Preliminary See also:Report, 1901, p. 51). 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