ALPHABET, in matters of literature, the natural or accustomed series of the several letters ofa language.
As alphabets were not contrived with design, or according to the just rules of analogy and reason, but have been suc cessively framed and altered, as occasion required, it is not surmising that many grievous complaints have been heard of their deficiencies, and divers attempts made to establish new and morc adequate ones in their place All the alphabets extant are charged by Bishop Wilkins with great irregularities, with respect both to order, number, pow er, figure, Ste.
As to the order, it appears (says he) inartificial, precatious, and confused, as the vowels and consonants are not redn ced into classes, with such order of pre cedence and subsequence as their natures will bear. Of this imperfection, the Greek alphabet, which is one of the least defective is far from being free : for in stance, the Greeks should have separated the consonants from the vowels; after the vowels they should have placed the diphthongs, and then the consonants ; whereas inflict the order is so perverted that we find the obt,,,t fiy,the fifteenth letter in order of the alphabet, and the to,tte7a or long o, the twenty fourth and last, the s the fifth, and the 4 the seventh.
With respect to tie number, they are both redundant and deficient ; redundant by allotting the same sound to several letters, as in the Latin c and k, f and ph ; or by reckoning double letters among the simple elements of speech, as in the Greek g and .4„ the Latin q or cu, x and the j consonant ; deficient in many respects, pa.rticularly with regard to vow els, of which seven or eight kinds are commonly used, though. the Latin alpha bet takes notice only of five. Add to this, that the difference among them with re gard to long and short, is not suificiently provided against.
The powers, again, are not more ex empt from confusion; the vowels, for in stance, are generally acknowledged to have each of them seVeral different sounds; and among the consonants we need only bring, as evidence of their dif ferent pronunciation, the letter e in the word circa, ands- in the word negliffence.
Hence it happens, that some words am differently written, though pronounced in the same manner, as ceseio and sessio ; and others are different in pronunciation, which are the smile in writing, as give, dare, andgive, 'vinculum.
Finally, the figures are but ed, there being nothing in the characters of the vowels answerable to the different manner of pronunciation ; nor in the con sonants analagous to their agreements or disagreements.
Alphabets of different nations vary in the number of their constituent letters. The English alphabet contains twenty four letters, to which ifj and v consonants are added, the sum will be twenty-six ; the French twenty-three ; the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan, twenty two each; the _Arabic, twenty eight ; the Persian, thirty-one ; the Turkish, thirty three ; the Georgian thirty-six; the Cop tic thirty-two; the Muscovite, forty three ; the Greek, twenty-four ; the La tin, twenty-two ; the Selavonic, twenty seven ; the Dutch, twenty-six; the Span ish, twenty seven ; the Italian, twenty; the Ethiopic, as well as Tartarian, two hundred and two ; the Indians of Ben gal, twenty-one ; the Baramos, nineteen; the Chinese, properly speaking, have no alphabet, except we call their whole language their alphabet; their letters are words, or rather hieroglyphics, and. amount to about 80,000.
lf alphabets had been constructed by able persons, after a fall examination of the subject, they would not have been filled with such cuntradictions between the ntanner of writing and reading, as we have shown above, nor witlt those imper fections that evidently appear in tlie al. phabets of every nation. air. Lodowick, however, and Bishop Wilkins, have en deavoured to obviate all these, thcir universal alphabets or characters. See CH AnAcTEn.