The Arabic letters and the Arabic numerals are, with sone modifications, in use amongst tho Mu harimiadans of Arabia, Persia, Turkey. Turkestan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and India. aud the writing forms receive the names of Toghra, Nashk, Talik, Nashk-Talik, Shafia, Raqm, and Shakastah. The Cufic alphabet is not now in use.
The Christian missionaries, also, have effected great things in establishing the best of the many dialects current amongst the tribes, as among the Malay of the Archipelago and the Hindi-speaking nations of Hindustan and the Panjab.
Pahlavi group.—The primitive Semitic alphabet has had three branches,—the Phcenician, the Joktanite, and the Aramean. From the Phcenician came the alphabets of Europe ; those of India were from the Joktanite • while the Aramean be came the source of the alphabets employed by the various non-Semitic races in the provinces of the Persian empire, and it exterminated the other Semitic scripts of Western Asia. This group is usually called the Pahlavi. .
Iranian.—The four alphabets of the Iranian group have been designated the Indo-Bactrian, the Pahlavi, the Armenian and the Georgian. The three Pahlavi alphabet's are the Arsacidan, Sassanian, and Parsee„ The Arsacidan type was developed in Persia during the period of the Parthian empire, B.C. 256 to A.D. 226. The Sassanian or Pahlavi proper was formed during the Sassanian dynasty, A.n. 226 to 651.
The Parsee or Indian Pahlavi, often called the Zend alphabet, is that which was used by the Parsee fug,itives after their flight to India. Th6 Armenian and Georgian alphabets are the only living representatives of the Iranian alphabet, the Parsee being understood and used only by au ecclesiastical class. St. Mesrob, A.D. 400 (for he was canonized), had been a secretary at the court of the Armenian kings Varazdates and Arsaces but resigned in order to follow a religious life. Moses of Chorene gives Mesrob the credit of con structing the Armenian alphabet, and Moses used it in his translation of the New Testament into the Armenian.
India.—The distinct alphabets employed in India outnumber all the other alphabets used in the remainder of the world. But the vernacular scripts divide themselves into four or five great classes, essentially coincident with divisions of race, lanomae-e, or religion ; and besides, there are in use the afphabets of Annam, Arabia, Armenia, Baluchistan, China, Afghanistan, and Syria (Karshuni), with peculiar local varieties of the Nashki alphabet, which have arisen in Bombay, Malabar, Sind, and Sing,apore.
There are nearly twenty alphabets descended from the Devanagari script, in which the Sanskrit literature is mostly conserved. Others have been derived from the Pali, the old alphabet of the Buddhist scriptures ; about twelve belong to the Dravidian family of alphabets, nearly as many to the Gujerati or Western type, and others to the Eastern or Bengali class. .
Mr. H. T. Prinsep gave the following list of transitions of the Indian alphabet from the time of Asoka, with some of the mecst• marked local varieties at present in use, viz. the. used in the sculptures of Asoka's edicts of the 3d Valabhi plates from Guje century B.C. rat.
"Western caves. Kutila, inscription of the Sah inscription at Girnar. 10th centur A.D Gupta inscription at Allah- Bareilly. Y •' abad.
Nerbadda. . Gujerati.
Kistna. Panjabi.
Telinga, modern. Kashmiri.
Tibetan, modern. Bengali.
Square Pali. Devanagari.
And he gave the following ten modifications of the Sanskrit alphabet from B.C. 543 to A.D. 1200, viz.— Fifth century The.; rise of Buddhism.
1Vestern caves.
Third century The., Sanskrit inscriptions of Asoka, Junagarh.
Second century A.D., Gujerat dated plates.
Fifth century A.D., Allahabad inscriptions of the Gupta dynasty.
Seventh century A.D., Tibetan alphabet formed from Sansltt•it.
Ninth century A.D., Kntila inscriptions from Bareilly, A.D. 992.
Eleventh century A.D., Bengali alphabet as now modi fied. Adisur, A.D. 1065.
Modern Devanagari alphabet.
Old Pali alphabet of the Burmese, compared with A.D. 200.
Dr. Isaac Taylor, however, has since arranged the alphabets of India into two classes,—the ancient and the, modern or vernacular.
From the 3d century n.c. to the 10th century A.D., thirteen ancient alphabets were in use in India. They comprise — (1) Maurya from the inscription of Asoka at Girnar ; (2) the Andhra of the western cave temples • (3) that of the Sah or Kshatrapa at Girnar ; '(4) tbe Gupta on the Allahabad pillar ; (5) the Valabhi from the Gujerat plates ; (6) the Claalukya or Kistna from the Amaravati plates ; (7) the Nerbadda from the Seoni plates ; (8) that of the Assam inscrip tion ; (9) the Kutila alphabet of Barcilly ; (10) the Kiousa or lapidary Pali ; (11) the Tibetan ; (12) the Passepa ; and (13) the Devanagari.