The Pheenicians and Egyptians are not the only an cient nations that have preferred a claim to the en tion of the alphabet; the Chaldeans, the Syrians, the Persians, and the Arabians, have all made the same pre tension, and have all had their respective advocates. But the grounds of their pretensions appear to be by far too vague to establish their claim.
According to some late writers, the pretensions of the Indians to this honour rest upon better grounds. The Sanscrit, or more refined language of that country, is supposed to be one of the most ancient in the world. and the parent of almost every dialect fromc the Persian Gulf to the Chinese Sea. The Ilindoos assert, that they were in possession of letters before anv other na tion in the world ; and that many of their ancient books describe the Egyptians, and other nations of antiquity. as their disciples, and as seeking in Ilindostan that in struction which their own country did not afford. But extravagant pretensions to antiquity are common to all nations, and many of the assigned dates of the ancient Hindoo writings have been proved to be highly exag gerated, or altogether fabulous.
Among these different pretensions, it is not very- to come to a certain determination. Astle, after stating the claims of the several nations, thus estimates their validity : "The vanity of each nation induces it to pretend to the most early civilization ; but such is the uncertainty of ancient history, that it is difficult to decide to whom the honour is due. lt, however, should seem, from what bath been advanced, that the contest may be confined to the Egyptians, the Phamicians, and the Chaldeans. The Greek writers, and most of those who have copied them, decide in favour of Egypt, be cause their information is derived from the Egyptians themselves. The positive claim of the Pheenicians cloth not depend upon the sole testimony of Sanchunia tho, as the credit of his history is so well supported by Philo of Biblus his translator, Porphyry, Pliny, Curtius, Liman, and other ancient authors, who might have seen his works entire, and whose relations deserve at least as much credit as those of the Egyptian and Greek writers.
" The Phoenician and Egyptian languages arc ver!, similar, but the latter is said to be more huge and full, which is an indication of its being of a later date The opinion of Mr Wise, however, that the anrien. Egyptians had not the knowledge of letters, see ms t. be erroneous ; as they had commercial intercourse with their neighbours the Phoenicians. they prubabl? had the knowledge of letters, if their policy, like that of the Chinese at this day, did not prohibit time use of them.
" The Chaldeans, who cultivated astronomy in the most remote ages, used symbols, or arbitrary marks, in their calculations ; and we have shown, that flit se were the parents of letters. This circumstance favours their claim to the invention ; because Chaldea. and the countries adjacent, are allowed by all authors, both sacred and profane, to have been peopled be fore Egypt ; and it is certain, th.Lt niany nations, said to be descended from Slim Iaphet. had their letters from the Phrunicians, who were descended from Ham.
It is observable, that the Chaldeans, the Syrians, Phoenicians, and Egyptians, all bordered upon each other ; and as the Pncenicians were the greatest, as well as the most ancient commercial nation, it is very prol)able that they communicated letters to tile Egyp tians, the ports of Tyre and Sidon being not far distant Irons each other.
" \1r Jackson is evidently mistaken when he says, that letters were invented 2619 years before the birth of Christ. The deluge, recorded by Moses, was 2349 years before that event ; and if letters were not invented till 550 years after, as he asserts, we date their discovery only 1799 years before the Christian xra, which is 410 years alter the reign of cues, tire first king of Egypt, who, according to Syneellus and others, is said to have been the same person with the Misor of Sanconiatho, the Mizraim of the Scriptures, and the Osiris of the Egyptians ; but whether this be true or not, Egypt is frequently called in Scripture, the Land of .31trraim.
"This Mizraim, the second son of Amyn, or Ham, seated himself near the entrance of Egypt, at Zoan, in the year before Christ 2188, and 160 years after the llood. He zf,eywards built Thebes, and some say :Memphis. Before the time that he went into Egypt, his son Taaut had invented letters in Phoenicia; and if this invention took place ten years before the migration of his father into Egypt, as Mr Jackson supposes, we may trace letters as far back as the year 2178 before Christ, or 150 years after the deluge recorded by Moses ; and beyond this period, the written annals of mankind, which have been hitherto transmitted to us, will not enable us to trace the knowledge of them ; though this want of materials is no proof that letters were not known until a century and an half after the deluge. As for
the pretensions of the Indian nations, we must he bet ter acquainted with their records before we can admit of their claim to the first use of letters ; especially as none of their manuscripts of any great antiquity have yet appeared in Europe. That the Arabians were not the inventors of letters, has appeared by their own con fession. Plato somewhere mentions Hyperborean let ters very difrerent from the Greek ; these might have been the characters used by the Tartars, or ancient Scythians." Mr Astle having thus balanced the evidence in fa your of the various claimants to the invention of the alphabet, makes also observations on the subject of an tediluvian letters. " It may he expected," says he " that something should be said concerning those books men tioned by some authors to have been written before the deluge. Amongst ethers, Dr Parsons, in his Remains of .1aphet, p. 546-359, supposes letters to have been known to Adam ; and the Sabians produce a book which they pretend was written by Adam. But concerning these, we have no guide to direct us any more than con cerning the supposed books of Enoch ; some of Which, Origen tell us, were found in Arabia Felix, in the domin ions of the queen of Saba. Tertullian affirms, that he saw and read several pages of them ; and in his treatise De Habitt :Ilulturum, he places those books among the can onical : but St Jerome and St Austin look upon them to be apocryphal. William Postellus pretended to com pile his book De Origmibus, from the book of Enoch; and Thomas Bangius published at Copenhagen, in 1657, a Nl which contains many singular relations concern ing the nuttier of writing among the antediluvians., h ich contains several pleasant stories concerning the books of Enot it. With regard to this patriarch, indeed, St Jude imurms us that he pr,Mested ; but he does not say that he wrote. Tie writings, therefore, attributed to the antediluvians, must appear quite uncertain, though it might be improper to assert, that letters were unknown belore the deluge recorded by Moses." Up on Inc whole, Astle gives his opinion in these words: " IL appears to us, that the Phoenicians have the hest claim to the honour of the invention of let ters." In forming this conclusion, however, Mr Astle ap pears to have had in only the evidence arising from. the Vague and dubious traditions of the Greeks; and it is rather surprising, that, while examining the preten sions of the Egyptians, Phtunicians, Arabians, and Sy rians, he scents to IVAN e altogether overlooked the better authenticated claims of the Hebrews to the invention of alphabetic writing. It is incontestable, that the ancient Israelites were in possession of an alphabet, and that al phabet too, little less perfect than those in use at the pre sent day, at a period when no authentic, or even very cre dible, accounts attest, that among any other nation or peo ple any alphabet existed. This certainly affords a strong ground of presumption, that if the Hebrews were not absolutely the inventors of letters, at least they had the knowledge of them prior to any of those nations whose claim to the invention has been thought the most plau sibly supported. Indeed there seems great reason to believe, that when the Greeks spoke of the Phamicians as very early acquainted with letters, they confounded them with the Hebrews; the proximity of situation, and similarity of language, preventing them from knowing the distinction. When therefore the Phoenician alpha bet is mentioned as the most ancient, there is little doubt that either the Hebrew alphabet itself was really meant, or a transcript of it more or less perfect. adopt ed by their neighbours the Phoenicians, from whom the invention was communicated to the ancient Greeks. In concluding, therefore, that the evidence in favour of the claim of Phoenician to the honour of the invention rather preponderates, we may consider ourselves as warranted in doing so in opposition to the claims of the Egyptians, Arabians, Chaldeans, and Syrians ; but if the Phoenicians and the Hebrew alphabet were not the same, the pretensions of the Phoenicians roust give way to the better established claim of the Hebrews.