2d, it has been said, that if alphabetical writhn; were a mere human invention, different ultions would has fallen upon the same expedient, without Lynam\ io; it front each other. But on the contrary, the zdpnabets of different nations, instead of being as diversified as tin. nations themselves, with little trouble, be referred to one common original. Thus, the alphabets of the modern nations of Europe, base all evidently been de rived from the Roman. The Romau alphabet is plainly derived from the Greek. The Greeks acknowiedged that they owed their alphabet to the l'hernirians, woo, as well as their colonists the Carthaginians, spoke ,1 dialect of the Ifebrew, scarce varying from toe original The Coptic, or Egyptian, resembles the Greek in most of its characters, ind is there line to be referred to the same source. The Chaldee, Syriac, and latter Sama ritan, are dialects of the Ifebrew, without soy consider raffle deviation, or many additional words. The Ethi opic differs more from the Hebrew, but less Clan the Arabic; vet these luoguages have all issued from the same stock, as the similarity of their formation, aid the numberless words common to them all suffieiehtly evince ; the Persie is very nearly allied to the Araisie. It may fairly be inferred then, that all tilt se langtelges, and their alphabetical characters, have been comeel ted immediately or remotely with those of the Hebrews, who have handed down the earliest specimens of wri ting to posterity.
This view of the subject is greatly confirmed by the sameness of the artificial denominations, and of the order ol arrangement of the It tiers in the Latin, Greek, and Oriental languages. This order is entirely ; for though it might be deemed according to na ture, to begin the alphabet with the letter .1, the sim plest of the vowel sounds, no good reason can be assigned for proceeding next to i3, one of the consonants called notes; yet such is the order in most of the elphabet above mentioned. In all of them likewise a gi eat simi larity is leund in the succession of the rest of their letters. In many of thesis likewise the le is an evident likeness in the forms of the corresponding characters. These alphabets, therefore, have manifestly been bor rowed the one from the other.
If in many cases we are unable to trace a resemblance in the characters of different alpha's( ts. still this is no argument that the alphabets have not been derived from a common source, if we lind the order and power 01' their letters nearly alike. A variety c.f caus''s may be assigned for a variation in the form ol written charac ters, casually or intentionally introduced ; such us the fancy of transcribe'; s, the of heroducing irmova tions, the veneration for ancient sy lobo's, and the ins:os sible effects of the lapse of time. )3 fore the art 01 printing was invented, and when every was copied by manual labour, sve new conceive how inane alterations in the form of alphabetic characters inigh' be introduced from these or other sorties; and from what has taken place in the form of the letters of one own language daring the lapse of h • ;•h mitted, that tin se canws arc sufficient to account for a total departure front the original resemblance that might have prevailed between different alphabets. It is almost certain, that thc alphabets of the old Samari tan and the Ilcbrcw were originally the same ; as the two languages have so great a resemblance, that the Samaritan Pentateuch does not vary from the Hebrew, by a single letter in twenty words ; yet the characters in which these two languages have descended to us, arc totally dillerent. \Ve are informed by Herodotus, that the Greeks first used the Phoenician characters imported by Cadmus; but in process of time, as the pronunciation altered, the form or the letters was also changed. The Phoenician letters, however, continued to be used, with little variation, by the Ionians, who dwelt in the country adjacent to the Phoenician terri tory.
It has, however, been maintained by Mr Astle, that it will be impossible to reduce 'all the known alphabets to a common source, even by the most liberal allowance for casual variation. There arc, he asserts, a variety of alphabets used in different parts of Asia, which can not be derived from the Hebrew or Phoenician, as they vary not only in the figure and number, but in the name, order, and power of their letters. The foundation of
many of these Eastern alphabets appears to be that of the Sanscrit, which has fifty characters, and therefore, according to him, must have many marks of sounds, which are not required in the notation of the languages of Europe. There are also, according to the same au thority, several alphabets used in different parts of Asia, entirely different not only from the Phoenician or Hebrew, and all its derivatives, but also from the San scrit, and all those that may probably have proceeded from it. Such, says he, are the alphabet of Pcgu, the Batta characters used in the island of Sumatra, and the Barman or Boman characters used in some parts of Pegu. He therefore concludes, that it is impossible to assimilate the forms, names, order, or power of these alphabets, either with the Phoenician, or Sanscrit ; so that we must be forced to admit, that alphabetic writing is not the invention of one, but of several different na tions.
In these assertions, however, we may remark, Mr Astle is much too rash, and seems to be rather ill foun ded. The coincidence of all the alphabets in use to the westward of Persia, with the Hebrew or Phoeni cian, admits of no dispute ; it is only to those existing in the country to the eastward, that his opinion of pal pable discrepancy in their nature, form, and structure, will apply. Now there is very little doubt, notwith standing Mr Astle's averment, that all these Indian alphabets may be traced as derivatives, either imme diate or remote, from the Sanscrit ; a more accurate acquaintance with Indian literature has established this fact, even with respect to some of those formerly re garded as irreconcileablv dissimilar ; and farther know ledge will in all probability evince the same of the rest though accidental circumstances may have given rise to smaller diversities.* If then it shall be found upon examination, that the Sanscrit alphabet itself has proceeded from the same source with the alphabets in use to the westward, the argument against the common origin of Indian and European letters, taken from the discrepancies apparently existing between them, must fall to the ground. Our acquaintance with the Sanserit is yet too imperfect to enable us to follow out this in vestigation fully ; but as the coincidence of the Sanscrit language with Persian, Arabic, and Greek, not in de tached words only, but even in the radical parts of the language, has been noticed in strong terms by those best versed in Indian learning,t this coincidence can hardly admit of a doubt ; and surely if the languages be radically similar, the sources of the alphabets cannot well be supposed radically different ; if the former bear marks of a common origin, it may well be presumed that the latter has a conmion origin also. In confirma tion of this opinion, the actual similarity of more than one of the Sanscrit characters as they exist at the pre sent day, with the corresponding characters in the old Hebrew or Samaritan alphabet, may be adduced. This similarity in some of the characters, has been inci dentally remarked by sir William Jones; and farther coincidences might be traced, could we carefully fol low out the forms of the letters in both, through the different variations, which in the lapse of ages, and pro gress through different countries, they must have un dergone.f The diversity in the order of the letters in these dif ferent alphabets, is a circumstance of little or no weight in deciding the present question. It is well known, that in some alphabets, confessedly derived from each other, (the Hebrew and Persic for example,) great variations in this respect have taken place, either front convenience or caprice. The Hebrew indeed has retained its origi nal order ; but in the Persic, considerable changes have been introduced, in consequence of which, the nume rical powers of several of the letters in the latter do not at all correspond to their numerical places in the pre sent alphabet, but coincide exactly with the numerical places of the corresponding letters in the former. In like manner, changes at different times, and from differ ent causes, may have occasioned the different order now observed in the Indian and western alphabets, though they had originally emanated from one source.