Evidently, to a nation with a language founded like this upon conso nants, and whose vowels appeared or disappeared obediently to fixed laws, it was practically sufficient to express the consonantal sounds, but it was most important to accomplish this with the utmost precision. Hence, in modifying the Egyptian writing to suit their needs they rejected all its vowel elements, and confined their borrowing to just enough signs to express each definite consonant of their tongue.
Such remained the character of the various Semitic alphabets for many generations. The books of the Old Testament, the inscription on the Moab ite Stone, and inscriptions from Carthage and Phoenicia and other localities, were all written in consonants only and without marks for vowel-sounds. Custom, the sense of the passage, and tradition were supposed to be suffi dent to suggest the proper vowels to the mind. But in time these were found to be inadequate to the purpose. The rendering of the ancient books became obscured; even the correct pronunciation of the sacred name Jehovah fell into _discussion among the doctors of the law; so that the employment of vowel-sounds became indispensable. They were not,
however, placed in the word, on an equality with the consonants, but above or below them, as of secondary importance, and were not develop ments of an ancient form of writing, but an artificial device of scholars.
Greeco-Italic.—Finally, the Grreco-Italic nations, receiving the Semitic alphabet by the way of Phoenicia and the trading ports of Tyre and Sidon, supplied it at an earlier date than history records with the vowels which it lacked in order to render it a proper exponent of vocal expression. The vowel elements were placed, not as inferior, but as equal to the consonants, and inserted in the word in the order in which they are heard by the ear. This also was a necessary step forced upon them by the inflectional struc ture and polysyllabic character of their languages, thus illustrating again the profound influence which the diversity of linguistic structure has exerted on the development of the intellectual nature of man.