ING ; IEROGLYPHICS CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
For the variations in the style of writing at different periods, see PALEOGRAPHY.
The alphabets of modern Europe are derived from the Greek, either directly. as in the ease of the Russian. or through the medium of the Latin. The Greek alphabet, in turn, is derived from the Phrenieian. This was the view of the Greeks themselves, as appears from the state ments of Herodotus and other ancient writers, and from the word, i*ot•adita, phoinikeia, which denotes the letters of the alphabet, and occurs in an inscription of Teos in Asia Minor belonging to the first half of the fifth century B.C. It is true that other traditions were also current, which attributed the invention of the alphabet to such mythical characters as Prometheus, and Palamedes, while the addition of certain letters was assigned to Epieharmus and Simonides. We are not, however, depend ent on the very doubtful authority of tradition for the Phoenician origin ( r the Greek alpha bet. As may easily be seen from the accom panying table, the forms of the earliest Greek letters bear a close resemblance to those of Phomicia, and the Greek names are for the most part obviously derived from the Semitic. More over, he order of the letters in the North Sem itic alphabets, as shown by their nume;ical val ues and their use in acrostic compositions, is the same as that proved for the Greek by similar evidence, and by the so-called ubccedaria, or alphabets found on early vases.
The North Semitic alphabets, Phcenician, He brew, Aramaic, and their branches, while differ ing somewhat in the forms of the letters, are obviously of a common origin, and even in the earliest inscriptions show a complete adaptation to the needs of the language. The Himyaritie inscriptions of southern Arabia, and, therefore, the later alphabets of the southern Semites, show a clearly cognate system; but until the age of these early inscriptions is determined, the exact relation of the North and South Semitic alpha bets cannot be definitely settled. If Glaser's view, that the Himyaritic monuments belong in part to the second pre-Christian millennium, should prove correct, it might be necessary to regard this as the earliest form of the Semitic alphabet. Even in the present state of our knowledge, it is doubtful whether the southern Semites derived their alphabet from their north ern brethren, as there is much that seems to indicate that both branches are indebted to a common source. Whatever be the relation of the
Semitic alphabets to one another, the present evidence points to the conclusion that the con sistent employment of a small number of signs to denote, not words nor syllables, but the ele mentary sounds of a language, originated among the Semites. and that through the trading branch of this family, the Phcenieians, this system of writing was carried to the Greeks and the west. Though the attempts to assign meanings to all the Semitic names of the letters has not proved successful, there can be no doubt that at least twelve are significant; e.g.,Aleph means ox; Beth, house: Daleth, door; Koph, hollow of the hand; Mem, water; Ayin, eye: Resh, bead. This leads naturally to the conclusion that the characters were originally representations of these objects, or at least showed some resem blance to them. Inquiry in this direction leads. however, to no satisfactory result as to the origin of the letters, though it may throw light on that part of the Semitic world where the names arose. As both Phcenieians and Hebrews had intimate connections with Egypt, and as the hieroglyphic and hieratic systems had been in use there for centuries before the earliest known Phoenician inscriptions, it was natural to look to the valley of the Nile for the symbols from V. hid' the letters had been derived. Early attempts to identify the Phomician letters with Egyptian hieroglyphics led to no satisfactory result: but in 1859 Emmanuel de Rough read before the French Acadhmie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres a paper in which he sought to prove that the source of the alphabet was to be found in the hieratic characters, as shown in the Papyrus Prisse. an Egyptian document which cannot be later than the eleventh dynasty, or abort 2000 me., and may well be much earlier. De Rough's arguments were first published in detail after his death by his son. in .11 moire sue l'origine eayptienne de 1*(11 phabet phclnieien (Paris, l874), and were for a time generally accepted. They were adopted by Canon Isaac Taylor in his book, The Alphabet (London, and have been retained in the second edition (1S99).