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ORIGIN OF
WRITTEN LANGUAGE;
ESPECIALLY
ITS ALPHABETIC SIGNS.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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A POPULAR TREATISE
God
اوت 2
i
HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
-
his aff ho.
Geord. Hrad
WRITTEN LANGUAGE;
1
1
C
OF
|
1
ESPECIALLY OF ITS
!
ALPHABETIC SIGNS.
BY
GEORGE INGERSOLL WOOD,
A MEMBER OF THE YALE CLASS OF 1833.
WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS.
And Moses was trained up as a child in all the wisdom of the Egyptians ---Acts 7: 22,
Orig. Gr. Test.
.
HARTFORD, CONN.:
PRESS OF THE CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD COMPANY.
1883.
TO MY DEAR WIFE,
WHO HAS BEEN
AN UNINTERMITTING AND CHEERING LIGHT UPON MY PATHWAY
FOR FORTY-THREE YEARS,
THIS TREATISE,
THE WORK AND THE PLAY OF MY LATER LIFE,
IS
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
-
---
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE.
12
I 2
.
•
.
.
.
.
18, 19
Hieroglyphics of Egypt,
The Coptic language,
Five different stages through which written
language has passed,
15-21
First, The Pictorial Signs, .
14-18
A North American Indian Pictorial,
14, 15
Mexican Pictorial, a, .
15
Sitting Bull's book of Pictorial Signs,
16
Orderly arrangement of Egyptian Hieroglyph-
ics,
17
Second, Symbolic Signs among the Egyptians,
Hieratic or Abridged Signs, .
19
Phonetic or Phonogrammatic Signs,
Third, Verbal Phonograms,
Fourth, Syllabic Phonograms,
Fifth, Alphabetic Phonograms,
The oldest Book in the world,
The oldest Inscription in the world,
A few ideograms left in our language,
23
Chinese and Japanese languages, difference be-
tween,
23
Guessings about the meaning of the Hiero-
glyphs,
23, 24
Discovery of the key to the interpretation of
the same,
25-29
20
20
21
21
22
22
8
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE.
.
26, 27
.
•
•
Rosetta stone,
25
Champollion's discovery,
26
Cartouche, what,
Acrological spelling, example of,
28
Cuneiform characters,
29
Two important facts about Egyptian letters,. 31
The same about the Hebrew,
32
Genealogy of the English alphabet,
33-36
Accepted theory of its origin,
· 33, 34, 35
Prof. Whitney's opinion,
34
Verification of the true theory, by Emanuel
DeRouge,
34, 35
The true genealogy of our letter M,
• 35, 36
The oldest inscription in Semitic characters, 36
Did written language originate in Egypt?. 36, 37
Ignatius Donnelly's “Atlantis; the Antediluvian
World”
37
The Island of Atlantis,
37
Epitome of the whole Treatise,
Example of syllabic phonogram,
39, 40
Reflections,
40, 41, 42
The probably great antiquity of our race, 42
Index to Treatise,
43, 44
.
38
.
.
.
by winter
The following Treatise is a condensed result of
investigations pursued by the writer, at intervals,
for several years.
Its sole aim is to introduce
some of the great class of non-scientific readers
into a branch of Literature unfamiliar to them, but
of the deepest interest.
In respect to the. smaller class, consisting of
Egyptologists and Philologists, at whose instruc-
tion the writer does not aim, but for whose labors
and opinions he entertains the highest respect, and
a feeling of great obligation—if any of them by
chance should read this Treatise - the writer is
tolerably sure that while they may possibly detect
some misconceptions of facts and of testimony,
they will find no intentional deviation from what
is now accepted as true or probable, among those
better qualified than he is to judge in these mat-
ters.
The facts and opinions contained herein have
all been culled from a great variety of reliable
and authoritative sources, but, as a parade of
learned authorities in the shape of foot-notes might
2
IO
PREFACE.
deter the popular reader from these pages, all ref-
erences in that shape have been omitted — with the
exception that the writer wishes to acknowledge
distinctly his chief indebtedness to that exhaustive
and invaluable work on “The Origin of the
Alphabet," written by Isaac Taylor, and published
in London in March, 1883; a work giving us the
most advanced positions and results in the field
of philological research.
The author wishes also to acknowledge his obli-
gations to The Kellogg & Bulkeley Company of
Hartford, and likewise to Mr. Clark personally, for
the finished and artistic manner in which his draw-
ings for the illustrations have been engraved.
G. I. W.
ELLINGTON, Conn., Sept. I, 1883.
TREATISE.
or ever was
A HISTORY of the origin of written language, ,
especially of its alphabetic signs, and of the suc-
cessive steps in their evolution, cannot fail to be
of interest to all who have any curiosity to trace
the progress of the uplifting and civilization of
the human race.
The question whether God originally, and by
supernatural endowment, gave to mankind the
power of writing and recording their thoughts, as
He did the power of vocal expression, — if that is
a serious question in any mind —
is one into which we do not enter. Two races at
least have been discovered, - the Zulus of South
Africa and the Hawaians — who, when first visited
by our missionaries, not only had no written lan-
guage whatever, but stoutly disbelieved at first in
the very possibility of such a thing.
In pursuing our investigations, our course leads
us very directly to the history and the records of
the Egyptians; they being by far the most ancient
of all known peoples. We shall be able, by a
little careful study of their Hieroglyphics, and
I2
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
those of others also, to trace quite clearly, at least
five successive steps in the development of written
language. We will turn our attention then first,
but not exclusively, to the
HIEROGLYPHICS OF EGYPT,
a word signifying literally, sacred sculpture. These
signs are called sacred, because they pertain gen-
erally to matters sacred and important in the esti-
mation of the Egyptians: besides, they were exe-
cuted by a priestly class of Egyptians. The
word sacred serves, further, to distinguish these
signs from the common language of the Egyptians,
that in which they transacted their business and
wrote their letters.
This common language, we notice by the way,
which was once called the demotic -- the language,
that is, of the people -(and also the enchorial,
the language of the country) gradually became what
is now known as the Coptic, and it eventually
superseded Hieroglyphic writing entirely. The
original letters of the Coptic were dropped about
the middle of the fourth century, and the letters
of the Greek language, with a few changes and
additions, were substituted for them. The Coptic
however is now no longer used, having been
entirely superseded by the Arabic since the seven-
teenth century. So that the peculiar language of
Egypt-both the Hieroglyphic and the common,
or Coptic, is now a dead language.
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
13
Our attention will now be given to some import-
ant facts, which, though pertaining especially to
the written language of the Egyptians, are sub-
stantially facts with the Hebrew, the Chinese, with
the Cuneiform characters of the Assyrians and
Babylonians, and the old Mexican or Aztec lan-
guages, and also with the language of the North
American Indians. Indeed they are facts in rela-
tion to written language in general.
Speaking then especially of the Egyptian Hie-
roglyphics, let us familiarize our minds with the
different classes of these signs, — or stages through
which written language passed before the alphabet
was developed. We note here that this Hiero-
glyphic writing is believed by Isaac Taylor to have
been begun more than five thousand years before
Christ. The whole number of signs employed is
between eight hundred and a thousand, and they
are said both by the Phenicians and Egyptians to
have been invented or first used by Thoth, who-
ever he may have been.
There are then, five distinct classes of these
signs or stages in the process of alphabetic evolu-
tion. We will speak of them in the order of their
coming into use, beginning with the first and very
rudest attempts at writing or engraving. The first
class then of Egyptian and other Hieroglyphics —
that with which written or engraven language must
have begun, is
14
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
THE PICTORIAL;
consisting of mere imitations of visible and familiar
objects, such as men, animals, houses, tools, and
other objects of nature and art; any thing, in fact,
with which the mind of the writer is for the time
concerned. It is interesting to notice that races
and nations in their childhood, and individual
children, pursue about the same course in their
first attempts at using the pen or pencil. The first
thing is, to make pictures, and generally, with
nie, w
W
щщ
ܟܠܢܠܢܠܠܢܨ
OO
No. 1.
children at least, they are of the rudest kind and
need much explanation. In this class of Hiero-
glyphics we have a succession of familiar objects :
one, for example, may be of a battle; another of a
hunt or of some accident, etc., each Hieroglyphic
meaning simply what it imitates. In this way the
writer or engraver would go on, for example, to
delineate the life and exploits of some famous
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
15
chieftain or king. As a specimen of the rudest
and most childish sort of pictorial writing, we
give above a fac-simile of an engraving found on
a rock on the shore of Lake Superior; the work
of some North American Indian who did his best
probably, to make a record of an invasion made
by a certain Indian chief.
The interpretation of this Indian Hieroglyphic
is, that Wolf, a certain Indian chief, who came to
this part of the shore with five canoes, carrying in
all fifty-one men, having another chief by the
name of Kingfisher, as an ally, who came in the
largest canoe, made an invasion on this part of
the shore, coming to land (signified by the turtle)
after a three day's voyage (indicated by three
suns having each its own horizon above), and pro-
ceeded to the battle, on horseback.
The bird, Kingfisher, near the largest canoe,
indicates that this chief came in that canoe, and
as the Indians had no knowledge of figures, they
indicated numbers by the straight marks or digits
over each canoe; which tell us there were in all,
fifty-one men. (The invasion took place, of course,
after the introduction of horses on the continent,
and so was not a very ancient event.)
When the Spaniards in their invasion of Mexico
some three hundred years ago under Cortes, landed
on the coast, a certain Mexican who first saw
them, took a large piece of canvas and painted on
j
16
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
it certain strange-looking vessels, and armed men
in the act of landing, and sent it to Montezuma
at the Capital, to convey to him the intelligence
of the invasion.
One of the famous Indian chiefs of our own
time, known by the name of Sitting Bull, has
delineated the chief events of his own life in
Pictorial Hieroglyphics, as we may call them, and
these were engraved and printed a few years since
in Harper's Weekly. In each of the scenes in
that book is represented a bull in a sitting pos-
ture, over the hero's head, to signify that Sitting
Bull is the man who did these things.
In the old Spanish Fort Marion, at St. Augus-
tine, Florida, were confined a few years ago cer-
tain fierce and warlike Indians who had been
captured by the United States soldiers. Some
of them, during their confinement, in order, as
they said, to make a little money and to pass
away the time, made a book of Pictorial Hiero-
glyphics, in which are rude pictures of Indians,
horses, United States soldiers, military barracks,
railroad engines, steamboats, etc., all painted in
gaudy colors, but utterly regardless of the laws
of perspective, which are a curiosity as a speci-
men of written language, and an indication of a
rude and barbarous age, some of the soldiers
being higher than the buildings themselves.
We will bear in mind then that the first class
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE
17
.
1
of Egyptian (and also other) Hieroglyphics, con-
sists of simple pictures or imitations of familiar
objects.
Before we pass to a consideration of the second
class, we may notice here a fact in relation to the
arrangement of the Hieroglyphics as they stand
in the inscriptions. They are all arranged in a
certain orderly manner. Sometimes the priests
began as we do, at the left and wrote toward the
right. At other times they wrote (as the Hebrews
did), beginning on the right and going toward the
left. Other inscriptions still are arranged in the
manner in which oxen plow a field; going first
in one direction, and then turning and going in
the opposite; hence, called the boustrophic mode
of writing — the turning about of the oxen. Then
sometimes the signs are placed in columns, like
the Chinese writing: beginning at the top and
going to the bottom. The direction in which a
given inscription is to be read, is determined by
the way in which the animals face; as the inscrip-
tions commence at the point toward which the
figures face.
X
Now the Pictorial Hieroglyphics would answer
very well in the rudest ages of society, while the
race or nation is in its childhood, and occupied
as children are wont to be, with visible and famil-
iar objects. But in the progress of their civiliza-
tion, the Egyptians would naturally come to a
3
18
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
porno
stage in
in which they would have occasion to
express abstract ideas — thoughts of things invisi-
ble; such as knowledge, power, purpose, or will,
etc., etc. Just here we notice a great and import-
ant step in the march of civilization — that is, to
the second class of Hieroglyphics. This class is
called
THE SYMBOLIC,
in which certain familiar objects of the outward
world are employed to symbolize abstract ideas.
In the use of this class of signs, the Egyptians
expressed the idea of joy, for example, by the pic-
ture of a woman beating a tamborine; a smoking
pail meant milk; an ape represented anger or
irritability; a jackal meant cunning; all acts of
locomotion were symbolized by a pair of legs in
the act of walking; a censer with burning incense
was the symbol of adoration or worship; the idea
of an impossibility was represented in two ways,
either by a man walking on the water, or by a
man with his head cut off; impudence was sym-
bolized by a fly; a woman who troubles her
husband, by a weazel; an abandoned man, by a
hog; the sun and moon (believed to be imperisha-
ble), were the symbols of eternity; and the same
idea was expressed likewise by a serpent with its
tail enfolded around its body, the whole being in
the form of a circle, having apparently no end-
ing and no beginning. Knowledge was repre-
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
19
sented by a picture of the heavens shedding down
dew or gentle rain. Among the Cuneiform or
arrow-headed characters also, life was symbolized
by a growing Alower; the circle of the sun meant
not only sun, but day, light, and brilliance; a
pair of legs in the act of walking or running, sig-
nified locomotion; the act of drinking was sym-
bolized by three drops (representing water) within
the picture of a mouth; so a representation of
three drops of water, placed before a picture of
an eye meant tears. In the primitive Chinese, a
broom” and “a woman ” together, meant a wife,
etc., etc., etc.
After a while, Egyptian writers would have
occasion to write more rapidly than could be done
with pictorial and symbolic signs, and this natu-
rally led them to adopt certain abridgements of
these signs. As for example, instead of stopping
to engrave or paint a whole house, they might
simply draw the peak of the roof; instead of
drawing a whole lion, they might make a lion's
face or head; instead of making a whole man,
they might draw an oval and dash into it two dots
for
eyes, a perpendicular mark for the nose, and
a horizontal one for the mouth, thus saving a
great deal of time and labor. These abbrevia-
tions, however, which were called Hieratic or cur-
sive writing, were not reckoned as a distinct class
of Hieroglyphics. They were simply abridgements.
t
20
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
We have now noticed two of the five classes of
Hieroglyphic signs. These two are called Ideo-
grams.
The third class is called in general
ܨܢ
THE PHONETIC,
or Phonograms; i. e., signs that represent, not
things visible, but sound, — the sounds of spoken
words, syllables, and letters.
In the passage from pictorial and symbolic signs
(or Ideograms) to the Alphabetic stage of writing,
there are two intermediate classes of signs, indi-
cating distinct stages of progress, on which we
shall not long dwell, as we have proposed to
write more especially of alphabetic signs.
The first of these intermediate steps or stages
— the Third of the five stages —is that in which
certain signs stood for whole words; hence called
verbal phonograms. As for example, if
one
should wish to record this sentence (and had no
syllabic or alphabetic signs with which to do it
- nothing but mere pictures) —"I saw a boy
swallow a gooseberry” — he might first make a
picture of an eye, then of a saw, then of a boy,
then of a swallow, then of a goose, and then of
a berry; in which we see that the pictures rep-
resent verbal sounds. It was in this way that
the Spaniards evolved out of the Aztec Hiero-
glyphics phonograms (both verbal and syllabic)
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
21
for the enunciation of sentences. It is easy to
see that at this stage writing must have been
very slow and difficult work.
The second intermediate stage toward the final
evolution of an alphabet (which is the Fourth in
our general enumeration,) was that in which cer-
tain signs were used to represents syllabic sounds.
Now, while a language constructed in this way
must have been much more facile and service-
able than mere verbal phonograms, and was indeed
a vast improvement on the pictorial and symbolic
stage of writing, it is easy to see that the human
mind could not be content to stop at that stage.
The development of an alphabet — that which is
at once the "triumph, the instrument and register
of human progress "
- was evidently foredoomed
and inevitable. We come then (Fifth,) to the
grandest stage in the progress of civilization, the
greatest of all its achievements; that in which
man- not simply Egyptian man, but man-has
at length evolved out of pictures and symbols and
abbreviations of the same, and out of verbal and
syllabic phonograms also, a class of
ALPHABETIC SIGNS;
something vastly older than the Pyramids them-
selves; older than any monument of civilization,
unless it be the signs of the Zodiac. Isaac Tay-
lor says that the beginning of written language
22
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
By
in Egypt must be dated back to seven or eight
thousand years before our time. And here we
wish to say that the oldest of all existing works
or books is the work of Prince Prah HOTEP, com-
posed in the Fifth Dynasty, and written in the
Hieratic signs.
Mr. Taylor says of this oldest book:
the curious irony of chance, this primeval trea-
tise — this stray waif which has floated down to
us from the days of the very childhood of the
world - has for its subject the moralizing of an
aged sage, who deplores the deterioration of his
age, and laments over the good old times which
had passed away. Humility and obedience, — these
he makes the foundation of all virtue. Sons
should be obedient. God loves the obedient and
hates the disobedient." "
The earliest extant inscription in the world is
a tablet now in the Ashmolean Museum of Ox-
ford, erected by Sent, a king of the Second
Dynasty, to the memory of his grandson, SHERA.
King Sent lived about forty-seven hundred years
before Christ, according to Mariette, and, accord-
ing to Brughsch, about four thousand years; and
alphabetic characters
even found in this
inscription! Even then, back toward the child-
hood of the race, the Hieroglyphic system was
an extremely ancient graphic system.
Before proceeding to speak of the Alphabetic
1
are
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
23
1
signs, we will here say further, that even in our
own English language we have a few “ideo-
grams
left. The Roman numerals which we
still use, viz., I, II, III, IV, V, VI, etc., which
we still call the nine digits (fingers), are simply
representatives of the human fingers, and of the
hand. The V (five) is a representation of the
fingers in close proximity and of the thumb
standing apart. The astronomical signs are also
some of the oldest ideograms. And so is the
barber's pole, with its streaks of blood, represent-
ing the fact that originally the barbers were
accustomed to perform the operation of bleeding.
How long the pictorial and symbolic signs and
verbal and syllabic phonograms were used exclu-
sively, before any of them were employed alpha-
betically we do not and cannot know. We may
say, in all probability, hundreds and possibly thou-
sands of years.
The Chinese language has not
even yet advanced to the third stage of writing,
i. e., to the phonetic or alphabetic stage. The
Japanese, however, have carried the Chinese lan-
guage on
to the phonetic and syllabic stage.
Now it is with this class of signs — the phonetic
and especially the alphabetic — that scholars of
former generations found the great obstacle to the
interpretation of the Hieroglyphics. Up to the
close of the last century, the men who were guess-
ing at the meaning of these mysterious signs, sup-
24
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
posed that all of them were either pictorial or sym-
bolic; never dreaming that the most of them were
syllabic and alphabetic, representing not the objects
they resembled or typified, but simply contain vocal
sounds. It is to the grand discovery of this class
of Egyptian signs, that we would direct special
attention.
Some of the scholars of preceding times, down
indeed to the beginning of the present century,
had settled down upon the conclusion that the
priests, by whom these inscriptions were made,
kept the secret of their interpretation among
themselves, and that when they became extinct,
they carried away with them the key to their
interpretation. But this was a most unreasonable
conclusion, for why should they take the pains to
cover the monuments and temples of Egypt with
a record of events which never could be read by
those who should come after them?
No! they
must have been intended at least to be intelligible
to after generations.
Here now we stand in imagination, face to face,
with a language emphatically dead. It has uttered
no sound for nearly a thousand years. Will it
ever wake and come to life again? Can these
dry bones live? Let us see.
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
5
25
DISCOVERY OF THE KEY TO THE HIEROGLYPHICS.
When Napoleon the First was in Egypt on his
Egyptian campaign in 1799, some soldiers of his
army were digging up the ground near Raschid
(Rosetta) on the delta of the Nile, for the erection
of Fort St. Julien. They dug up, among the ruins
of a temple, a piece of black basalt, polished on
one side, about two feet long and a foot or so
wide, on which they found an inscription in three
columns and in three distinct languages. This
Rosetta stone formed the study of the scholars of
that time, who, for ten or fifteen years thereafter,
were trying mainly to ascertain the meaning of
the column of Hieroglyphics. For one column
was found to be in Greek, with which all were
familiar; the next column was in the Coptic,
which many also understood, and the other column
was in pure Hieroglyphics, which no man then
understood, but which all were trying to decipher.
This stone soon after came into the possession
of the English, who had it deposited in the British
Museum, where it now is. Careful engravings
and lithographs were made of it, which were
circulated among the scholars of that time, and
on which they exercised their wits in guessing for
some years, but in vain. It is an open question
whether the key which at last unlocked the mys-
4
26
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
teries of these signs was discovered by Dr. Young
(a celebrated English scholar), or by Champollion
(a French scholar of equal distinction). Without
assuming to decide that question, we pass on to
say that Champollion, who was giving much time
to the study of Egyptology, in translating the
column of the Greek, noticed that the inscription
related to one of the Ptolemies and that it was
designed to do him honor, as a memorial, for the
generosity he had displayed in his gifts to some
of the Egyptian temples. He found also that the
priests who had made this inscription, had decreed
(for he found this decree on the bottom of the
column) that this inscription should be engraven
in three distinct languages or characters, the
Greek, the Coptic, and the Hieroglyphic. The
monument itself was made and set up in the year
196 before Christ. Wherever the word Ptolemy
occurred in the Greek, he found the same, slightly
varied, in a corresponding position in the Coptic
column. Giving his attention next to the Hiero-
glyphics, which were the great object of his
study, he noticed a certain group of signs, of
which the writer has constructed the following
fac-simile (see figure No. 2)—enclosed in an elip-
tical figure -- the whole called a cartouche - and
he noticed that this group occurred the same
number of times with the word Ptolemy in the
Greek and in the Coptic. He conjectured very
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
27
happily, that this group must be the Egyptian
Hieroglyphic for the word Ptolemy. The follow-
ing is a representation of that group of signs.
DAN C441
No. 2.
In studying these signs, to verify his conjecture,
he noticed that the thing indicated by the first
sign the square figure — was a mat or rug, the
name of which in the Coptic ---(Presh) — began
with P. (Since then it is considered to have
been a representation of a “shutter,” whose name
also began with P.) The second sign, the semi-
circle, was the representation of a polishing
instrument used by the Egyptians, the
which in the Coptic began with T. The third
figure, a knotted cord, had for its
for its name in
Coptica word beginning with the letter 0.
The name of the fourth figure—a Lion (or Lion-
ess) in repose (in the Coptic, Laboi) began, — like
our English word Lion, with the letter L. The
fifth figure, a parallelogram with one side want-
ing, was the representation of
cave, whose
Coptic name began with M.
The sixth figure,
two twigs of a reed, occasioned him considera-
а.
28
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
ble study. He knew that a single twig had, in
the Coptic, a name which began with E short —
like e in met. So he conjectured that the twig, ,
repeated or duplicated, might be E long, like e
in me; which conjecture was afterwards proved
to be correct.
correct. The seventh
The seventh and last sign, the
line with a crook, representing a side view of
the back of an Egyptian chair, was called in
the Coptic by a name which began
which began with S.
Here then he had seven Coptic words whose
initials were as follow: P. T. O. L. M. E. S.-
making the word Ptolmes, equivalent to our Eng-
lish word PTOLEMY. And this, by the way, is
called acrological spelling-i. e., spelling a word by
the use of the tips (akron), i. e., the initial sounds
(whether syllabic or alphabetic) of other words.
Champollion discovered afterwards that this
peculiar elliptical figure, the cartouche, surrounding
a group of signs, was always employed in desig-
nating the name of a king or any member of
the royal family (see the obelisk in Central Park).
Champollion had now discovered the important
truth that some of the Hieroglyphics were rep-
resentatives of Phonetic sounds. It should be
observed just here that the Egyptians did not
confine themselves to any one object in designat-
ing a letter, but had a wide range of variants.
Champollion has now discovered, as he believes,
seven letters of the Hieroglyphic alphabet; but he
?
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
29
wishes to verify his discovery and to learn the
rest of the alphabet. He selects therefore another
inscription found on the Island of Philae, on a
monument to Cleopatra. He notices that the
signs for P. T. O. L. E. in Ptolmes, correspond
with the same in the word Cleopatra. Besides the
seven letters first discovered, therefore, he has
now learned three more. Proceeding in the same
way, he continues his study till he learns the
rest of the twenty-five letters of the alphabet.
The dead language, then, has at last come to
life. Its lips, long sealed and silent, open, and
pronounce the intelligible sounds — Ptolmes !
Ptolmes ! Cleo-
patra!
The Cuneiform or arrow-headed characters of
the Babylonian language have a history similar to
that of the Hieroglyphic signs of Egypt. Invented
by the Arcadians, about three thousand years B. C.,
before they came to dwell in Babylonia, though
now all looking much alike, they too were orig-
inally pictorial and symbolic characters, which
finally were used alphabetically by the Arcadians,
far back in the past. The discovery of the key
to their interpretation was made, too, in a way
much like that in which Champollion made his
discovery; by a comparison of inscriptions made
in three distinct languages and containing the
name of some king.
To familiarize our minds a little more with the
.
30
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
manner in which the Egyptians spelt their words
with Hieroglyphics—(may we not say in more
general terms that this way in which the human
race first began to spell words with written signs?)
- we have invented (see figure 3 below) a group
of American Hieroglyphics, containing an Ameri-
can name well known to all our readers. Our
illustration has this advantage, furthermore, for
our American ears and eyes, that it consists of
objects familiar to us, and is based upon Eng-
lish instead of Coptic words.
No. 3
Here we have a Light-house, a picture of the
Inauguration of a President, a Negro with broken
fetters at his feet, a Cannon, an Ox, a Lily, a
Navy: all spelling the word LINCOLN. These
Hieroglyphics are at the same time all symbolic
but one, and that is the Navy, which is simply
pictorial; and likewise they are all alphabetic.
Besides spelling Lincoln's name they also tell us
the story of his life: viz., Lincoln, President of
the United States (symbolized by the scene of
his inauguration), employed the army (symbolized
by a cannon) and the Navy (pictorial) in putting
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
31
we
:
down a rebellion, in doing which he gave liberty
to the slaves (symbolized by a negro with broken
fetters). Under all his trials he stood with the
patience of an ox, and he possessed a political
character of singular purity (indicated by the lily).
It will be noticed that all the figures in this
diagram face toward the left, indicating that the
inscription begins at that point and runs toward
the right.
The question may arise here, how may
know in a given case
a given case whether the signs are
employed pictorially, symbolically, or alphabetically?
We reply that the Egyptians made use of cer-
tain marks (determinatives), accompanying the
inscriptions, by which this was very bunglingly
indicated.
Now, there are two facts about the origin and
development of the letters of the Egyptian alpha-
bet which are believed to be true also of alpha-
betic signs in general, which are of great inter-
est, and which deserve to be especially noticed.
First, the letters of the Egyptian alphabet are
all named after certain familiar objects. For
example, their letter A is called Ahom, i. e.
eagle. B. is named Berbe, a censer.
The name
of L. is Laboi, lion. M. is called Mulak, owl.
T. is called Tot, hand, etc., etc.
The same thing said above, about the names
of the Egyptian letters is also certainly true of
1
32
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
the Hebrew letters. They were all named after
certain familiar objects.
The different divisions of the 119th Psalm are
headed by the names of the letters of the Hebrew
alphabet, as Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, etc., etc.
To give the names of the Hebrew alphabet in
English, they are: ox, house, camel, door, hollow,
hook, armor, etc., all named after certain famil-
iar objects
Second: please notice this additional and very
interesting fact: that the Egyptian letters were
made originally in the shape of the objects after
which they were called. For example, their first
letter A is simply the picture of an Ahom, an
eagle. Their letter B is the picture of a Berbe,
And so the letter L is made in the like-
ness of a Laboi, a lion, etc. The same thing is
true of every letter of their alphabet: it took both
the name and the shape of the object after which
it was called; and the first letter of the object's
name was the letter used in spelling.
The same thing is believed to have been true
also of the Hebrew letters originally. They were
certainly named, as we have seen, after some famil-
iar object, and the first letter of the name was
used in spelling. It is believed, also, to have been
true originally that the characters which repre-
sented the Hebrew letters were all in the shape
of the objects after which they were called; but
censer.
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
33
with the lapse of time, the pictures were abridged
and altered, till now they have lost all trace of
resemblance to an ox, house, camel, door, etc., and
have become like our letters, merely arbitrary and
unmeaning characters. So the Chinese letters or
signs were at first pictures of well-known objects,
which have been so abridged and altered that
they now look like nothing in Heaven or earth,
except themselves.
We are
now prepared, at this stage in our
investigations, to enter somewhat more connect-
edly into the
GENEALOGY OF THE ENGLISH ALPHABET.
$
Our readers are of 'course familiar with the
long-accepted tradition that we received our let-
-1
ters from the Romans, they theirs from the Greeks,
and they theirs from the Phoenicians, through
Cadmus. But did our alphabet originate among
the Phoenicians, or did they receive the letters
from some other and earlier civilization?
In reply, it may be said that the Phoenicians
themselves admitted that they obtained their let-
ters from the Egyptians; and it is said also that
Cadmus himself went originally from Thebes in
Egypt to Phoenicia.
Sanchuniathon, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Au-
lius Gellius, and Tacitus say that the alphabet
came originally from Egypt.
1
5
34
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
Prof. Whitney, in his Oriental and Linguistic
Studies, 2d Series, published eight years ago, says:
“ It is exceedingly probable, though far from admit-
ting demonstration, that the Phoenicians learned
to write of the Egyptians.”
In opposition, however, to the opinion that our
letters came from the Egyptian language, it was
urged that nothing could be found among the
Hieroglyphics of Egypt, which could ever have
served as prototypes for the letters of the Phoe-
nician (Semitic) alphabet.
To Emanuel De Rougè, a distinguished French
Egyptologist, (now dead,) belongs the honor of hav-
ing settled the question of the Egyptian origin
of the Semitic alphabet, and in Isaac Taylor's
opinion, he, i. e., De Rougè, “remains master of
the field till other evidence is put forward.” He
has proved, to very general acceptance among
scholars, that the Semitic writers did find the
prototypes of their letters not among the primi-
tive forms of Egyptian Hieroglyphics, it is true,
but among the ,Hieratic (or abridged) signs of
the Egyptian language. This he has been able
to verify from what is called the “Papyrus Prisse,”
so named from the Frenchman who discovered this
Papyrus scroll in Thebes, and deposited it in the
Bibliotheque Nationale, at Paris. De Rougè first
gave to the world the results of his investigations
in 1859, and intended to publish a more complete
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
35
work, but died, leaving only a rough draft of
the same.
His son, however, in 1874, published
what the father left behind him. This famous
Papyrus contains the fragment of another work,
and an entire copy of the work of PTAH HOTEP,
of which we have already spoken. This “Papy-
rus Prisse.”
Prisse.” is shown to have belonged to the
IIth Dynasty, to a time back of Moses, and even
far beyond that of Abraham. It is written in
Hieratic Egyptian characters, and in these (which
may be called running hand Egyptian) De Rouge
is able to verify the Prototypes of the Phoenician
letters, the great-great-great-grandparents of our
English alphabet!
Here some may reasonably ask whether any of
our letters retain any features of resemblance to
their distant progenitors as they were made origi-
nally by the Semites or Phoenicians out of the
Egyptian signs?
We will speak only of one or two of our let-
ters. The letter M is found in the Hieratic signs.
In the primitive Hieroglyphics, also, the picture
of an owl (among two or three other pictures
whose name also began with M) was generally
used for thousands of years to designate the letter
M (the Coptic Egyptian name of which (Mulak),
as is seen, begins with M).
When at length the Egyptian priests wished
to write more rapidly, they naturally abbreviated
36
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
the picture of an owl, leaving off all but the
upper part of the head and ears, and that gave
them the Hieratic M, which can easily be recog.
nized even in our alphabet as the picture of the
ears of an owl (and perhaps also the middle angle
of the M may represent his beak). Our English
M still retains the same features of the Hieratic
owl-abridgments, and it has had substantially the
same shape for some six thousand years !
Our small letter · has likewise retained its
diminutiveness as a letter for the same number of
years, and that too in many languages besides our
own.
It may be mentioned here that the oldest extant
inscription in Semitic characters, is that found on
the Moabite stone.
The formation of the Semitic alphabet out of
the Hieratic signs, is dated by De Rougè, at
about nineteen centuries before Christ. The
Semites discarded all the non-alphabetic signs of
the Egyptian language, and thus cleared away for
their successors a great amount of rubbish. The
Semites had twenty-two letters in their alphabet.
In tracing back the genealogy of the English
alphabet we have at last come to the beginning
of the Egyptian colony. But did written language
originate there? Certainly not. They seem
never to have been barbarians, at least in Egypt.
From what preceding and advanced civilization
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
37
1
1
did they derive their Hieroglyphs ? This is the
question for present and future philologists, and
we believe it will be solved.
Ignatius Donnelly, an ex-member of Congress,
has recently published a book of great interest,
entitled " Atlantis: the Antediluvian World," in
which, as he himself says, he has “brought together
a thousand converging lines of thought, from a
multitude of researches, made by scholars in dif-
ferent fields of modern thought, to bear upon the
question of the reality of the hitherto-fabled
Island of Atlantis.” If he is correct in his con-
clusions (which are, to say the least, very ingen-
iously supported), the Egyptians, as he thinks,
were probably a colony of Atlanteans who resided
on a great island or continent in the Atlantic,
which, by some tremendous volcanic force
broken up at the deluge and submerged in “the
great deep.” If he is correct, then the real origin
of written language may have been in Atlantis,
the antediluvian world. And who knows but
that the primitive signs of written language were
brought over by Noah, from the antediluvian
world?
was
non
38
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
as
AN EPITOME OF THE WHOLE TREATISE,
We may put it down as a general truth in
regard to the letters of the alphabet, that at their
starting, they were simply the pictures of certain
well known objects, bearing the names of the
objects themselves; the first letter of the name,
sometimes too the first syllable, being the one
used in spelling; that from time to time, as they
were used in writing, they became abbreviated
and gradually entirely changed, so to lose
nearly all resemblance to the original object, and
became, what ours now are, with the exception
of M, mere arbitrary signs. The following illus-
tration invented by the writer (see diagram 4),
may serve to make this a little clearer. It is not
designed to show the actual genesis of these
letters, but merely the way in general, in which
letters started and became developed.
In explanation of this group of characters, we
may suppose, for example, that our letter A at its
starting, was made in the shape of an Axe (the
figure presents the axe edgewise, so that we look
through the hole made for the handle). The
letter then originally, by the supposition, not only
bore the name of Axe, but it was made in the
shape of an Axe. After being made for a while
in the shape of an Axe, the writer, painter, or
engraver, we suppose, may have made some little
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
39
change in its form so as to resemble our present
A, which still has some resemblance to an axe, but
might be made more rapidly than a faithful picture
of an axe.
Our small a, as we may suppose, has,
in the course of time, lost all resemblance to an
Axe, and has become an arbitrary or conventional
character, which is understood to stand for the
sound of A.
So with our letter B: we may suppose it to
have been made originally as a picture of a Bow.
Axe.
Bow.
Crescent.
SAA 3 Bb. CC .
Eel.
Serpent.
Tree.
SEE SSTT
No. 4.
a
After a while, instead of following the object
exactly, some slight change might be made, so
as to look like our present B, which still retains
considerable resemblance to Bow. Then our
small b has lost half of its resemblance to a
Bow, and is almost an arbitrary character. If,
instead of using a picture of a serpent simply
for the letter S, we employ it to designate the
first syllable of the word serpent, i. e. “Ser”
40
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
we should have a good example of a syllabic
phonogram; so that a picture of a serpent could
be used for the first syllable in serrate, servant,
service, servile, etc., etc.
Probably nearly all our letters have in reality
so deviated, in the lapse of the ages, from their
original pictures, or pictorials, that all trace of
relationship has long ago disappeared.
Now standing on the high table-land of our
modern civilization, with our abridged and per-
fected alphabetic characters, and with the art of
writing and reading those characters no longer
confined to Priests and Scribes, but, as a rule,
,
enjoyed very generally by the people at large,
let us, before
before we dismiss this subject, pause a
moment and look back over the track of human
progress to the low plane from or
near which
it commenced.
In the far distance, as it appears to be, —
measuring distance by the great changes and
improvements which have taken place in the
intellectual progress of our race - we discern, for
example, the Zulus of South Africa as they were
when the Rev. Alden Grout, still living, went
to them to commence the work of their uplifting
and salvation. Shutting our eyes at present to
all the features of their moral degradation, we
notice the good and faithful Light-bringer at
work among a group of people endeavoring to
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
41
..
was
win their belief in the possibility of communi-
cating ideas to those at a distance without send-
ing a messenger; without a word of spoken lan-
guage; merely by certain signs written upon paper.
They all stand in dumb amazement and confirmed
infidelity. Such a thing never from the
beginning until now! No such thing ever can
be! This is simply an endeavor of a stranger to
impose on our credulity. He proposes to test
the thing by actual experiment. He takes a piece
of paper and writes a note to his wife, who is
perhaps half a mile off, requesting her to send
him his hatchet, or some tool, by the bearer. The
note is folded and delivered to a messenger. But
the unbelieving natives, to guard against decep-
tion, insist that some one shall accompany the
messenger to see that
no word is spoken by
the messenger to Mrs. Grout. The note is deliv-
ered and read in silence, and Mrs. Grout finds
the hatchet and sends it to Mr. Grout. The
natives are confounded! It must be a miracle!
To them it is a miracle; a great wonder at
least. Almost
Almost precisely the same pains-taking
method was at first employed by our missionaries
at the Sandwich Islands, to convince the natives
that written language was not
not a cheat. How
vast the distance then between the high plane
from which we look off and backward, and the
6
42
A HISTORY OF WRITTEN. LANGUAGE.
4
depths of the Zulu people as they were before
they had attained to a written language !
How many thousand years have intervened
since the time when the generations who pre-
ceded the Egyptian colonists, and from which
they came, were first struggling upward to attain
to picture-making as a means of expressing and
recording ideas! How long was it before they
learned to express symbolically, abstract ideas !
How long before they made that greater and
more wonderful stride, from pictures and symbols
to phonograms, and finally to alphabetic signs!
And then consider that the Egyptians had gone
through these successive steps at or before the
very planting of the colony in Egypt!
THI
INDEX TO TREATISE.
PAGE.
19
28
21
17
37
.
13
17
26, 27
.
23
I 2
Abridgement of Hieroglyphics,
Acrologic Spelling, Example of,
Alphabetic Hieroglyphics,
Arrangement, Orderly, of Hieroglyphic Signs,
Atlantis, Island of, .
Aztec Language, Facts about,
Boustrophic Mode of Arranging the Hieroglyphics,
Cartouche, What,
Chinese and Japanese Languages, The Difference
Between,
Coptic Language,
Cuneiform, or Arrow.Head Signs, How they came to
be Understood and Interpreted,
De Rougè, Emanuel, His Discovery of the Egyptian
Origin of the Semitic Letters,
Determinatives, What, .
Digits, The Nine,
Discovery of the Key to the Interpretation of Egypt-
ian Hieroglyphs,
Donnelly, Ignatius, His Book on Atlantis,
Epitome of the Whole Treatise,
Examples of Symbolic Writing,
Example of a Syllabic Phonogram,
29
35
31
23
25
37
38
i
18
39
44
INDEX TO TREATISE.
Page.
.
20
22
O
22
15, 16
Facts, Two, about Egyptian and Hebrew Letters,. 31, 32
Five Stages in the Development of Alphabetic Signs, 13-21
Formation of the Semitic Alphabet out of the Hier-
atic Signs, and when Done,
34, 35
Genealogy of the English Alphabet, .
35
Hieroglyphics, Egyptian and Others,
13
Ideograms, What,
Inscription, The Oldest in the World, .
King SENT,
Languages: Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese, Cuneiform,
Aztec, and North American Indians: Facts about 13
M, Our Letter : Its Parentage and Likeness,
35, 36
Mexican, Pictorial, A,.
·
Monument, Rosetta,
25
Napoleon The First,
25
Oldest Book in the World, .
Origin of Written Language, When and Where,
Papyrus Prisse, What and Where Found, .
34, 35
Pictorial Hieroglyphs, .
14-18
Prisoners, Indian, at Fort Marion, Their Pictorials, 16
Phonetic Signs,
Phonograms, Verbal, Syllabic, and Alphabetic,
20, 21
Ptah HOTEP, the First Known Author,
Phoenicians,
33-35
Ptolemy,
28
Prototypes of the Phoenician Alphabet,
34
Rosetta Stone,
25
Reflections,
40, 41, 42
Semitic Letters, Prototypes of, .
34
Shape and Name of the Original Egyptian Letters, 31, 32
22
36, 37
20
22
.
o
.
.
INDEX TO TREATISE.
45
PAGE.
18, 19
.
.
Sitting Bull's Book of Pictorials, .
16
Symbolic Hieroglyphs, .
Taylor, Isaac, His Opinion about the Discovery of
De Rouge,
34
THOTH, the First Known User or Inventor of Hiero-
glyphics,
13
Whitney, Prof., His Opinion in 1875, about the Egypt-
ian Origin of the Semitic Alphabet,
34
Young, Dr., and Champollion, both claimed as the
Discoverers of the Alphabetic Signs, .
Zulus and Hawaians had no Written Language when
Discovered by our Missionaries,
· II, 40, 41
25, 26
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