XIV. THE ORIENTAL ORIGIN OF ALPHABETIC WRITING, AND ITS PROGRESSIVE EXTENSION TO THE WEST.

1. Hitherto the History, the Affinity and the Etymology of the Germanic or Teutonic languages have claimed almost the sole attention. Proofs have been adduced to shew that these languages, even in the present day, are not only very similar; but that, in early times, they were almost identical, and that the widely extended nations, who now speak them, were originally of the same tribe, and probably inclosed in une encampment, when they first migrated out of Asia into Europe, on the north of the Euxine and from the vicinity of the Caspian Sea. Some collateral evidence of the oriental origin of European population, may now be gathered from the invention of alphabetic writing in the east, and its gradual diffusion to the west, as well as from the affinity and etymology of their languages, previously discussed.

2. As the Germanic tribes were free, they extended, with their power, a spirit of liberty,-a manly independent feeling, over the north and west of Europe; so the cultivated and scientific Phoenicians awakened the dormant faculties of the mind, and excited a love for the arts and sciences, when they planted their colonies in the Mediterranean and the west. Thus, Europe not only received her population from Asia; but the lights of science and literature dawned upon her from the east-while our liberty and energy sprang from the north east,—our civilization, our intellectual culture, and the art of writing-of rendering thoughts visible, and thus conveying them to distant climes and ages, were of south-eastern introduction.

3. It will not be difficult to prove, not only that the art of Alphabetic writing was received from the Phoenicians, but that the European alphabets were derived from the Phoenicians or ancient Hebrews. This, at first sight, may appear improbable, as the Hebrews wrote from right to left, while Europeans write from left to right; but a short investigation and a few specimens of early writing will remove all doubt. Those which will be produced to prove the oriental origin of European letters, and the gradual introduction of writing in our present manner, from left to

right, will be taken from inscriptions on stones and coins. These are the best evidence that can be given, as they are upon durable materials, such as stone or metal, and not easily counterfeited or altered :-they may have been lost sight of or buried for ages; but when brought to light they speak in an antiquated dialect, of what happened in primeval days, and infallibly shew the mode of writing, and the form of the letters in those early times. With this last object in view, an appeal will be made to the legends of these oldest literary remains; but before this can be done, it will be necessary to allude to the historical notices which relate to the discovery and progress of alphabetic writing.

4. The first direct historical record of writing, is anterior to the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, B.C. 1491. Before the Israelites arrived at Sinai, when they had defeated the Amalekites near Horeb, Moses is commanded to "Write this (for) a memorial in a book."* No intimation is given, that writing, by which past events and the various conceptions of the mind are exhibited to the sight by a small number of elementary characters or letters, was then used for the first time. Moses did not express any difficulty in comprehending the command, or of writing in a book; it may, therefore, be inferred that he was acquainted with the art of writing. If credit could be given to Sanchoniathon, the Phoenician Historian," the origin of writing might be traced to a much earlier period. He intimates that Taaut, the son of Mizraim, invented letters in Phoenicia, ten years before the migration of Mizraim into Egypt or about B.C. 2178. If the testimony of Sanchoniathon should not be admitted, we have still presumptive evidence, that writing was known at an earlier date than that which he specifies. It is manifest that astronomical observations could not be accurately recorded without the aid of writing; and Callisthenes, the philosopher, who accompanied Alexander the Great to Babylon, wrote to Aristotle, about 330 B.C. that the Chaldeans had a series of observations which went back 1903 years, from that time. The Chaldeans must, therefore, have possessed the art of writing 2233 years before the Christian era. It is most probable then, as stated by Diodorus, that the Phoenicians were not the inventors of letters, but that

d

A ספר-.To engrave, mark, write כתב .14 .Exodus xvii כתב זאת זכרון בספר: *

register roll or volume, book. The Septuagint has Κατά γραψον τοῦτο εἰς μνημόσυνον εἰς Bibalov or 'ev Bibλly. The Vulgate, says, Scribe hoc ob monimentum in libro.

b He wrote a work, in his own language, nearly 1300 years B.C. on the antiquity of the Phoenicians, which was translated into Greek by Philo of Byblus. Only a fragment of this translation has been preserved by Eusebius in his Præparatio Evangelica. See Phoenician Records, Apud. Euseb. Præp. Evang. I. 9, 10, by W. Whiston, M.A. in his Essay to restore the true text of the Old Testament, 8vo. London, 1722.-Also Phoenician History translated from the 1st Book of Eusebius De Preparatione Evangelicâ, by The Right Rev. Richard Cumberland, D.D. 8vo. London, 1720.

c

e Simplicius, in his Commentary on Aristotle, De cœlo. II. com. 46, p. 123.-Fasti Hellenici: the Civil and Literary Chronology of Greece, &c. by Henry Fynes Clinton, M.A. 3 vols. 4to. Oxford, 1834: vol. i. p. 281.-Philological Museum, vol. i. 38.-Shuckford's Sacred and Profane History Connected, 8vo. 1731; vol. i. bk. iv. p. 191.

d Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 281, 282; iii. p. 505; and i. p. 368, note r.

e Diodorus says expressly, that the Syrians (Assyrians) were the inventors of letters, (Lib. v.) and that the Phoenicians learned them from the Syrians, and afterwards sailed with Cadmus into Europe, and taught them to the Grecks. Eusebius assents to this,

they obtained a knowledge of alphabetic writing from the more easterly nations, the Chaldeans, or Assyrians. It was the current opinion of antiquity, that the Phoenicians conveyed the art of writing in their voyages for commercial purposes; thus letters being first learned from them, would naturally lead Europeans to the conclusion, that they were a Phoenician discovery while, in fact, the Phoenicians only appear to have been the medium, through which a knowledge of letters was transmitted from Asia to Europe. But whatever doubt may exist, as to the acquaintance of the Chaldeans with the art, at this early period, there can be none as to that of Moses, who was well versed in alphabetic writing, seven hundred years after, that is in the year 1491 B.C. when the Law was given. It is clear also, from some of the acrostic or alphabetic Psalms, ascribed to David, such as the cxix Psalm, the paragraphs of which are arranged according to the Hebrew alphabet, that the present names and order of the letters were fixed in David's time, more than 1014 years B.C.; and more than 1062 B.C. if we take for our authority xxxiv. Psalm, which is alphabetic', and was written by David, when he changed his behaviour before Achish.

h

5. The father of Grecian history, Herodotus, about the year 445 B.C. ascribed to the Phoenicians the honour of introducing alphabetic writing into Europe. Speaking from the general opinion, prevalent in his days, and from the best testimonies then in existence, he declares, "the Phoenicians, who came with Cadmus, B.C. 1257, as they brought other knowledge into Greece, so they likewise introduced letters, which, it appears to me, were not in Greece before." Subsequently, Pliny bears the same testimony: "Cadmus brought from Phoenicia into Greece sixteen letters." He also declares that, "The Pelasgi (the most ancient Greeks) brought letters into Latium;" it is, however, probable that the Etruscans, who were from Lydia, and derived their alphabet immediately from the Phoenicians, imparted a knowledge of their letters to Latium. From whomsoever the Romans received letters they never failed to extend the knowledge of them to the utmost bounds of their vast dominions, reaching from the Highlands of Scotland, to the deserts of Africa, and from the Eu

(Præp. Evang. x.) and thinks the Syrians, who first invented letters, were Hebrews. It is true, the ancient Hebrews had the same tongue and letters as the Canaanites or Phoenicians,-nay, all the nations in these parts, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Samaritans, and probably the Assyrians, for some ages, spoke and wrote alike. Shuckford's Sac. and Prof. Hist. Connected, vol. i, bk. iv. p. 228.-Mitford supposes a still higher origin of letters: He says: "The failure of all notice, in the Sacred Book, that the use of letters was a novelty at the delivery of the Decalogue, seems a powerful indication, that it was not so. Nothing, then, appears to me so probable, as that it was derived from the antediluvian world. History of Greece, 8 vols. 8vo. 1839; vol. i. chap. ii. sec. 3; p. 122.

f The other alphabetic or acrostic poems, in Hebrew, are Psalms xxv., xxxvii., cxi., cxii., cxlv: Prov. xxxi. 10-33: Lamen. i. ii. iii. and iv. The same order of the letters is always found in the verses or clauses of these portions of Scripture, with only few and unimportant variations.

s 1 Samuel, xxi.

b Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 368, note r.

· Οἱ Φοίνικες, οἱ σὺν Κάδμῳ ἀπικόμενοι - - - ἐσήγαγον διδασκάλια ἐς τοὺς Ἕλληνας, καὶ δὴ καὶ γράμματα, οὐκ ἐόντα πρὶν Ἕλλησι, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκέειν. Herod. v. 58.

j In Græciam intulisse e Phoenice Cadmum sedecim numero. Pliny vii. 56.

In Latium cas (literas) attulerunt Pelasgi, Id.

phrates to the Atlantic ocean: the Roman alphabet thus became extensively known, and it has long prevailed over the greatest part of Europe.

6. The few authorities' already cited, will be sufficient to prove that the ancients generally ascribed the introduction of letters into Europe to the Phoenicians, who had them from Assyria, and that they imparted their knowledge of writing to the Pelasgi, who were of Japhetic or Indo-European origin, and the primitive stock from which sprang all the Greeks." Not only the Pelasgi or ancient Greeks, but also the Romans, were Japhetic or Indo-European, and were quite a distinct race, from the Phoenicians or Canaanites, who, though descended from Ham, had a language closely allied to the Hebrew. The Phoenician or Hebrew alphabet could but imperfectly denote the sounds in Greek, it being, for this language, both deficient and redundant. Grecian words might be intelligible, when written in Phoenician letters, but this alphabet was incapable of expressing the peculiar and more delicate sounds in the language of Greece. To supply this deficiency in the Phoenician alphabet, alterations and additions were necessary, and they were well made by the great talent and taste of the Greeks. Such Phoenician letters as were redundant, or denoted sounds not in Greek, being useless as letters, were retained only as numerals." It is said that Palamedes introduced e, E, , and X; and Simonides added Z, H, Y, and 2°; but it is more probable they were earlier in use, as the long vowels are found on coins, before the time of Simonides, in the seventh century, B.C.P The double letters and long vowels were all well known in the days of Callias, B.C. 500, both the names and order of the Greek letters have continued precisely the same from that time to the present, as will be subsequently proved. After these alterations had taken place, so great a similarity still remained, in the names, the order, and the numerical value of the letters, as to shew most clearly that the Greek alphabet was derived from the Phoenician. Herodotus, alluding to these changes, says: "At first, indeed," (the letters introduced among the Greeks were)" those which all the Phoenicians use, but then, in process of time, they changed the form of the letters to the sound.”*

1 See more in Bocharti opera omnia, Leyden, 1692; Phaleg et Canaan, col. 448. In Dr. Prichard's Researches into the Physical Hist. of Mankind, vol. iii. pp. 486–497. The Bishop of St. David's expresses this very clearly: "Several changes were necessary to adapt the Eastern characters to a foreign and totally different language: The powers of those which were unsuited to the Greek organs were exchanged for others which were wanting in the Phoenician alphabet: some elements were finally rejected from the written language as superfluous, though they were retained for the purpose of numeration; and in process of time, the peculiar demands of the Greek language were satisfied by the invention of some new signs."-History of Greece, by the Rev. Connop Thirlwall, M.A. Fellow of Trin. Coll. Cambridge, in Cabinet Cyclopædia, 1835, vol. i. p. 238.

• See § 44.-Pliny vii. 56.

P The Analytical Essay on the Greek alphabet, by R. P. Knight, 4to. 1791, mentions the coins of Lesbos in particular, p. 18, 19: Also his Prolegomena in Homerum, 8vo. 1820, pp. 38, 39.

q See § 9.

• Πρῶτα μὲν, τοῖσι καὶ ἅπαντες χρέωνται Φοίνικες· μετὰ δὲ, χρόνου προβαίνοντος, ἅμα τῇ φονῇ, μετέβαλον καὶ τὸν ρυθμὸν τῶν γραμμάτων, Herod. v. 58.

7. A mere glance at these alphabets, given below, will tend to convince every one of their original very close connexion; since, after the lapse of so many ages, the names of the letters, their order, and their numerical value', still remain so similar. The Hebrew or Phoenician has, Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, &c. A, B, G, D, &c.: the Greek, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, &c. A, B, G, D, &c. From the alphabetic Psalms, we know that the present order of the Hebrew alphabet has existed for nearly 3000 years". There is not only a striking resemblance in the names, and in the order, but in the numerical value of the Hebrew and Greek letters: ,,,, denote 1, 2, 3, 4; the Greek letters a', ', y', d, express the same series. The Hebrew, J, and the Greek í, «', represent the same numbers, 10, 20. All these will be very evident from the following alphabets, which, for that purpose, are placed in juxta-position.

The form of the letters might be also named, but it is omitted, as the similarity of the Greek to the Phoenician or old Hebrew letters will be treated of in § 41; where the most ancient alphabet will be given from coins and inscriptions. The common printing Hebrew or Chaldee letters are here used for convenience; see the old Hebrew, Samaritan, or Phoenician, in § 12. No 1.

* B.C. 1062+1844=2906, See § 4.