Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/846

808 HIEROGLYPHICS with the Arabic Koofee in its earliest, which is of course absurd, it would be possible, by selecting- the demotic variety nearest in form to the typical Koofee of coin- inscriptions, to shew a very good apparent agreement of many letters. Any one may try the experiment vith the Koofee alphabet in Soret s Numismatiqne Musnlmane, PI. I. and M. de Rouge s demotic in the Chrestomuthie (I.e.), taking care to use only one type where it was repeated by the Arabs for other letters, and in the case of their alphabet to compare only the isolated or final forms. The result would shew the great caution needed in the inquiry. There are two objections to the proposed derivation of the Phoenician alphabet which must have great weight against any but the strongest evidence of resem blance. The Egyptian letters represent objects the names of which begin with these letters ; similarly the Phoenician letters had names indicating an origin from a hieroglyphic system on the same principle of acrophony. 1 1 would be supposed if the Phoenician letters were derived from the Egyptian ones that their names would describe the original signs. This, however, is not the case in a single instance. Aleph signifies an ox and not an eagle, Beth a house and not a bird, Gimel a camel and not a basket, and so, as far as we know, to the end. It is difficult to imagine the complete loss of the original form, and the naming of letters from a supposed resemblance to another form, which form can scarcely be traced in the most archaic Phoenician. Yet, if the derivation from hieratic be true, we are tied to this archaic form on account of its apparent similarity to the hieratic, and any deviation to explain the Semitic names of the letters would weaken, if not destroy, the foundation of the theory. Again, it is very noteworthy that the oldest monuments of the Phoenician alphabet are to be found not in Egypt but in Palestine and Assyria. These are the Stele of Mesha, king of Moab, and the inscriptions on the Nemrood bronze lion-weights. These weights take us a step farther in the argument, for they shew us on Dfficial documents of a palace of Assyrian kings the use of this alphabet, side by side with the Assyrian character, as a kind of demotic or perhaps commercial writing, of necessity well-known in Assyria itself. Of course it is not to be supposed that the languages expressed were the same, but they were so closely allied that their joint use in Assyria was natural, and particu larly to a nation accustomed to the Turanian Akkadian. This appearance of the Phoenician alphabet in Assyria would suggest that it had its origin rather from Assyrian than Egyptian writing. Is there, however, any evidence that any such alphabet was derived from cuneiform ? Among the systems of writing which present a suffi cient similarity to the Phoenician, and its descendant the Greek, to justify our conjecturing their common derivation, though not necessarily their later connexion, is the Cyprian. This is radically different from the Phoenician in being syllabic, and thus having a much larger list of characters, but the formal resemblances suggest the same source. In the case of the Cyprian, Dr. Deecke has endeavoured to shew the source to be the Assyrian cuneiform in its later form. His arguments are very strong ; here it is only necessary to mention the syllabic character of the Cyprian, the agreement in form of many signs, without the readjustment of their elements suggested as theoretically possible by the Median and Armenian variants, and the striking fact that the Cyprian is found in two inscriptions written in cuneiform, each stroke having the Assyrian typical shape (Deecke, Der Urspruny der Jiyprischcn Sylbcnschrij t) Snrasburg, 1877). This probable solution of the Cyprian problem sug gested to Dr. Deecke the comparison of the Phoenician alphabet with Mesopotamian cuneiform. The result, published in the Zcitschrift der Dcutschcn Morgmlandischcn GcsMscliaft (xxxi. 102 seqq.), is well worthy the attention of scholars. The inquiry was founded on the comparison of forms and sounds in cuneiform. The forms were much less numerous than the extent of the list of signs would lead us to expect, for the great majority of these signs are far too complex to have been the prototypes of such simple signs as the Phoenician letters. The sounds on the same side present no little difficulty, as the adoption by the Babylonians and Assyrians of the Akkadian system of writing produces a confusion of kindred eounds, and excludes some proper to the Semitic alphabets. A further difficulty arises from the polyphony of the Aesyro- Baby Ionian cuneiform signs, whether ideographic or syllabic, which gives a variety of sounds to the same group and thus greatly diminishes the degree of proba bility in an agreement. These signs are all conventional transcriptions of original hieroglyphics. These hiero glyphics can sometimes be traced in the rare hieratic forms, and even occasionally in the regular cuneiform types. When we know the original form we can some times select the radical sound, but where we find more than one cognate sense with a different sound, the selection becomes difficult, if not impossible. Supposing such a sign to be represented by the English figure 1, standing for "one " and "first," the discovery of the radical sound would be apparently hopeless. It would be obviously so if the sign also stood for "beginning" and " union." The result seems satisfactory to the extent of about one-third of the Phoenician alphabet, signs like the Phoenician having like sounds. This result would have little force did it not seem to be supported by the meaning of some of the signs as compared with the names of the Hebrew letters of which we know the meaning, seventeen in number. But the difficulty in discovering- the original radical sound and sense in cuneiform shakes this con clusion. Consequently the five agreements which might be accepted were we certain of the original Assyrian sound and sense cease to have much weight. There are also some probable agreements which, of course, have still less strength. It is, however, to be noted that the syllable had, &c., taken as the origin of Heth, and tip, as that of Teth, have forms in the hieratic cuneiform agreeable to the meaning of the words from which these syllables are sup posed to be abbreviated, liuttn, a " graver," and dilln, a "writing-table." This explanation of the signs Heth and Teth, consecutive, be it remembered, and without certain renderings, in the Hebrew alphabet, is very remarkable as a confirmation of the theory. For the present it is no more than a theory, but perhaps it is as probable as the derivation of the Phoenician alphabet from Egyptian hieroglyphics, through the hieratic types. It is of course possible that the old Semitic alphabet had an origin independent of Egyptian hieroglyphics or the conventional hieratic forms of Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform. The discovery of a new hieroglyphic character in the Hittite inscriptions, containing, in a list of greater extent, certain of the forms indicated by the names of the Hebrew letters, is a new factor in tlie problem, and must be defined before its true value can be ascertained. All that can be said at present is that the Hittite characters wear the aspect of an Egyptian origin. Considering the geographical position of this mode of writing, its prima facie evidence is in favour of M. de Rouge s derivation of the Phoenician

alphabet from Egyptian.