which the letters li:iJ lieon derived. Early
attempts to identify the Plioenician letters with
Egyptian hieroglyphics led to no satisfactory
result: but in ISoO Emmanuel de RougC read
before the French Academie 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
aliout 2000 B.C., and may well be much earlier.
Pe Rouge's arguments were first published in
detail after his death by his son, in Mcmoirc sur
I'nrigine egi/ptienne dc Valiihahet phcniclen
(Paris, 1874), and were for a time generally
accepted. They were ado)it,ed by ('anon Isaac
Taylor in his book. The Alphabet ('London, 1883) ,
and have been retained in the second edition
(180!)).
An altogether new turn to the discussion was given by the discovery of the Tel-el-Amarna tab- lets containing a series of letters written in Syria about 1379-60 b.c., which showed that at that time the cuneiform characters were used by the Phoenicians and other Semites even for correspondence with the Egyptian coui-t, and that the Babylonian was evidently the lan- guage of international relatioTis. Even before this time. Doecke, Peters, and Homnicl bad at- tempted to show a connection between the Phteni- cian alphabet and the cuneiform of Assyria or Babylonia, and recently Delitzsch. Die Entsfch- iiiifi des (iltesten Schriftsystems (Leipzig, 1897), and Peiser, Stitdien ^ur orientaliKchen Altei-fiims- liinde (1900), have developed the Babylonian theory, though with differences in detail. This theory, however, labors under one serious diffi- culty. The early Babylonian cliaracters which are supposed to throw light vipon the Phcenician prototypes are at least 1000 and probably 2000 years or more earlier than the earliest Phoeni- cian inscriptions, and differ decidedly from the cuneiform characters in use in Syria within 250 or 300 years of the time when the alphabet must have been developed. A similar objection may be brought against De Rouge's derivation from- the earlier hieratic. Neither the Egyptian nor the Babylonian origin can, therefore, be regarded as proved, though neither has been shown to be impossible.
But Babylon and Egypt were not the only pi'eat powers of the early civilization of the East. The Hittites (q.v. ) had a hieroglyphic system of their own. which might easily liave influenced the Phienicians. though no systematic attempt at direct derivation of the alplialict from this source has yet appeared. The Cypriote Greeks down to the fourth century B.C. made use of a syllabic system which in some of its signs shows a strong resemblance to the Hittite. Even more imjiortant is the discovery of at least two early systems of writing on the island of (^rcte. One of these is distinctly ])ictoriaI or hieroglyphic, the other, and later, is linear, and contains a nuuiUer of forms closely analogous to the Plioeni- cian and early Greek characters. Moreover, sim- ilar linear or geometric signs have been found on pottery in tombs of the first dynasty at Abydos in Egypt, and likewise at Kahun (twelfth dynasty) and Gurob; they have also appeared in Palestine at Tel-el-Hesy, and many of them are found in the Carian and Ccltibcrian alphabets of later times. From these facts Pro- fessor W. M. Flinders Petrie has suggested that a signary, or scries of signs (whether hiero- glyphic, syllabic, or alphabetic is unknown), was in use around the coast of the Mediterranean from a very early date (perhaps ."lOnO B.C.). These signs increased in number and variety, and from them has been selected the later alpha- bet. The selection and grouping are due to the Phtenieians, who assigned commercial values to certain characters, and tlnis transmilled them to the Greeks. The value of this .Egeau element in the discussion cannot be fairly estimated until the Cretan linear and liieroglyphie systems are at least partially vtnderstood, for as yet none of the values of the signs is known; and although the resemblance in form between the early signs and the late letters is undeniable, the same thing is true of many early Babylonian and Egyptian characters. It is indeed obvious (hat mere ex- ternal likeness is insuni<'ient to j)r(ne a common origin: there must be sufficient resemblance in sound or meaning to account in some degree for the choice of that particular sign by the borrower to serve as a letter in the new alphabet.
When the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alpha- bet is uncertain. It can scarcely have been earlier than 1000 B.C., nor later than the eighth century, as it evidently succeeded the Dorian invasion, but preceded the great colonizing move- ment, since the colonies regularly use the same alphabet as the mother city. While adopting the characters, with their names and order, from the Phn?nicians, the Greeks found some changes in values necessary. The Semites did not write the vowels, and the Greeks ap|)ropriated for this purpose four of the breathings, which were not needed in theSemitic system of phonetics. For the fifth vow'el (u), they verj' early .adopted a differenti- ation of the spirant (vau), and placed it at the end of the Phoenician series. Among the wealth of sibilants offered, Zain was universally appro- priated for the double consonant Zeta (prob- ably dz); as between Samech, Tsade, and Shin there is great diversity of usage among the early local alphabets, and no general agreement among epigraphists as to the exact course of the devel- opment. In the Ionian alphabet, which ulti- mately came into general use. the place of Sam- ech was filled by Xi (x), Tsade was dropped, and Shin used for the simple (s) sound. A history of the numerous loral variations in the Greek alpha- bet lies outside the scope of this article. It is enough to mention the chief varieties, which were influential in the development of borrowed alphabets. The primitive al])liabet, omitting Xi and ending with Upsilon, is found in early in- scriptions of Thera. Mclos, and Crete. To this alphabet were added three supplementary signs, and in the method of this change the Greek alphabets after the seventh century fall into two great groups, the Eastern and Western. The former includes Asia Minor, the islands of the ,^5gean, and some points on the Greek mainland; the latter includes Euboea, most of the States of Greece proper, Sicily, and Italy. It is to be noted that the lines of demarkation are not those of the dialects nor of the races, though the East- ern group is largely Ionian, and the Western Dorian. Attica occupies a middle position. The Eastern alphabet adopted H = f ^ x, and added * =(^:= ph. X =;x = <'h, and * = ^=ps. The Western alphabet shows X ^ i =: x, * = pb, t-=ch, ps was expressed by ttct or ij)C!., or in some cases by a new sign >t: . The origin of these signs, and especially the curious diversity
