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recent discoveries by Botta and Layard, and the progress made in decyphering it by Grotefend, Burnouf, Rawlinson, and Hinks, have rendered almost a popular subject. It may be therefore interesting to examine how far this view of the subject is borne out by the present and previous forms of the Hebrew letters.

EXAMPLES SHEWING THE POSSIBLE INFLUENCE OF THE CUNEATIC SYSTEM ON THE SAMARITAN OR ANCIENT HEBREW ALPHABET.

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On examination of the existing Hebrew alphabet, in existing MSS. it is found that nearly all the characters are formed of one leading element—a straight line, thick and blunt at one end, and sharp at the other, really resembling the wedge-like or cuneatic element of the writing of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia; and it is upon this general resemblance of form, that Champollion Figeac strikingly remarks, that "the later Hebrew alphabet is a cuneiform alphabet in the second generation." But, notwithstanding this acute observation of the French savant, it appears more probable that the slight analogies existing between the Hebrew and cuneiform characters may be better explained, by leaving the two manners contemporary; for it is now known, from a few recently-discovered examples, that a kind of cursive or more rapidly executed cuneatic writing was in use at the same period as the monumental or strictly rectangular style; and this was more probably the model upon which the modifications of the Hebrew alphabet were effected, and upon which also the Arian and Parthian alphabets were probably founded, though thought by some to be derived from the reformed Hebrew.

It is possible, also, that the cursive or irregular form of the Assyrian characters may be more ancient than the well-defined cuneatic; for the monumental inscriptions cut on stone are so copious and so numerous, that it is easily conceivable that some method of abridging the labour may have been sought, which eventually resulted in the reduction of all the irregularities and curves to a combination representing all their leading characteristics by means of straight lines placed at different angles; which would be most easily carved thick at the end where the chisel first entered, and thin at the termination of the line-thus giving the wedge-like form.

At the same time it may be supposed that, in writing on papyrus, or cloth, or any other substance of that kind, the more irregular forms of the original characters would be preserved, and that the cursive manner, probably still preserved in the Chaldean, was really that cursive cuneiform, or rather cursive Assyrian, which induced the Hebrews to modify the forms of their national

* See chapter on cuneiform writing, for more detail on this subject.

letters; and its resemblance to their ancient alphabet would go to prove, as I have previously suggested, an Egyptian origin for the Assyrian characters, as well as those of the Phoenicians and Hebrews. The direction of the cuneiform character, however, from left to right, instead of from right to left, like the Hebrew, would seem to support the view of its derivation from another

source.

A number of interesting associations connected with the oldest Hebrew characters, and the names of things upon which they are founded, might be cited in support of the foregoing views; but space will not permit their introduction here, and I must conclude this chapter by referring to the Hebrew system of numerals, which will be found in Plate V., and its analogies with the Greek system cannot fail to interest the student.

90

CHAPTER IX.

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEK ALPHABET.

E have seen how the Phoenician and Hebrew characters were derived

WB from the Egyptian, or from some similar source, which, like it, had

developed a system of hieroglyphic writing to the highest extent of which it was capable, without abandoning entirely the iconographic or pictorial character.

The Hebrews and Phoenicians, in taking their system of writing from the Egyptians, or, as I have said, from some system of pictorial writing in a similar period of development, have, it has been shewn, entirely abandoned all the imitative and symbolic portions of the system, and adopted only the phonetic or sound-expressing portion. In this process, certain signs, pictorial in their origin, were made to form a set of arbitrary characters partly syllabic and partly literal, by which their new possessors were enabled to effect the exact notation of every sound in their respective languages. These characters may be considered syllabic when a consonant carries a particular vowel-sound with it, as in the cases of the Hebrew koph and kaph, the sound of k being in the former followed by the vowel o without its being written, and in the latter by a. To systems of letters still encumbered by machinery of this kind, we cannot with propriety apply the term alphabet, in its present acceptation, which means strictly a certain number of separate characters or letters, among which vowel-sounds are all separately and distinctly represented by vowel-characters, and dominant sounds by distinct and separate dominant characters, termed consonants; every consonant being capable of combination with every vowel, either before it or after it, and imparting to it another value, either by its own power alone, or in conjunction with other consonants. In short, an alphabetic system, strictly so called, is one in which no syllables exist ready-made, as it were, in the form of single characters or letters, but in which every syllabic sound of the language is capable of perfect notation by means of a combination of two or more distinct characters.

The term "alphabet" is, as every school-boy knows, derived from the names of the two first Greek letters, Alpha and Beta; and the honour of conferring the title upon so perfect a system of letters as the one described is strictly due to the Greeks, who, as far as existing monuments shew, were the first finally to abandon the last remnants of a partially syllabic arrangement

*

a, being however expressed by N, in the later system with which we are acquainted.

(Earhest Examples.)
N°1.

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185&255AD.

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No 8. Specimen from the Greek M.S.known as the N7. From a Greek Copy of the Book of Genesis written in
Codex Alexandrimus (4 century)A.D. Gold on purple vellum, 4 century, A.D

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No9. (cursive Greek writing) from an Edict of the Eastern Emperor Maurice, issued in the VIIth Century A.D

PRINTED BY P. JERRARD, III, FLEET ST

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