Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/646

Rh COS ALPHABET 5. The Indo-JTomerite stem, distinguished by the appearance of a new principle, the expression of vowel sounds by means of conven tional adjuncts attached to the symbol of the consonant, and thus sometimes considerably modifying its shape. The place of its origin seems to have been southern Arabia. From thence it has radiated on the one side to Africa, where the Abyssinian and the African systems form a separate family with the Himyaritic, or alphabet of the old inhabitants of Yemen ; on the other side to Ariana, where a special form of writing established itself ; and to India, whose most ancient alphabet, Magadhi, now referred by A. Weber to a Phoenician origin, has given birth to an enormous list of derivatives, which can be classified among six families Devanagari, Pali, Dravidian, Transgangetic, Oceanic, and Thibetan which we here enumerate in their chronological order of descent. It will of course be observed that this classification of alphabets runs entirely counter to the universalby-accepted classification of languages into certain well -recognised groups under three main heads Indo-European, Semitic, and that family which, rather because its members differ from the two first-named than from any especial bond of union among themselves, is called Turanian. This is in nowise surprising. There is no necessary connection what ever between the sound and the symbol which signifies it ^between the language and the alphabet. The languages of nearly all Europe are Indo-European (or Aryan, as they are sometimes called) ; the alphabets are universally Semitic that is the fact, explain it as we may. In fact, if we wish to maintain that sound and symbol correspond, so that the second is the only natural exponent of the first, we must form two hypotheses which refute themselves first, that it was possible that any race of men, when they first felt the need of an alphabet, deliberately set them selves to form their letters so as to represent the different positions of the organs of speech as each sound was pro duced ; secondly, that such forms could have been exactly preserved through long lapse of time, so as to convey to subsequent generations exactly the same idea as they gave to their inventors. But each supposition is clearly impossible. An alphabet so formed would also be an artificial alphabet, such as could never have entered the minds of men who needed to supply just their actual wants as they arose, not to construct a scientific table of signs to denote all possible sounds. But the construction of such a pictorial alphabet as we have supposed is quite possible, and it has, actually been formed most ingeniously by Mr Melville Bell. In his system, which he calls &quot; Visible Speech,&quot; consonants are denoted by curved lines, which represent the position of the tongue or lips in their formation. For example, in forming the gutturals k, g, ng, the back of the tongue is raised, and this is expressed by the curve P ; in pronouncing y, the front of the tongue is arched, and this is denoted by f) ; in pronouncing dentals, the point of the tongue is raised, and this is expressed by (J ; in sounding labials, the lips are closed, and this is denoted by Q ; where the passage of the mouth is com pletely closed by the symbolised organ (as in Tc, g, t, d, p, 1), the ends of the curve are shut by a connecting line thus Gl denotes Tc; the consonants which are voice articu lations (i.e., in producing which the chordae vacates vibrate, and so produce voice), as g, d, b, &c., are further distin- tinguished by a short straight line within the curve, the physiological sign which is chosen (conventionally, it must be allowed) to represent voice being (I) a straight line; and the other distinguishing marks of the consonants are similarly expressed either by added marks or by slight modifications of the primary curve. Equally ingeniously, the vowels are expressed by the straight line which is the sign of voice, a subordinate symbol, or &quot;definer,&quot; being added to denote the part of the mouth which modifies the vowel e.g., a hook or a solid point at the top or bottom of the vowel-line, a bar across the line to express that the lips are contracted or drawn across the aperture of the mouth, &c., fec. We need not enter further into the minutiae of the system ; enough has been said to show the principle on which it is formed. It is obvious that there would be no greater difficulty in teaching this alphabet to a child than in teaching it a, b, c, except that the number of symbols is greater, because one is provided for every sound in the language, which our alphabet certainly fails to do ; still, to learn either our alphabet or &quot; visible speech &quot; must for a child be simply an effort of memory. And one great practical gain which would be derived from the general adoption of such a system is the ease with which foreign languages could be mastered. The great difficulty in learning to speak a foreign language does not consist in the mere mastering so many declensions ; it lies in the fact that two alphabets may be composed of exactly the same S3 7 mbols, and yet many of these symbols may express to the two nations quite different sounds. This is a preliminary difficulty which must be mastered at once ; and it would be immensely lessened if such dissimilar sounds as, e.g., the German, French, and English u were not all presented to the learner under the same symbol. It seems certain that, with the lapse of time and the progress of invention, the intercourse between nations must be largely increased ; and the need of some more perfect instrument of speech between them must increase propor tionately. But in spite of the obvious gains, it is Utopian to suppose that the world will ever be converted to a system of universal writing; and the real and immense gain of such a method is the power which it gives to a linguistic inquirer to denote accurately on paper the exact sounds heard in any dialect spoken in any part of the world, civilised or uncivilised ; for it is as competent to register the click of the Hottentot as the most subtle vowel sound of Europe. With our present alphabet it is utterly impossible to represent adequately the strange sounds of some out-of-the-way dialect (which for students of language may be as important as the literary speech) in such a way as to be generally intelligible, because there often is no symbol to correspond exactly, and naturally no two inquirers agree upon the nearest out of the existing symbols. The science of language is therefore greatly indebted to Mr Bell for providing so effective a method for preserving for ever those dialectic peculiarities which are vanishing with startling rapidity in these days of con stant communication between different parts of a country. Another system, equally valuable scientifically, has been invented by the eminent philologer, Mr Alexander J. Ellis. In his &quot; Palseotype&quot;only the ordinary symbols are employed, but they are printed in different ways to denote different sounds sometimes as capitals, sometimes in italics, some times turned upside down ; so that, despite the familiarity of the letters, a page of palseotype is at least as appalling to the uninitiated as the curves and lines of &quot;visible speech.&quot; We may proceed to trace the variations from the Phoenician alphabet to our own, down the central stem of Greece and Italy. The Phoenician alphabet consisted of twenty-eight letters, which for convenience we may call by the names of their Hebrew equivalents. These were (1) Aleph, (2) Beth, (3) Gimel, (4) Daleth, (5) He, (G) Vav, (7) Zayin, (8) Cheth, (9) Teth, (10) Yodh, (11) Kaph, (12) Lamedh, (13) Mem, (14) Nun, (15) Samekh, (16) Ayin, (17) Pe, (18) Tsadhe, (19) Koph, (20) Resh, (21) Shin, (22) Tav. None of these were vowel sounds. Aleph was the lightest guttural or rather faucal sound, being pronounced below the guttural point at the very top of the larynx : it can have been barely audible even before a vowel. He corresponded nearly