Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/767

 'Z. TJT ^^ bably derived the Phoenician alphabet, the parent of almost all the principal graphic systems of the world. The Egyptians never entirely accomplished the separation of ideo- grams and phonetic symbols, ^ but the Phoenicians adopted only the latter, and thus origi- ^k g nated the first purely alpha- betic system of writing. M. Francois Lenormant distin- ____ G guishes five main branches of the Phoenician alphabet, viz.: ....D 1, the Semitic, which subdi- vides into two groups, the He- TT brew-Samaritan and the Ara- " ' ' msean, the latter including y Palmyrene, Pamphylian, the square Hebrew characters, Es- tranghelo and the other Syrian Z alphabets, the Sabsean or Men- daitic, the Auranitic, the Na- . ...Kh bathsean, and the Arabic, in- cluding the Cufic and neslchi or copyhand ; 2, the central or Greek, comprising the various J. Y Hellenic alphabets and their 7 derivatives, the latter subdivi- ^ ding into the Albanian, Asiatic (Asia Minor), and the Italian ; 3, the western, including but . . . .L a single family, comprising the systems of writing which grew ____ M out of the spread of the Phce- nician alphabet in Spain; 4, ^_  N the northern or Runic (see ' RUNES) ; 5, the Indo-Home- rite (Himyarite), which seems to have had its origin in south- ern Arabia, and to have spread JJ4 . . -P thence to Africa, Ariana, and ' India, the Indian branch giv- ing rise to the ancient Ma- gadhi alphabet, the supposed parent of the Devanagari or written Sanskrit, the Pali, and many others. The first or Q. . . . R Semitic branch has been treat- ed under SEMITIC RACE AND ____ Sh LANGUAGES, and ARABIC LAN- GUAGE AND LITERATURE. Of Xh the central branch, the Italian W subdivision is the parent of the Hieratic Alpha- Lombardic, Visigothic, Anglo- Saxon, Gallic, Merovingian, and German graphic styles, all of which were in use before Charlemagne, and of those which followed him, including the Caroline, the Ca- petian, and the modern Gothic. The Roman letters were used in Italy until the latter part of the 6th century, when the Lombardic style was introduced. This was also sometimes called Roman, because used by the popes in their bulls; it continued in use until the 13th century. The Visigothic style, carried into Spain by the Visigoths, was legally abolished in 1091, and Latin letters were adopted for all A WRITING 739 public instruments. In France the Merovingian style prevailed from the close of the 6th cen- tury to the end of the 8th. Charlemagne intro- duced the Caroline, which, having degenerated before the close of the 10th century, was re- stored by Hugh Capet, and was subsequently called the Capetian. It was in use in Eng- land, France, and Germany till the middle of the 12th century, when the modern Gothic spread over all Europe. The present Ger- man alphabet is a modification of this. There are no traces of writing in Britain before the Eoman conquest, when Latin letters were in- troduced. What is called the Roman-Saxon, ^resembling the Roman, prevailed until the middle of the 8th century ; the set Saxon suc- ceeded it, lasting until the middle of the 9th ; this was followed by the running-hand Saxon of the time of Alfred ; the mixed Saxon, com- bining the Roman, Lombardic, and Saxon let- ters ; and the elegant Saxon, which was intro- duced in the 10th century, and did not become obsolete until the middle of the 12th. The char- ters which remain in this style are remarkable for their small, round, neat, and extremely legible characters. The Norman style, quaint, affected, illegible, and composed of letters near- ly Lombardic, came in with William the Con- queror. The modern Gothic dates in England from the 12th century ; the old English from the middle of the 14th ; the set chancery and common chancery from the latter part of the same century. The English court hand, a bar- barous corruption of the Norman, was contrived by the lawyers in the 16th century, and lasted till the reign of George II., when it was abol- ished by law. In the northern parts of Ireland and Scotland characters similar to the Saxon prevailed until the end of the 16th century. The Russian alphabet is a modified form of that invented by the missionary Cyril for the use of the Slavic tribes of Bulgaria and Moravia, among whom he preached the gospel in the 9th century. It is 'founded upon the Greek alphabet, but that not being sufficient to ex- press all the Slavic sounds, he added to it nu- merous symbols. It was modified by Peter the Great, who reduced the number to 36 char- acters. (See GI.AGOLITIC, and RUSSIA, LAN- GUAGE AND LITERATURE OF.) The Wallachs adopted the Cyrillic alphabet in the 15th cen- tury, but further diminished it to 27 symbols; and since 1856 the Latin alphabet has mostly supplanted it. For the Mexican picture wri- ting and the Central American hieroglyphs, see HIEROGLYPHICS. The Japanese graphic sys- tem, which is a modification of the Chinese, is treated under JAPAN, LANGUAGE AND LITEB- ATURE OF. The utmost diversity exists among different nations in the manner or direction of writing : but in general the Semitic races wrote from right to left, and the Aryan from left to right. The Egyptian hieroglyphs are some- times without any arrangement, but are gener- ally written either in columns or horizontal lines, according to the shape of the surface t<