Page:The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet.djvu/38

26 and Aryan name of A or Ā to the natives of Egypt, Instead of the Water-sign for A the Sumero-Phœnician rulers, who introduced writing there, employed for the vowel-sign Ā, the Hand-sign which has in Sumerian also that same phonetic value and meaning as in Egyptian. And for the short vowel, where it is expressed, the Egyptian uses the Eagle-sign which is called Akh in Sumerian and Akha (-mist) in Egyptian —for the so-called "alphabetic" system in Egyptian consists, as we have seen, merely, as a rule, in the use of a great variety of syllabic words of two or more consonants for the sake of the initial portion of the syllabic name or sound.

This labial letter in all the alphabets preserves clearly the form of that early pictogram now disclosed as its Sumerian parent. This is the word-sign Ba or Bi picturing a mass in division and meaning "broken" or "bi-sected" (see Plate I, col. 1, and cp. the other cols.).

In Egyptian alphabetic "signaries" the form approaching that of the modern B is found on twelfth Dynasty pottery. Before that period, on pre-dynastic pottery is found the simpler square diagrammatic form of an upright bar with everted ends, which thus corresponds to signs found in Crete, etc., and to the form of B or Ba in Old Persian cuneiform, etc. (see Plate I, cols. 3, 10 and 18). In hieroglyphs this Sumerian sign is not used for B as no word of that sound or initial with the meaning of "bi-sect" occurs in Egyptian.

In Ogam or Tree-twig script with its simple strokes, its B sign as appears to represent the same idea of division or bi-section. The Indian Asokan and Hindi also preserve the form of a mass bi-sected, and this is especially well conserved in the Runes and in the modern English B. The