Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1870-06-23
1elaware Tribn,te
Thursday, June 2s, 1870.
THE aENEALoaY OF THE A B G FAMILY.

THE GENEAL0GY OF THE G FAMILY.
The elder Mr.. Weller once made reference to
Young gentleman who objected to learning the
alphabet, on the ground that it was not worth
while to 20 through 30 much to get so little.
The boy was correct as to facts, though his
inference is not to be allowed. There was
great deal to go through with before the English
alphabet, in its present form, could become the
possession of the great nations whose grandest
thoughts are disseminated and preserved through
its instrumentality.
slender as would be tho education which was
limited to an acquaintance with those twenty-sx
letters, it is nevertheless true that without them
any education would be lamentably defective.
We derived our alphabet in the first instance
from tho Latin tongue. The Romans had
written language and ricll literature for many
centuries before our ancestors did anything more
important than wander through German forests,
ormore artistic than to express their undeyeloped
sense of the beautiful by painting their naked
bodies blue.
When, however. barbarism began to give place
to culture, the hitherto ignorant races saved
themselves the trouble of invention by appro-
priating what had been already prepared by
somebody else. The Latin language gave place
largely to the Anglo-Saxon speech, but Anglo
Saxon writer's put their words in visible form by
means Of the Roman letters. They made also
one important addition which we, their heirs, have
unwisely lost by disuse. There are two sounds
of the combined letters a.; one heard in
"A.iater" and in there" the other in thick"
AZ N, t,r, 1tQtty
sounds the Anglo-Saxons had two separate
characters, which our nearer ancestors unfor-
iunately neglected and abandoned.
Other changes have also crept in, which are
certainly advantageous. The Latin letter had
two forms, and ] j: in our language those two
forms have become two separate letters with
entirely different values. So with u, which was
sometimes written .; we make those forms 40
duty for very uni = sounds. Then we doubled
the Il, and 30 got 10, an entirely new letter. We
did more than this ; we went back past the Latin
and laid violent hands upon the Greek alphabet,
obllging it to make over to us the use of its
letter Il without our allowing any royalty, or
paving any compensation for the same. and
W are, to this day, unknown in Latin books
But if our fore-runners adopted the Latin
alphabet for their own convenience they only
followed the example which had been long
before set them by the Romans. They invented
no system of letters they only took possession
Of one of the older forms of the Greek alphabet,
making such changes as pleased them. In the
Greek classics, the letter II is equivalent to long
., but when the Romans took it it had just the
value we give it, that of breathing. They also
entirely rejected the (Which every Greek
alphabet has-and wrote both Il and sounds by
means of 9, which was the ancient sign for the
g-sound only. Afterwards, when they wanted a
distinct letter q, they added that mark across the
lower tart of G, by which it is distinguished
from g. The @ is not found in the later Greek
alphabets, but represents an old Phenician
cultural sound.
Going still further back we find that the Greeks
borrowed their original alphabet from the Phen-
icians. This carries us still more to the cast
ward, as every succeeding step of our inquiry
has done.
On the Eastern Coast Of the Mediterranean
lies strip Of country some two hundred miller
long, hemmed in between the sea in front and
the Palestinian ills and Syrian mountains be-
hind Its breadth never exceeded twelve miles
at the widest, and in many places ii is far mar
rover. That was phenica, and its inhabitants
were the great commercial nation of antiquity.
Their ships went out upon every then known
sea- and carried home the products of almost
every region. They also spread abroad every
where their own manufactures, that purple dye
called Tyran, the secret of which is lost goblets
and mirrors of glass; drinking vessels Of golt
and silver, jewelry both genuine and initiated
costly perfumes, fine linen and priceless silks.
With these ships and cargoes went also colon
les which were planted on all the islands ant
shores of the Mediterranean. These colonsti
carried with them written language and a de
yeloped system Of arithmetic. When the Greeks
began to set up for themselves in civilization
they had recourse to the Phenician alphabet al
means of expressing sounds in writing.
But the Phenicans had scarcely any signs fo
voweIs and the ingenious Greeks supplied tina
defect. There were many cultural breathings il
the Oriental speech which were unuttered-an'
perhaps unutterable-by the Grecans, 80 the
took the signs for those cultural consonants an'
made them stand for vowels. Thus the character
for A. L. and o., were provided.
Tie question then aiises where did the Phe
nicians get their alphabet I The best scholars ar
now of opinion that they in their turn borrowe
from some more primitive source. The name
Of phenician letters are the names of naturi
Objects and each name begins with the sonn
designated by the character. For instance, tn
sign for b, is called beth, meaning "a house,
that for d. is called daleth "a door" In SON
cases there is rude resemblance between I'll
form of the letter and the figure of the obje
from which it was named. All this seems
point to very early date in human history
the period of the invention of an alphabet. HOY
ever, we cannot with any accuracy go furth
back than Phenicia for our letters. This TAX
lis up to some twenty-five centuries before Il
Christian era, and gives the respectable antiqui
of more than 1000 years to those A. b. C'
which Mr. Weller's boy considered unworthy
his attention.
There have been many alterations in for
some changes in value and some fresh additio
as to number,b but our English alphabet of tod
is directly traceable back through the Latin
the Greek, and through that to the Phenicia
and although at that point certainty ends a
conjecture begins, it is at least highly proba
that we inherit the literary and literal inventit
of some ancient nation in Central Asia