Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1871-11-09
WRITTEN AND PRINTED
lai-. @ LANGUAGE. =
Different Methods Contrasted
sH NEW TANGLED SYSTEM.
HIEROGLYPHICS.

NEW TANGLED SYSTEM.
HETEROGENEOUS.
The first method of writing was by,
pictures of thought, things and occur
rences. Specimens of these hieroglyph-
les, occur on Egyptian and other ancient
ruins The system which they represent
has been termed " the earliest dispense
ton under the written law" 4.As this
method required sign or picture for each,
idea, object, or action, it was not adapted
to a people who were progressive in
civilization, and the want of better sys-
tenn was soon felt.gsi ssais s: s- 4
isya7-t.s 4- - LETTERS. s. .q5
Cadmus, the rcputedinventor of letters,
employed written marks or signs to rep
In order, to do this, llea must have an,
alyzed the sounds of the language His
method rendered it no longer necessary
to draw a picture of any occurrence to
convey an idea of it, but merely to make
the marks or letters that stood for the
sounds in the words used to describe it.
Hepwoth Dixon says, This substitu-
ton of phono graphy, or sound-writing,
for idea graphy, or thought-writing. was
the grandest revolution ever introduced
into the arena of human effort :" for while
thought has infinite aspects that cannot be
reduced to primitive roots, sound may be
resolved into few radical elements-sus-
ceptible of almost infinite combination
and capable of expressing every vocal ut
| terance
1t is supposed that the inventor of the
| alphabet, having obtained the best analy-
sis of sound that be could, had recourse
to these thought-pictures or hieroglyph-
les, for the forms of the letters that were
used to represent the elements of the
voice For instance, 4ms Tin mytholo-
gy) was an OK, worshipped in ancient
Egypt as divinity; and not only was it
! quite natural that the first letter of the
| alphabet should bear, originally, a%sug-
gestiye resemblance to the head of the OK
as. we'll as to the name, but further eyi-
dence is found i'm the fact that the Hebrew
name of A is dlelh, an OK, or leader.
SERIOUS MISTAKE. So
Had the inventor of sound dwriting con
structed his forms from the simplest geo
metrical lines, points and curves, instead
of copying the complicated and hard to be
written thought ht-picturess of his age, al
immense additional advantage would have
been gained; but from the time Of Cad
mus to- the present day no essential i'm
provement has been made in this respect
We accomplish journey in thirty hours
which, within the memory of men now
living, it required seventy-five days te
perform; we telegraph our thought acros:
the ocean n a second of time; and yet W.
use method OF pen and ink communica
ton six times as slow and laborious a
need be-whilc the great tide of human
progress surges by, and far away beyond
in every other department of thought, l
has been sal / that the history of writer
language is the history of civilization.
Were it not for the contribution tha
f-. PHoNoGRAPHY
has made to the world advancement, tn
statement could not be sustained.
Less than twenty words of frequen
occurrence constitute about one half o
t books, speeches, sermons, etc, and eaol
of these may be represented by simpl
mark. The first paragraph of the Declar
alton of Independence, while it illustrate
TIE fact just mentioned, is so familiar t
most readers that such word signs as ca
/ be constructed from common types ma
be introduced, Without danger of maxim
sI it unintelligible: f-li%' - '- Sass
1 ls,When - course human events be
comes necessary \ one people dissolv
political bonds have connected ar
other, assume ?. powers V eafth'
separate equal station 4 laws
natures entitle &, decent respect
opinions mankind requires .declar
causes impel separation. =
There are II words in the foregoin
paragraph, 80 of which are represente
: by 10 different signs! That is, Is diffe
: tent word d-signs, each made by sing
motion of the pen, constitute almost fou
seoenths of the paragraph The san
rnumber of infections of the pen q23} th'
are required to write the first 9t5 words
Ito the third syllable of necessary"
longhand-represent the whole II wore
? in shorthand! t, +a e.tt
PHONOTYPY. $50 s Gf
) Attempts have also been made to pop