The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1884-07-23
Tho Alphnhet.
DeU-roOn

The discovery of the alphabet is at once the
triumph. the instrument and the register of the
progress Of.Our race. The oldest abecedarium
in existence is a child's alphabet ON a little
ink-bottle of black ware found on the cite of
Cere, one OF the oldest of the Greek settle
ments in central Italy, certainly older than
the sixth century B. c. The PhUnician al
phabet has been reconstructed from several
hundred inscriptions. The "Moabite Stone"
has yielded the honor of being the most an
cient Of alphabetic records 70 the bronze plates
found in Lebanon in 1872, fixed as Of the tenth
or eleventh century, and therefore the earliest
extant monuments Of the Semitic alphabet.
The lions of Nineveh and an inscribed scarab
found at Khorsabad have furnished other carly
alphabets, while soarabs and cylinders, seals
and gems, from Babylon and Nineyeh, with
some inscriptions, are tie soanty records OF
the first epoch of the Ph@nician alphabet.
For the second period, a sarcophagus found in
1855, with an Inscription of p lines has tasked
the skill Of more than forty Of the most emi-
nent Semitic Scholars of the day, and the lit
erature connected with it is overwhelming,
An.unbrolren series of coins extending over
seven centuries from 522 b. c. to l53 a D.,
Hebrew engraved gems, the Sloan inscription
discovered in Jerusalem in 1880, early Jewish
coins, have each and all found special students
whose successive progressis fully detailed by
Taylor. The Aramean alphabet lived only
for seven or eight centuries, but from it sprang
the scripts Of five great faiths of Asia and the
three great literary alphabets Of the East.
Nineveh and its public records supply most
curious revelations of the social life and COIN
mercial transactions of those primitive times.
Loans, leases, notes, sales Of houses, slaves,
etc, all dated, show the development Of the
alphabet. The early Egyptian inscriptions
show which alphabet was there in the reign
of Xerxes. Fragments ON stone preserved in
old Roman walls in Great Britain, Spain,
France and Jerusalem, oil supply early alpha
bets.
Alphabets have been affected BY religious
controversies, spread by missionaries, and
preserved ia distant regions by holy faith, ii
spite of persecution and peryersion. The
Arabic alphabet, next in Importance after the
great Latin alphabet, followed in eighty years
the widespread religion Of Mohammed; and
now The few Englishmen who can read and
speak it are astonished 70 learn that it is col
laierally related to their own alphabet and thai
both can be traced back to theprimitiye Pho.
nician source. A a
Greece alone had forty local alphabets, re.
duced by careful study TO about half dozer
generic groups, characterized by certain CON-
mon local features, and also by political Gun
nection.
Of the oldest "a, ., c's;S found lin Italy
several were scrubbed by school-bOys OIL
Pompeian walls, six in Greek, four IL 0scan
four IN Latin; others were scratched on chill.
dren's cups and buried with them in tlei
graves, or cut or painted for practice upol
unused portions of mortuary slabs The ear.
fiest was found as late as 1882 a plain vase O
black ware with an Btruscan inscription ant
syllabary or spelling exercise, ana thu
Greek alphabet twice repeated.