The Daily times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1886-1889, 1888-11-10
ORIGIN OF hLPHABETS.
The Letters A, u and survive All
lhrnce.-inicresfin= Historical Items.


When d child cries. the lips arc apart,
and form, q, each side Of Ne mouth.
sharp angle. with sides Of about equal
length The sounds q tie crying are
those assigned TO the first letter Of almost
every alphabet. Tie arrow headed or
wedge shaped characters in use among the
old Babylonians and Persians till the time
Of the great Alexander Asiatic conluests
were copied from the human mouth By
means Of different combinations these
wedges or As were made 90 represent
Consonant as well as vowel sounds. Bat
the entire alphabet is made up Of these
wedges. 1t required many generations
probably 10 advance from 4 and b. Now,
look at child face. sideways when the
lile are shut. and you see natural Is.
Put these two letters together and We
have ab, which 10y being doubled gives
alba. the old eastern word for father. y
slight modification gives am, then ANNA,
the old eastern form Of mama or mamma
in tho west, just rs abba was changed
into papa and pope or holy father. The
arrow heads had served 10 record the
history. the literature. the religion OF
mighty empires-the old Assyrian,
Median. and Persian. They were traced
mostly on bricks Paper had not yet been
20 much as dreamed Of.
From \ and b alpha and Beta a
comprehensive scheme Of phonetic char
acters must be worked out before the
leaf or rind Of lapyrus F,n be used for
writing on The Up letters VI and T..
softened into F and Y. which last was
vocalized as L, are notifications merely
Of b. We may safely say the same Of
the dental d, softened intoT, which gave
rise 10 :. 4 series Of characters was
gradually worked out, and the TING came
when Cadmus, the man from the East,
brought an alphabet Of sixteen letters
from Phun!cia into Greece. Cadmus,
looked at as an individual man. dwindles
70 myth-a shadow. He expresses IN
legendary form the outcome Of long
train Of almost forgotten facts. These
sixteen letters were expanded by the
Greeks 70 tWeftv-four. Light wooden
tablets covered with wax for writing on
were adopted But the pen was still of
solid iron. like z pencil, sharp at one end.
with fat circular head at the other for
bl0uing out, when desired what had
been written with the point These
tablets were fastened together at the
back by wires. so that they opened and
shut ike our books For IMPORTANT
documents the edges Of the tables were
Dicrcod with holes through which triple
thread was passed and then sealed. Ii
IS to this custom tlat alusiOn i, made III
the Apocalypse--. c.oss sealed with seven
seals. This Apocalvptic book was writ
ten within and on the back The an
clients used to write on the front eide
only-cvcn after they had given up
wooden tablets il favor Of papyrus and
parchment. The back was generally
stained saffron or yellow
The old Italians. too, Of prehistoric
age got an alphabet from the east. Tho
letters were extended and modified until
,hey became very different in form from
those Of Greece. But it is remarkable
that 4. y, and o survive all changes.
They are copies Of the mouth when emit
ting the sounds assigned them. Modern
typography has no doubt greatly inn
proved the rude, early scrawl such as
mag still bc seen on old gravestones. The
old PhUnlcian and old Hebrew Aleph has
not the same position as our modern y.
They are almost horizontal. with auoary
perpendicular line drawn across the angle
formed by the sides Of the letter The
later Roman alphabet was spread by Ro
man conquest. our AnglO-SaxOn fore
fathers at length adopted IT, They man
aged to ct up sort Of literature But
the age Of pocket dictionaries. handy
volumes. the daily or even weekly news
papers was still "a long way Of. Art aud
discovery have still long apprenticeship
before we car inundate our postoiiices
with valentines or photograph instanta.
neously on paper the tail Of some mighty
coInet.-London Stationery Review.