The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1888-06-02
HISTORY OF WRITING.
An Art whose Origin IL shrouded In 1m-
penetrabie Mystery.

penetrabie Mystery.
or the very first origin of the art OF
writing nothing is known. The Egyp-
tians ascribed it to their god Thoth; the
Greeks to Mercury or Cadmus. and the
Scandinavians to Odin. UnqucstionablY
the first step toward writing was rude
pictorial representation of objects, the
the next the application of a symbolic
meaning to some of these pictures, and
gradually all pictures bee anne symbolic,
and for convenience were abbrcv lated.
Later they became conventional signs
and in time they were made to stand
for the sounds of spoken language
The various systems of writing of the an
cient world had probably at least three
sources-the Egyptian, the Assyrian
and the Chinese systems-all of which
were originally hieroglyphic, or made up
of pictures. The Egyptians had four
distinct styles of writing, the hiero-
glyphic, hicratic, enchorial and Coptic.
The hieroglyphic was probably in use
before 1000 b. G. and at first was en-
tirely made up of pictures, but about
1000 b. G. the hioratic form was in
troducod, in which the hieroglyphs
were greatly simplified and developed
into purely linear forms. The encho-
rial form of writing was in use from 700
B. c., to 200 A. d., and was still fur
ther simpliiication of the earlier forms.
finally developing into the alphabetical
form known rs the Coptic. The cunei-
form writing of tho Assyrian empire
disputes the honors of antiquity with
the Egyptian early forms. This was
probably hicroglyphic in its origin, but
became modified by the different ma
tions occupying the Assyrian empire,
until it assumed the form of the inscrip-
tions as now known to archnologists.
The name of this writing is from a
Latin word meaning wedge, and it is
so called because all of the characters
used are made up of different arrange
ments of single pointed figure. re-
sembling q wedge in form. There were
three classes of cuneiform characters
used in the period of development of
this form of writing; first, the Assyrian
or Babylonian, which was very compli-
Gated, containing from six hundred to
seven hundred symbols; the Scythian or
Median. having about one hundred
characters only, and the third, the
Persian, which is purely alphabetic.
The Chinese gives an example Of writ
ten language which was ar rested in an
early period of its development before
the alphabetic stage had been reached.
The people of China still use written
character for word, as they did thou
sands of years ago. The Egyptian is
the most important of those early sys-
TENS, as from it probably derived the
PhGnician alphabet, which became the
parent of all the graphic systems
of the modern world. The Egyptians
never fully separated the hero
glyphic and phonetic symbols, but the
Phnnicans adopted the latter only. and
thus originated the first purely alpha
bette plan of writing. The PhGnician
alphabet was the parent of five princi-
pal branches of graphic forms. the
most important of which is the Greek,
which was the parent of the Roman
alphabet. from which sprang the alpha
bets of all modern European nations,
and from them by the people who now
inhabit the Western hemisphere. Chi
cago Inter Ocean.