Clarksville evening chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn) 1886-1890, 1888-12-24
ORIGIN or ALpHAssrs.

Tho Letters A. u and o Survive All
s.-Hanges-IntereStinR Historical ItemA
WI, en- child cries, the lips are apart,
sbd for1.r, at each side Of the mouth, a
sf,4vy, anc,e, with sides of about equal
LENGTH. TIN. sounds Of the crying are
those assigned 30 the first letter Of almost
every aIphabet. The arrow headed or
wedge shaped charact>a rs in use among the
old BabylonfaHS and Pen;sians till the time
of the great Alexander Asiatic conquests
were copied FROM tie human mouth. By
means of differeEt combinations these
wedges or AS were made to represent
consonant rs well as vowel sounds. But
the entire alphabet is made up of these
wedges. 1t required many generations
probably to advance from A and b. Now,
look at child 3 face, sideways, when the
| lips are shut, and you see natural y.
Put these two letters together and we
have alb, which by being doubled gives
abba, the old eastern word for father.
slight modification gives am, then ANNA,
the old eastern form Of mama or mamma
in the west, just as abba was changed
into papa and pope or holy father The
arrow heads had served TO 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
10 much as dreamed of.
From a and Is alpha and Beta)
comprehensive scheme Of phonetic char
acters must be worked O1t before the
leaf or rind Of papyrrrs can be used for
writing on. The lip letters NJ and p,
softened into j and v, which last was
Vocalized as U, are notifications merely
of B. We may safely say the same OF
the dental D, softened intOT. which gave
rise to s. A. series of characters was
gradually worked OUT and. the time can1s
when Cadmus, tine man from the East
brought an alphabet of sixteen letters
from PIpOenicia into Greece. Cadmus,
looked at as an individual mun. dwiudles
to myth--a shadow. He expresses in
legendary form the outcome of a long,
train of almost forgotten facts. These
sixteen letters were expanded by the
Greeks to twenty-foT. Light wooden
tablets covered with wax fOr writing on
were adopted! But the pebn was still OF
solid iron. like pencil, sharpat one end.
with flat circular head at the other for
blotting out. when desired, what had
been writtenl, with the point. These
tablets wers fastened together at the
back by wires so, that they opened and
shut like our books For important
documents the edges Of the tables were
pierced withaholes through which a triple
thread was PASSED and then sealed. Ii
is to this custom that allusion il made i'll
the Apocalypse close sealed with seven
seals. This Apocalyptic book was writ
ten within aad on the back" The an
clients used to'writc on the front side
only-even after they had given up"
wooden tah&ets in favor of papyrus and
parchment. The back was generally
stained saffron OF yellow.
The old Italians, too, of prehistoric
age got an alphabet from th@east. The
letters were extended and lnodificd until
they became very different ia, form from
those of Greece But it is. remarkable
that A, B, and o survive all changes.
| They arc copies Of the mouths when emit
ting the sounds assigned them. Modern
| Typography has no doubt greatly inn
! proved the rude, early scrawl, such as
may still he seen on old graxestones. The
old Phmnician and old Hebrew Alcph has.
not the same position as our modern a..
They arc almost horizontal. with nearly,
perpendicular line drawn across the anglo.
formed by the sides of the letter. The
later Roman alphabet was spread by Ro-
man conquest, Our Anglo-Salon fore
fathers at length adopted it. They man
aged to get up sort of literature. But
tho age of pocket dictionaries, handy
volumes, the daily or even weekly news
: papers was still long way off. Art and
discovery have still long apprenticeship
before we can inundate our postotiices
with valentines or photograph instanta-
neously on paper the tail of some mighty
comet.-London Stationery Review.