Tombstone daily prospector. (Tombstone, Ariz.) 1887-1891, 1890-09-17
ORIGIN OF sLsnAesre

'hH N@sIa4is At t1Sh hlie o. tiie l1Oltfa. q
'narp angle, with sides OF about equsi
ength. The sounds Of the crying are
hose assigned to the first letter Of almost
'verN alphabet. The arrow headed or
wedge shaped charactersi in use among the
al BabylOniaAs and Persiaus till the time
4 the great AiexandeT's Asiatic conauests
Terc copied from the human mouth. By
means Of different combinations these
wedges or As were made To represent
'ons0Rant as well as vowel sounds. But
lac entire alphabet is made up OF these
~lEes IL required many generations
puSabiy TO advance from A and 3. Now,
.oOk at child's face, sideways vhen the
IFS are shu.- aid YOU -ee a nlitdT..l I3.
Put these two letters together and we
cave ab, which by being doubled gives
aba, the oil eastern word for father. 4
light modification gives am, then ANNA,
me old eastern form of mama or mamma
a the west, just as abba was changed
Cnio papa and pope or holy father. The
arrow heads had served to record the
history, the literature, the religion Of
llishty empires--the old Assyrian,
Aedi2n, and Persian. They were traced
mostly on bricks. Paper had not yet been
70 much Is dreamed of.
Fronl a and B alpha and Beta) 8
comprehensive scheme Ct phonetic char
Xcters must be worked out before the
leaf or rind Of papyrus can be used for
writing on. The lip letters NJ and P.
sof;e1ed into + and V, which last vas
recalled as u, are notifications merely
OF b We may safely say the same OF
the dental d, sOftened intoT. which gavs
rise 90 5. A series of characters vas
gradually worked out, and the tiroe came
when Cadmus, the man from the East,
SIonsht an alphabet of sixteen letter.
rom Ph1nicia into Greece. Cadmus
ko6ed at as an individual man. dwindleA
10 a myth-a shadow. He expresses In
legendary form the outcome # a Ions
train Of almost forgotten facts. These
sixteen leitcr7 were expanded by the
Greeks to- twgnty-f5ur. Light wooden
tablets covered with wax for writing on
were adopted. But the pen was still O!
solid iron. Ike a pencil. sharp at one end,
with fiat circular bad az the other for
blotting ont, 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 orr books For important
documents the edges Of the tables were
pierced with halez through which triple
thread was PASSED and then sealed. It
IS to this custom that Gliusion Is made Ia
the Apocalypse-'' cos scaled with seven
seals" This ApocaIyptic book was writ,
ten within and on the back" The an
cierts used to write on the front side
only-eyen after. they had given up
wooden tablets in favor OF papyrus and
parchment. The hack was generally
stained saffron or yellow.
The ola Italians, too, Of prehistoric
sSe got al alphabet from the east The
letters were extended and notified until
they bocame very different "a form frors
those OF Greece. Bus il Is remarkable
.hat 4, 3, and o survive all changes.
They arc copies Of the mouth when emit
ing the sounds assigned them. Modern
typography has no doubt greatly i'm.
proved the rude, early scrawI, such as
may still be seen on old gravestones. The
old Pheniciar and cid Hebrew Aleph has
not the same position as our modern 4.
They are almost horizontal, with nearly
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 al length adopted it. They man
aged TO get mp a sort Of literature. But
the age Of pocket dictionaries, handy
volumes, the daily or even weekly news
papers was still a SJng ~Sy Off. AT arS
discovery have still a long apprenticeship
before we can inundate our postoffices
with valentines or photograph instauta-
7eouSly On paper the tail q sou=e mighty
ss1ss<--Ecss.cn Scaaonery Review.