The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-02-27

The next step was a marked depar-
ture from the previous development
and a tremendously important one. 1t
was to represent by symbols not the
things themselves, but instead the
sounds of the spoken words. For the
first time man wrote his language as
he spoke it. The sounds of entire
words were symboliZed at first; then,
after a while, the syllables which
formed the words. This gave writ
ing system of considerable fiuency. In
it were written the Chinese classics
with an admixture of the older ideo-
graphs and symbols).
This syllable writing appeared in a
purer form in the cuneiform of Meso-
potamia from records in which the
modern world has learned of the init
mate daily lives of these people of long
ago, their business transactions, their
highly developed laws, and their re-
ligious customs. In Egypt syllable
writing was early developed, but to
the end the Egyptians mixed with the
syllable characters all the lumber of
.hieroglyphics and kilograms. The
Egyptians even took the final step Of
adopting symbols for letter sounds !;
but these, too, they jumbled in with
the other varied characters.
The ultimate step in splitting up the
syllables, adopting an alphabet Of
characters to represent the component
sounds of speech, and building all
written words from these simple char
acters, was taken by the Phoenicians.
Heretofore it has been believed that
this step was taken about 1000 B. G.
Records Of about 14O0 B. G. discovered
in the various countries of the eastern
Mediterranean disclose no alphabetic
writing; the non-alphabetic cuneiform
was then in general use even in cor
respondence between Egypt and Baby
Ion.
Alphabet Born About 1000 B. c.
Records of about 800 B. G. show the
Phoenician alphabet in use, and APP
parently in use for some time. The
birthdate of the alphabet, therefore,
was taken roughly as about 1000 B. G.
The latest discoveries at Ras Sha-
mara, however, point to the origin Of
alphabetic writing in Syria as early
as the Thirteenth century B. G.
The resolving of writing into the
alphabetic form was somewhat like
sciences analysis of matter. First,
students accepted matter itself; then
found it to be composed Of molecules.
They pushed their analysis further
and resolved the molecules into atoms !;
and these, finally, into electrons, posi-
tive and negative. The vowel and
consonant symbols, last to be discov-
cred, may be considered the positive
and negative electrons of written Ian
guage, seldom existing apart from one
another.
When alphabets came into existence
in the Near East, their use spread
rapidly, largely through trade chan
nels. Before many centuries they
were adopted in northern Africa, the
entire Mediterranean region, Arabia,
Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Persia.
Some students have asserted that tina
Brahmi alphabet of India originated
Independently but others are con-
vinced that this alphabet, too, was in
troduced from Syria (the home of the
Phoenicians) about 800 B. G. Even
the runic alphabet of the Norsemen is
believed to have been developed from
a Greek alphabet early In the Chris
tian era.
The Aramean alphabet was devel-
oped from the Phoenician on the edge
Of the Arabian desert, and from this
grew the Hebrew and Arabic alpha
bets. When the Mohammedan religion
began to spread in the Seventh CEN
fury A. D. it took with it the Arabic
alphabet. This accounts for the use
of the Arabic characters today over q
large part of southern Asia and north
ern Africa. 1t was when they became
Moslems that the Turks began the use
Of the Arabic alphabet. While that
system Of characters had been de-
veloped by the Arabs to fit their own
language with great exactness, 1t has
never been well adapted to the Tur-
kish language. The Latin alphabet
now adopted by the Turks records
their language sounds more satisfac-
torily, and in addition contains about
one-third as many characters as the
Arabic The number Of the Arabic
characters is swelled by the use of
different forms of each letter at the
beginning Of words, within them, and
as terminal letters. Educators believe
that heavy illiteracy in Turkey has
been due largely to the completely of
the Arabic alphabet, and that school
children can become familiar with the
new alphabet in a small fraction of
the time devoted to mastering the old.
nas-