Sanscrit Writing and Language. 93 



a deterioration of their respective systems, which Is obviously attributable to the 

 influence upon their phonetic practice produced by the habit of Chinese writing ; 

 — and as the like effect is observable in the Sanscrit system, we cannot rationally 

 avoid ascribing it to a like cause. Hence it would appear, that the Sanscrit 

 writing was the first of an alphabetic nature that was employed by the Brahmans ; 

 and that they had no previous syllabary of a ruder kind devoid of all marks 

 expressive of vowel powers. 



We now come to the inquiry, whence was this alphabet derived ? — the 

 answer to which, I must premise, I do not feel myself called upon to give. All 

 that is requisite to my theory as to the origin of alphabetic writing, is to show that 

 the system in question is a derivative one ; and of so much, I trust, the reader 

 has been already satisfied. — As a matter, however, of curiosity I enter upon this 

 investigation, and confess I shall be disappointed if the considerations, here pro- 

 posed, are not looked upon as going a great way towards deciding the point at 

 issue. 



In the first place, the Sanscrit syllabary could not have been derived from any 

 of the Shemitic kinds of vocalized writing, employed in Asia, which have come down 

 to our times. For in all those different kinds, a vowel letter is occasionally used 

 immediately after another character to express in conjunction with that character 

 a syllable ; but such a mode of expression never occurs in Sanscrit. Whenever 

 in this writing a complete vowel-letter follows another character, they always 

 denote two different syllables ; and are not united in the expression of the same 

 one, even when that preceding character is destitute of any vowel-mark of its 

 own. Thus <s|<^ ^, a carpenter, is not pronounced BaDHI, but BaDHal. I 

 do not here take into consideration the great imperfection of this writing, as 

 exemplified in its use of the middle character of the group before us to express 

 sometimes the syllable dha, and at other times ra, without any rule being afforded 

 to determine when it should be employed with the one power and when with the 

 other ; I merely advert to the vowel sounds of this word in illustration of the 

 peculiarity just mentioned. 



In the second place, the syllabary under consideration could not have been 

 derived from the Greek or Roman systems ; for from them the Pandit would 

 have learned to write in the European manner the syllables of his language 

 ending with a vowel, as well as those beginning with one ; the very reverse of 



