VITA SINE LITEEIS. 33 



the Herodian were the Square Hebrew and the Rabbinic. The Estranghelo gave birth to 

 the Melchite, Nestoriau, Jacobite and Mendaite. The Nestoriau bore the Uigur — which 

 in turn bore the Mongolian, Kalmuk and Manchu — the Syro-Chaldee and the Karshuni. 

 The Nabathean had for ortspriug the Ku.fic and the Neshki ; and the Neshki had an 

 important family, the Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Hindustani. The Iranian begat the 

 Pehlvi — which begat the Parsi— and the Mesrobian, which bore the Armenian and 

 Georgian. The Tyrian had two sons, the Israelite and the Moabite, the former having as 

 lineal descendants, the Asmoneau, Old Samaritan and Modern Samaritan. The Cadmean 

 bore the Cariau, the Lycian, the Italic and Hellenic, and of the Hellenic were born the 

 Eunic ' and the Greek, the latter, in turn, bearing the Cof)tic, M(t'SO-Gothic, the Cursive 

 Greek — with its progeny, the Greek Minuscule, Romaic, Albanian and Glagolitic — and 

 the Cyrillic — with its progeny, the Servian, Wallachian and Russian. The Italic bore the 

 Messapian, Oscau, Faliscan, Umbriau, Etruscan and Latin, which last had for daughter 

 the Uncial Latin, and for grandchildren, the Italic type, the Roman type, the German 

 script and the English script. Such is the affiliation of the great Semitic family of 

 alphabets, as tabulated by Mr. Taylor. 



"We have already seen that some of the American nations, when they first became 

 known to Europeans, were not destitute of the means of giving their thoughts a per- 

 manent shape. The qinpu or knotted cord in Peru, and the wampum of the North 

 American Indians, were rude mnemonic contrivances, which only a special training and 

 long acquaintance could turn to useful account. A higher stage was reached in the 

 picture-writing of the Aztecs. Clumsy as it was, Prescott says, it seems to ha^-e been 

 adequate to the demands of the nation in its imperfect state of civilization. As the same 

 writer i)oints out, it was, like the quipus and wampum belts, valuable chiefly when used 

 in association with oral tradition. The hieroglyphics, engraA'ed on tablets and inserted 

 into buildings in the ruined cities of Yucatan and Central America, are remarkable for the 

 beauty of the workmanship ; but attempts to decipher them have not proved very suc- 

 cessful. The Aztec picture-writing, though less advanced, is also extremely interesting 

 from the ingenuity with which it was adapted to historical, mnemonic, and educational 

 purposes. The Mayas alone of the American peoples have been credited with an alphabet. 

 Of this I shall presently give some account. Both the Aztecs and the Mayas had books, 

 but the most of them were burned by the Spaniards on the ground that they were 

 idolatrous. Four Maya manuscripts, have, however, been saved from the threatened 

 holocaust, the Codex Perestanus, the Dresden Codex, the Codex Troano and the Codex Corle- 

 sianus. The two last, according to M. de Rosny, belong to the same original document. 

 In 1803, Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg discovered in the archives of the Royal Academy 

 of Madrid a work which, he announced, contained a key to the Maya symbols. Hitherto 

 the students of American archaeology had not dreamed that the nations, in which they 

 were interested, possessed anything like an alphabet in the received sense of the term. 

 But Bishop Lauda, the author of the " Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan," broiaght to 

 light by the indefatigable Abbé, suggested the notion that the Maya hieroglyphics were 

 used as alphabetic characters. The publication of Landa's alphabet naturally, therefore, 



' Mr. Taj-lor's theory is that the nortliern runes were obtained from tlie Hellenic Colonies of the Euxine by the 

 commercial route of the Borysthenes. 



Sec. II., 1885. 5. 



