VITA SINE LITER] S. 37 



described as syllabaries. The mode of writing- in use in the Christian schools of the 

 Chippewyans, Crées, and Eskimos, is, indeed, distinctly so named. The syllabaries in 

 question which differ from each other only in slight details, are of the simplest kind. The 

 Eskimo syllabarium, for instance, consists of eleven consonants, {p,t,k, ch,m, n,s, I, y, v, 

 and r) and four vowels (a long, a short, e and o). The vowels are all represented by an 

 isosceles triangle, about the size of any ordinary small capital, the differentiation being- 

 effected by the direction of the apex. With apex down, it stands for a long ; with apex 

 up, for e; to the right, for o ; to the left, for a short. Each consonant has, in like manner, 

 a symbol, which makes a syllable with a, short or long, e or o, according as it is placed. 

 Marks of smaller size serve the purpose of finals. Several devotional and educational 

 books have been printed in these characters, which, when associated on the page, bear a 

 remote resemblance to some of the vernacular alphabets of India. 



One American Indian has won the fame of a new-world Cadmus — the Cherokee, 

 Sequoyah. This ingenious tribesman, sometimes called George Gfuess, was ignorant of 

 any tongue but his own, until, seeing some text-books in a missionary school, and being 

 informed that the characters represented the words of the English language, as he heard 

 it spoken, he conceived the idea of framing a system of writing for his own people. He 

 began by trying to invent a sign for each word ; but, that plan being discarded as too cum- 

 brous, he finally succeeded in forming, with endless pains, a syllabic alphabet of eighty- 

 five characters, which has won the admiration of even civilized men. Sir John Lubbock 

 says of this remarkable alphabet : " Sequoyah invented a system of letters, which, as far as 

 the Cherokee language is concerned, is better than our own. Cherokee contains twelve 

 consonants and six vowels, with a nasal sound, mung: Multiplying the twelve consonants 

 by the six vowels, and adding- the vowels which occur singly, he acquired seventy-seven 

 characters, to which he added eight, representing the sounds, s, ka, hna, nah, ta, te, ti,- tla, 

 making altogether eighty-five characters. This alphabet, as already mentioned, is better 

 than ours. The characters are, indeed, numerous, but when once learned, the pupil can 

 read at once. It is said that a boy can read Cherokee, when thus expressed, in a few 

 weeks, while, if ordinary letters are used, two years are required." ' 



Sequoyah would seem to have thus attained, by intuition, what the Spelling Reform- 

 ers have for many years past been strenuously demanding — an alphabet corresponding 

 with the articulate sounds of the people using it. Professor Greorge Hermann von Meyer, 

 in his " Organs of Speech," says that "our alphabet is nothing more than an arbitrary col- 

 lection of letters, in which, on the one hand, several letters represent the same sound, and 

 on the other, several sounds which exist as pure elements of speech are not represented at 

 all by a special letter, but must be expressed by a combination of letters, while compound 

 sounds, on the contrary, are given in a single letter." To remedy this defect, several 

 schemes have been devised — the most celebrated and most successful being the Pitman 

 system, generally associated with short-hand. 



But the most ambitious and comprehensive of all alphabetical schemes is the Visible 

 Speech of Dr. Melville Bell. " In this system," its author tells us, ■' no sound is arbitrarily 

 represented, but each letter is hitiJt vp of symbols which denote the organic positions and 

 actions that produce the sound. The letters are thus physiological pictures, which inter- 



■" Origin of Civilization, Appendix. 



