1885.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 63 



the case with the Egyptian language as we know it now, for 

 the very first inscriptions show the same method of writing 

 employed aljont 2,000 years later under Thothmes III (1600 

 B. C.) and Ramses II (1200 B. C.) This points undoubtedly to 

 a long period of development before it was possil^le to obtain 

 such a splendid system of writing as elicited the praise of men 

 at the time of the lawgiver Moses. It is, therefore, much to be 

 regretted in the interest of philology and of the difficult 

 question on the origin of language, that we possess no earlier 

 inscription than that of the second dynasty of King Send 

 (about 4500 B. C), now at Oxford. It leads us immediately 

 into the labyrinth of the two interchangeal>]e metliods of 

 writing employed by the Egyptian scribes. We find it com- 

 posed of: 



First : Ideographs, which represent either (A) the object 

 or (B) the vjord. 



(A) When u?ed to represent objects, these ideographs are de- 

 terminatives to fix the meaning of a group of hieroglyphs 

 which precedes, but are not pronounced. Thus in the word 



the last two characters are mute. The last v shows 



that the group preceding represents a ' tree,' the third sign o 

 shows that the fruit of this tree grows in ' pods,' the whole 



J] 



group pronounced ash (— vrn means " acacia-tree." In the word 



I \\ ill "i fn ^® ^'^^ ^^^® seven last characters mute ; 



the first 5ii is the symljol of " guardian," the second "™" is 



a " door," the third ;; o a sign of " action," the fourth ^ 



a " man," who ' does ' the ' action ' of ' guarding ' the ' door,' 

 the last three show that there is more than one '" hence the 

 whole word is " doorkeepers " or " watchmen," and is pro- 



nounced ari ^ \\ . Otlier words whose signification can be 



