ASTLE’S ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF WRITING. 
. The Chinese seem to have migrated 
from the center of civilization, when 
writing had only reached the first state : 
the: Hindoos when it had reached tlie 
second state, and the Babylonians when 
‘it had reached the third state. 
~~ For all our modern ‘alphabets are de- 
tived from thé Babylonian. 
_, Mr. Astle indeed chooses the Phenis 
cian alphabet for his prototype; and has 
(at p. 50) a table, and (at p. 64) a plate, 
which fully establish the resemblance, 
_ the relationship, the mutual dependente, 
the common descent; the atialogous filias 
tion of the Syrian, the Grecian, the La- 
fin, the Gothic, thé Arabic, Coptic and 
FEthiopic alphabets. But it is highly 
‘Probable that the Phenicians of ‘lyre 
Went to school at Babylon: and it is ab» 
Solutely certain that the first alphabet 
originated in a nation speaking the He- 
brew tongue: The names of the letters 
are in that language all significant. Now 
it is notorious that scarcely any part of 
the Jewish scriptures is extant in the pro- 
vincial vernacular dialect of J dene 
but only in the coutt-language of Babys 
lon, ‘The Hebrew was that language. It 
may amuse our readers, if we repeat after 
Gregory Sharpe (Origin of Languages, 
x8") the original designations of the 
letters. 
_. The sound of the first letter of the 
gupbabe isthe first sound of animals. 
The name of it a/eph signifies the ox, and 
a e form of the letter bears much resem- 
Blance to the head of anox. 
* The second letter deth has the outlines 
of a house, or beoth, which is the mean- 
ing of its name. Baia in Tyrian is a 
house, in old Greek it is aita, in Latin 
ede, in Egyptian ath. The word may 
connected etymologically with daites 
eep-skin ;_ because the first roofs were 
da tis: od Fig, fey 
_ The third letter has a bunch on its 
ack, and is called gimel, or the camel. 
The sound bears perhaps some resem- 
Dlance to the snort of that animal. 
a ‘The fourth.has the form and name of 
vary Ahton The sound of a door, or 
aE osing, is, not unlike the sound 
, Dhe fifth letter he implies demonstra- 
4 and means fehold. Boderian thinks 
ure to-have originated in a hand 
ng. Baxter has a surprising con- 
>. about the first ngbr i of this 
, which he supposes to have repre. 
éd mother earth and her son the sun, 
or Isis and Orus, As it represented the 
627 
goddess-mother, it came to be used, he 
thinks, for making female terminations. 
This last thought is putting the cart be- 
fore the horse: feminine terminations 
must have been used in language long 
before alphabetic writing. 
The sixth letter vaw is a hook. 
The seventh zain; instruments, or arms. 
The eighth heth, a quadruped. 
The ninth seth, a trumpet. , nA 
The tenth yod, a hand. ; 
The eleventh £aph, a cup. 
The twelfth /amed, a goad; or spit. 
Baxter says it isa ploughshare, and has 
thence its form. ! 
The thirteenth mem is rendered. spot, 
or contagion; but as this bears no resem. 
blance to its form, which is complex, it 
has perhaps been shapen out of the figure 
which stood for the word mother, mia in 
Tyrian being mother. A cow is amore 
plausible form of origin. 
The fourteenth nun is a fish it is call. 
ed nachash, serpent, in Ethiopic. 
The fifteenth samech basis, pedestal ; 
perhapshowever from theroot to destroy. 
The sixteenth ain means eyes, whici 
it seems to represent; and also, by a na- 
tural metaphor, fountains. : 
The seventeenth ge or fa, means the 
lip : it is made by a puff between the lips, 
The eighteenth tsaddi, according tg 
Caninius, signifies a huntsman’s pole, or 
shepherd’s hook; but Baxter. says an 
eel-spear or trident, and would thence 
derive the city, or fishing town, Sidon. 
The word also signifies sides, 
The nineteenth gup, or hoph, is a mone 
key; hence the tail in the figure. 
The twentieth resh, si gnifies head. 
The twenty-first sin ot shiny a tooth, 
from which it is plainly imitated. 
And the twenty-second tan, is a terimie 
aus, or land mark, and therefore put last 
but Baxter would have it mean a ham- 
mer. 
Let us now turn from Babylon to the 
nursery; for nations, in the infancy of 
human society, had in thé aggregate to 
take those very steps, which we now 
have learnt to compress Within the liraits 
of achildhood. How are our primers 
constructed? A for apple; B for bed; 
C for cow; D for dogs E for eel; and 
beside each letter stands the graven im- 
age of the most familiar object whosename 
it begins. In order to associate the sound, 
whichis arbitrary, with the object, which 
is immutable, we depict them together, 
At first only the gays (as children cal] 
them) 7 attended to; and thé lets 
Ss 
