92 _ On the Origin of 
it clearly follows, that if this hypothesis sup- 
poses the words already in use to express the 
same ideas to have been employed as names 
of the corresponding characters, such a pro- 
cedure brings us no nearer to an alphabet; 
and on the other hand, if other sounds entirely 
different be conceived to have been adopted 
to render the character enunciable; this is 
supposing an undertaking to be attempted for 
which no imaginable motive can be assigned. 
According to this supposition, there would 
then be three entirely distinct methods of 
communication in use; first, the original lan- 
guage; secondly, the written character; and 
thirdly, another set of audible signs, altoge- 
- ther different, and bearing no resemblance or 
analogy whatever to the first. Whether such 
an, hypothesis is possible, or conceivable, 
I leave to be considered.* 
* « Though it is likely that all hieroglyphical languages 
were originally founded on the principle of imitation, yet 
in the gradual progress towards arbitrary forms and sounds, 
itis probable that every society deviated from the original 
in a different manner from others, and thus for every inde- 
pendent society there arose a separate hieroglyphical lan- 
guage. As soon as a communication took place between 
any two of them, each would hear names and sounds not 
common to both, and each reciprocally would mark down 
such names in the sounds of its own characters bearing, as 
hieroglyphics, a different name. In that instance conse- 
