WRITING. 



121 



by some the wedge characters, because the lines oi 

 which they consist are so put together as to have a 

 Avedge-like form. This species of writing is found 

 upon some ancient monuments of Persia and Baby- 

 lonia. The arrow-head characters may be divided 

 into two principal classes, the Persian and Baby- 

 lonian, or the Median and Chaldean, of which the 

 former has again three, the latter two subdivisions. 

 The Persian arrow-head characters are found in 

 the ruins of Pasargadae and Persepolis, in the valley 

 of Murgab near Fasa in Persia, in the ruins of Susa 

 and Babylon; and, in most of these cases, inscrip- 

 tions in all three characters stand word tor word 

 one under the other. The Babylonian arrow-head 

 character, however, never appears, except alone, on 

 the various kinds of tiles and other bricks and 

 stones in the ancient Babylon ; also on gems and 

 cylindrical amulets. All these sorts of inscriptions 

 are read horizontally from left to right, are phonetic, 

 and comprise some characters for parts of words and 

 monograms. As yet the various attempts to de- 

 cipher these inscriptions have proved unsuccessful. 

 See The Assyrian Wedge-Character explained, 

 &c., edited by Dorow (Wisbaden, 1820, in Ger- 

 man). 



Not only the character of the various alphabets 

 differ, but also the order in which the characters 

 are connected, or, which is the same thing, the way 

 in which the writing is to be read. The most ancient 

 ways of writing include, 1. Cionaedon, or column 

 writing, in which the letters and words stand one 

 under the other, as is the case with the Chinese 

 writing, and with the Egyptian hieroglyphics; 2. 

 the Boustrophedon, or furrow writing, which pro- 

 ceeds, like the furrows of the plough, alternately 

 from right to left, and from left to right ; 3. Spbse- 

 rsedon, or circular writing. 



It is highly probable that the Greeks received the 

 art of writing from Egypt, either directly or through 

 the Phoenicians. The Greeks say that Cadmus 

 brought them the first alphabet, consisting of sixteen 

 letters, according to Pliny the following: A. B, 

 r, A, E, I, A, M, N, O, n, P, 2, T, T. To these Pa- 

 lamedes added e, 8, *, X ; and Simonides again 

 added z, H, Y, n. It ought to be observed that the 

 Samaritan letters did not differ from the Greek. 

 Originally the Romans wrote only with uncial cha- 

 racters. In the ancient manuscripts found at Her- 

 culaneum, and especially in the Greek manuscripts, 

 all the words are written in uncial characters, and 

 are neither separated by points nor spaces. There 

 is nothing to indicate the division of the words. 

 No sign is met with, which might assist in the pro- 

 nunciation. The signs of punctuation did not be- 

 gin to be used until the knowledge of the Greek 

 language was lost. See Winckelmann's Letters on 

 Herculaneum. 



With the conquests of Rome, the art of writing, 

 and particularly the Roman alphabet, were more and 

 more widely spread; but great difficulties were found 

 to attend the attempts to write down the languages 

 of particular countries with characters adapted to 

 another language ; i.e. to other sounds. Such at- 

 tempts were not often made by the Romans ; but 

 when the missionaries spread themselves through the 

 countries of Europe, and found it necessary to give 

 instruction in writing, as well as to prepare trans- 

 lations of the Gospels into the various idioms, we 

 meet every wherewith complaints of the difficulty, 

 and sometimes the impossibility, of rendering the 

 native sounds by the already existing alphabet. 

 The reason is clear. In some instances, the sounds 



may have been so rude, and so little different from 

 the cries of animals (as is sometimes the case with 

 the language of savages), that they could not be 

 expressed by signs for articulate sounds ; some- 

 times the tones were totally different from those for 

 which the alphabet had been made. This circum- 

 stance has produced a great effect on the orthogra- 

 phy of these languages, and, in our opinion, in va- 

 rious cases on the languages themselves. Certain 

 differences between sounds have been lost in con- 

 sequence of the want of characters to designate 

 them, as appears from a variety of facts. The same 

 complaints, which were made in the first centuries 

 of Christianity, respecting the difficulty of ascer- 

 taining the true sound of the native words in some 

 instances, and of writing them with Latin charac- 

 ters, are now made by the missionaries in the South 

 sea islands, &c. And if it was difficult to adapt the 

 Latin alphabet to foreign idioms, how much more 

 difficult must it be to adapt the English orthogra- 

 phy certainly the most preposterous existing to 

 different classes of languages ! It was therefore a 

 very useful undertaking of Mr John Pickering to 

 prepare an alphabet, fitted to convey all the sounds 

 which commonly occur in the various languages. 

 This alphabet has been adopted by the war depart- 

 ment of the United States of America, for the writ- 

 ing of the Indian languages, and by the missionaries 

 of the South sea islands. It is given at the end of 

 this article. 



Respecting the alphabets used at various times in 

 Great Britain, Mr Astle observes that, after the 

 most diligent inquiry it doth not appear that the 

 Britons had the use of letters before their inter- 

 course with the Romans: and though, from the com- 

 ing of Julius Caesar till the time when the Romans 

 left the island, in the year 427, the Roman letters 

 were familiar to the eyes of the inhabitants, he 

 is of opinion, that writing was very little practised by 

 the Britons till after the coming of St Augustine, 

 about the year 596. The writing which prevailed 

 in England from this time to the middle of the ele- 

 venth century, is generally termed Saxon, and may 

 be divided into five kinds, viz. the Roman Saxon, 

 which is very similar to the Roman, and prevailed 

 in England from the coming of St Augustine till 

 the eighth century ; the set Saxon, which took 

 place towards the middle of the eighth century, con- 

 tinued till about the middle of the ninth, and was 

 not entirely disused till the beginning of the tenth 

 century ; the running-hand Saxon, which came into 

 use towards the latter end of the ninth century, 

 when learning was diffused in England under the 

 auspices of king Alfred, in whose reign many books 

 were written in that island in a more expeditious 

 manner than formerly; the mixed Saxon, occurring 

 in the ninth, tenth, and in the beginning of the 

 eleventh centuries, in many manuscripts which were 

 written in England in characters partly Roman, partly 

 Lombardic, and partly Saxon, and the elegant Saxon, 

 which took place in England early in the tenth cen- 

 tury, lasted to the Norman conquest, but was not en- 

 tirely disused till the middle of the twelfth, and is 

 more beautiful than the writing in France, Italy, 

 and Germany during the same period. The writing 

 introduced into England by William I. is usually 

 called Norman, and is composed of letters nearly 

 Lombardic, which were generally used in grants, 

 charters, public instruments and law proceedings, 

 with very little variation, from the Norman con- 

 quest till the reign of king Edward III. About 

 the reign of king Richard II., variations took place 



