122 



WRITING. 



in writing records and law proceedings. The char- 

 acters from the reign of king Richard II. to that of 

 king Henry VIII., were composed partly of charac- 

 ters called set chancery and common chancery, and 

 some of the letters called court-hand; which three 

 different species of writing were derived partly from 

 the Norman, :m<l partly from the modern Gothic. 

 The modern Gothic began to take place in England 

 in the twelfth century; the old English about the 

 middle of the fourteenth century ; and set chancery 

 and common chancery in the decline of the same 

 century, and are still used in the enrolments of let- 

 ters patent, charters, &c.,andin exemplifications of 

 recoveries; the court-hand was contrived by the 

 English lawyers, and took its rise about the middle 

 of the sixteenth century, and continued till the be- 

 ginning of the reign of George II. when it was abo- 

 lished by law. The court-hand characters were no- 

 thing more than the Norman characters very much 

 corrupted and deformed. In the sixteenth century, 

 the English lawyers engrossed their conveyances 

 and legal instruments in characters called secretary, 

 which are still in use. The French call their writ- 

 ings by the names of the different races of their 

 kings, in whose times they were written ; these 

 were, the Merovingian, the Carlovingian, the Ca- 

 petian, the Valesian, and the Bourbon. 



The manuscripts written in the northern parts 

 of Scotland and in Ireland are in characters similar 

 to the Saxon. It seems probable that the interior 

 parts of Europe were immediately peopled from 

 the northern parts of Asia, and the maritime parts 

 from Phoenicia, and the southern and western parts 

 of thut quarter of the globe. If this be the case, 

 it is not surprising that some Eastern customs pre- 

 vailed in Great Britain and Ireland, and that many 

 Celtic words are still preserved both in the Irish 

 and in the Welsh languages. The Norman charac- 

 ters, it is observed, were generally used in England 

 from the coming of William I. ; and the Saxon cha- 

 racters were entirely disused in the very beginning 

 of the twelfth century ; but the Irish and Scots 

 preserved the ancient forms of their characters till 

 the end of the sixteenth century. The Gaelic or 

 Erse language, used in the Highlands of Scotland, 

 and the Hiberno-Gaelic, are nearly the same ; and 

 their letters are similar to each other ; as Mr Astle 

 has shown by various specimens. The curious will 

 find much information on the subject of this article 

 in Astle 's Origin and Progress of Writing (4to., 

 1784). 



The German alphabet was formed by Kero and 

 Ottfried, in the time of Charlemagne. German 

 was first written with Latin letters. In fact, most 

 writings of that time, as forms of laws, treaties, 

 &c., were even drawn up in the Latin language. 

 The thirteenth century is generally considered as 

 the time when German characters became common, 

 under the emperor Frederic II. Others assume a 

 later period. Germany has, as Mr Breitkoph ob- 

 serves, but two national alphabets, the (so called) 

 fractur and the current. Fractur characters were 

 formed out of the (so called) new-Gothic and mo- 

 nastic characters, which sprung up in the eleventh 

 century. It was not till the fifteenth century, that 

 the current or cursive characters were used in print- 

 ing. Before that time, straight characters only- 

 had been used in printing : but the elder Aldus 

 Manutius made types for the cursive character. 

 Albert Diirer at last settled the proportions for the 

 German-characters. In diplomatics the knowledge 

 of the letters used at different periods is very import 



tant. They have been classified, &c See La 

 Nouvelle Diplomatique ; also Weber's Essay <o- 

 tinla a History of the Art of Writing (in German, 

 ottingen, 1807). We have said above, that the 

 alphabets of Europe, and, in fact, most, perhaps all, 

 ilplmbets now existing, are phonetic (see the article 

 China, division Chinese Language, Writing, &c.) ; 

 and it is interesting to know what articulate sounds 

 are used to express the thoughts and feelings of 

 man. We have touched upon this subject in the 

 article Voice, and add here a synoptic table of the 

 English elementary sounds as they really exist in 

 the English language, however they may be written. 

 This table is taken from the article Sound, written 

 by Sir John Herschel for the Encyclopedia Metro- 

 :. The syllables which contain the sounds 

 referred to, are printed in italics, where words of 

 more than one syllable are introduced. 



-Rook; Julius; Rude; Poor; Womb; Wound; Ouv- 



rir(Fr) 



Good ; Cushion ; Cuckoo ; Rund (Germ.); Gust" 

 2. Spurt; Assert; Dirt; firtue; Dove; Double; Blood. 

 3. Hole; Toad. 



. f- All; Caught; Organ; Sought; Broth; Broad. 

 \ u Hot; Comical; Jtommen (Germ.). 



6. Hard; -Brnten (Germ.); t'Aorlutan (I'r.). 

 G. Laugh ; Task. 



7. Lamb; Fan; That. 



8. Hang; Bang; Twang. 



y. Hare; Hair; Heir; Were; Pear; Hier (Fr), I.e/l- 

 ren (Germ.). 



10. Lame ; Tame ; Crane ; Faint ; I./iyman ; Meme (Fr.) ; 



Stedchen (Germ.). 



11. ipmon; Dead; Said; 4n\; Every; Friend; Bes&el 



(Germ.); Aloigner (Fr.). 



12. Liner; Diminish; Persevere; Believe. 



13. Peep; Leave; Beliere; S ; eben (Germ.); Coguittc 



( Fr. ). 



14. i ; fibilus ; cipher ; the last vowel and the first conso- 



nant. 



True Diphthongi. 



\. Life ; The Sounds No. 5 and No. 13, slurred as rapidly 

 as possible, produce our English i, which is a r.-al 

 diphthong. 



2. Brow; Plough; Laufen (Germ.). The vowel Sound 



No. 5 quickly followed by N<>. 1. 



3. Oil ; A'aaen (Germ.) ; No. 4 succeeded by No. 13. 



4. 'Rebuke; Yew; You; No. 13 succeeded by No. 1. 



5. Yoke; No. 13 succeeded by No. 3. 



6. yong; Yearn; Hear; here; No. 13 succeeded by 



No. 2, more or less rapidly. 



The consonants present equal confusion. They 

 may be generally arranged in three classes : sharp 

 sounds, flat ones, and indifferent or neutral ; the 

 former two having a constant relationship or paral- 

 lelism to each other, thus : 



SHARP CONSONANTS. S. mil, cell; (as we will here denote 

 it) shame, sure, schirm (Germ.); thing; F. fright, 

 enough, phantom; K. king, coin, gutter i T. l-ilk; P. papa. 



FLAT CONSONANTS. Z. zenith, casement; r pleasure, j'mrdin 

 (French) ; 0. the th in the words the, that, thou, V. cVe; 

 G. good ; D. duke; B. babe. , 



NEDTRAL CONSONANTS. L. lily; M. mamma; N. Nanny; 



' hang ; to which we may add the nasal X in gnu, JEtna, 



Dnieper, which, however, is not properly an English 



sound; R. rattle; H. hard. 

 COMPOUND CONSONANTS. C, or T., church, cicerone (Hal.), 



and its corresponding flat sound j or D, r. jett, gender : X. 



extreme, Xerj-e*; f exasperate, eratt, Xerxes ; &. &c. 



We have here a scale of thirteen simple vowels and 

 twenty-one simple consonants, thirty-three in all, 

 which are the fewest letters with which it is pos- 

 sible to write English. But, on the other hand, 

 with the addition of two or three more vowels, and 

 as many consonants, making about forty characters 

 in all, every known language might probably be ef- 

 fectually reduced to writing, so as to preserve an 

 exact correspondence between the writing and pro- 

 nunciation. In addition to this table, the note 

 which Mr Pickering, of Boston, in America, added 

 to his proposed alphabet, which, as we have stated, 

 is now adopted in some cases, is of great interest, 



