MALLERY. | SIGNS IN IDEOGRAPHIC GLYPHS. 355 
Dalgarno aptly says: “ Qui enim caput nutat, oculo connivet, digitum 
movet in aére, &e., (ad mentis cogitata exprimendum); is non minus vere 
seribit, quam qui Literas pingit in Charta, Marmore, vel cre.” 
It is neither necessary nor proper to enter now upon any prolonged 
account of the origin of alphabetic writing. There is, however, propri- 
ety, if not necessity, for the present writer, when making any remarks 
under this heading and under some others in this paper indicating spe- 
cial lines of research, to disclaim all pretension to being a Sinologue or 
HKgyptologist, or even profoundly versed in Mexican antiquities. His 
partial and recently commenced studies only enable him to present sug- 
gestions for the examination of scholars. These suggestions may safely 
be introduced by the statement that the common modern alphabetic 
characters, coming directly from the Romans, were obtained by them 
from the Greeks, and by the latter from the Phoenicians, whose alpha- 
bet was connected with that of the old Hebrew. It has also been of 
late the general opinion that the whole family of alphabets to which 
the Greek, Latin, Gothic, Runic, and others belong, appearing earlier in 
the Pheenician, Moabite, and Hebrew, had its beginning in the ideo- 
graphic pictures of the Egyptians, afterwards used by them to express 
sounds. That the Chinese, though in a different manner from the 
Egyptians, passed from picture writing to phonetic writing, is established 
by delineations still extant among them, called ku-wan, or “ ancient pict- 
ures,” with which some of the modern written characters can be identi- 
fied. The ancient Mexicans also, to some extent, developed phonetic 
expressions out of a very elaborate system of ideographic picture writing. 
Assuming that ideographic pictures made by ancient peoples would be 
likely to contain representations of gesture signs, which subject is treated 
of below, it is proper to examine if traces of such gesture signs may not 
be found in the Egyptian, Chinese, and Aztee characters. Only a few 
presumptive examples, selected from a considerable number, are now 
presented in which the signs of the North American Indians appear to 
be included, with the hope that further investigation by collaborators will 
establish many more instances not confined to Indian signs. 
A typical sign made by the Indians for no, negation, is as follows: 
The hand extended or slightly curved is held in front of the body, a 
little to the right of the median line; it is then carried with a rapid 
sweep a foot or more farther to the right. (Mandan and Hidatsa 1.) 
One for none, nothing, sometimes used for simple negation, is also 
given: Throw both hands outward toward their re- 
spective sides from the breast. ( Wyandot I.) 
With these compare the two forms of the Egyptian 
character for no, negation, Fig. 118, taken from Cham- en aa 
pollion, Grammaire Egyptienne, Paris, 1836, p. 519. sae 
No vivid fancy is needed to see the hands indicated at the extremities 
of arms extended symmetrically from the body on each side. 
Also compare the Maya character for the same idea of negation, 
