ANALYTIC ORTHOGRAPHY. PNT 1 
CHAPTER III. 
ALPHABETS, PICTORIAL, PHILOSOPHIC, AND CONVENTIONAL. 
... cest que l’écriture est un ouvrage encore bien imparfait des hommes, et que la parole est une création de la na- 
ture. — Olivier, Des Sons de la Parole, Paris, 1844. 
§ 72. itis agreed that the diverse Latin, Greek and Hebrew alphabets have been derived 
from the Phenician, and that the earliest form of this was hieroglyphic, each letter being 
the picture of an object whose name commenced with its power. The letter Qoo pictured 
the human head and neck, the neck being made as a vertical line below, until writing 
in two directions threw it to the right (Q, q,) or (Pp) left. R was a side face looking to the 
right, the tail representing the beard; but, as this was sometimes omitted, we find that 
7 has two forms (R, P,) in different Greek inscriptions. 
78. The earlier form (1) of the Hebrew 3 gimel represented the head and neck of a 
camel (Hebrew gamal) looking towards the left, the direction of Hebrew, Etruscan, and 
some Greek writing; whilst the Greek (/’) gamma represented it looking towards the right. 
One of the forms ( < ) of this became rounded into Latin Cay, acquiring a new power as 
readily as the word’acquired initial cay in the Latin cAMELUS, sh in the French chameau, 
and dzh in Arabic. Hence, 
74. There are several objections to hieroglyphs. Vivery language would require a different 
set of symbols; the symbols for allied sounds would be dissimilar, and the power of the 
characters would vary with the name of the objects represented, until variations in the 
written forms would cause the originals to be forgotten, so that instead of more accurate 
pictures of an ox, a house, a camel or cynocephalus, and a door, we should find the apparently 
conventional figures a, 0, ¢, d. 
75. Hieroglyphic or picture alphabets would be readily suggested at the invention of 
writing, and they are more easily learned and remembered than any other kind. On this 
account, a French hieroglyphic alphabet has been proposed—Les Hiéroglyphes Francais, 
par C. Chesnier, Paris, 1843, in which a pointing finger (in-dex,) stands for the nasal 
vowel im, an an-gel for an, the numeral 1 for wn, a pink (ceillet) for short ew, a sword 
(epée) for the vowel of fate, a hatchet for short a, the head of an ass for d, a pipe for p, 
and a bomb for 8, &., with symbols for 01, pl, er, &c., requiring fifty-five characters for the 
French language.* 
* It is applied to foreign languages in the most perverse manner, the aspirate of the Spanish word evangelicos 
being given as English gsh (in ege-shell,) and the nasal an is placed in tanto, and in the Greek amphi. In 
Italian, French nasal in is placed in denti, esempio, and nasal on in contare. In English, the same vowel is assigned 
