160 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



is frequently drawn across the perpendicular, it is sometimes hard to 

 distinguish it from F. Where more sqiiarely cut, there is the same 

 danger of confounding it with C, as prevails in the case of C and G 

 in Roman inscriptions. I am in doubt as to the corresponding 

 Aztec hieroglyphic, but think it is either camatl, the mouth, or 

 quauhtli, the eagle.^^'^ The latter supposition may be justified from 

 the Hittite, in which the eagle represents the ke or ge of Karkemish- 

 In Corean, kh agrees, being in the shape of the Roman F. It has 

 conveniently been read in Etruscan as v or z, according to the 

 exigencies of the interpreter. The sounds ka and ga are represented 

 in Etruscan by a character, generally read n, varying in appearance 

 in different texts as the Roman N and H, and the Hebrew chethP 

 Its original is the Aztec caLli, a house, with the shape of which the 

 Hittite hieroglyphic corresponds closely. In the cursive Hittite, 

 or that in which the hieroglyphic begins to fade away, it appears in 

 form something like the Italic h, or a child's rude di-awing of a chair. 

 It is wanting in Corean, and, so far as I know, in Cypriote, unless 

 the twisted ko of the latter syllabary be its equivalent ; but it is 

 common in Asia Minor,*^ in the form of an old Greek or Phoenician 

 n. In the Lat, Siberian, and Mound Builder inscriptions, the same 

 chai-acter assumes the Etruscan and cursive Hittite forms. The 

 most frequently recurring guttural sign is one which generally 

 appears as a Roman Y, one of the forks of which is carried across the 

 perpendicular. At other times, it has the perfect form of Y, and, at 

 others again, it becomes a cross or a T. A comparison of texts a* 

 once demonstrates that these are variants of one sign, and, on this 

 account, Etruscan students have uniformly i-ead it as t. It really 

 denotes ko, go, ku, gu. Its Aztec representative is quahuitl, a tree. 

 Its tree form is recognizable in the Hittite inscriptions, and, in its Y 

 equivalent, it constitutes the radical element in the Cypriote ku.^^ 



32a It may seem improbable at first sight that F should in any way represent an eagle, but a 

 comparison of the original form of the character with that of the Hebrew gimel, derived from a 

 camel, will show analogous changes. 



33 The angular N, like the M- referred to in note 31 above, occurs in no Latin or Greek 

 alphabet. 



3* Lycian and Phrygian. 



3o The lack of appropriate type compels me to make references which to the general reader 

 must be more or less obscure. The Cypriote sign for ku is a Saint Andrew's cross, through the 

 intersecting lines of which a Y is drawn perpendicularly. The cross with other lines, 

 horizontal or perpendicular, is the Cypriote vowel symbol a, e, i. The Y is tlms the radical 

 element in the form for ku. 



