350 



Application of the Roman Alphabet, 



[No. *, 



cognate subject, the comparative philology of Eastern languages. The 

 East it is now acknowledged must be the starting point with all who 

 would study the history of man as well as the science of language, 

 and the art of writing. The last mail received from England, brought 

 the announcement of the publication of no less than two books 

 which promise to be of great value to all who are interested in these 

 subjects, Levy's Phoniziches Worteriuch, or a sequel to his Studien 

 and SpiegeVs JUran das Land Zwischen der Indus und Tigris, and our 

 German oriental students work with such a will in the fields of oriental 

 research, that we may confidently expect each year to increase our 

 store of information. Whether they will succeed in finding Abraham, 

 Zarathustra, and the leader of the Aryan colony which overran India, 

 sitting under the same fig-tree, framing languages and alphabets for 

 the whole world, is a question yet admitting of very great doubts, but 

 there is no doubt that if ever they have done so, and left any traces 

 behind them, our friends will find them. 



Assuming the correctness of the facts above stated, it will be seen 

 that excluding the immediate consideration of the Pahlawi and Zend 

 alphabets, we have two primitive alphabets to deal with — the Indian 

 and the Phoenician ; and from these two alone the very numerous 

 alphabets of almost of all the written languages of Europe, Africa, 

 America, and half of Asia have been drawn. 



We have the very best evidence moreover, viz. clearly written in- 

 scriptions on tablets, coins, and rocks, — to prove that many of these 

 derivative alphabets are of very great antiquity, and this of itself, 

 though not a practical objection to the substitution of a good for a 

 bad, or a perfect for an imperfect alphabet, must nevertheless always 

 present a very serious difficulty to the engrafting of new alphabets on 

 old languages. Most nations take an intense pride in the antiquity 

 of every thing belonging to them ; and no nations possess this cha- 

 racteristic in a greater degree than Oriental nations. This difficulty, 

 of course, is much heightened if the character in which the language 

 is written, as well as the language itself, is sacred, which is the case 

 with the two classical languages of India. It is almost superfluous 

 to mention that the Brahmanas are of divine origin ; that the lan- 

 guage of the Vedas is the language of the gods ; and as for their 

 alphabet, its designation, the Deva N~agari, renders it unnecessary 

 to say whence it has been derived. As if to give weight again to 



