Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/alphabetaccounto02tayluoft foj THE ALPHABET AN ACCOUNT OF THE Origin and Development of Letters VOL II. .'^^ THE ALPHABET AN ACCOUNT OF THE Origin and Development of Letters Bv ISAAC TAYLOR, MA., LL.D. IN TWO VOLUMES Vol. II. ** a-C LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., i. PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1883 p 211 V.2. LOKnOX: PBI»TSD BT OII.BKBT & RIVIVOTON (LIMITED), 8T. John's 8<)uarb, clkrkenwbll road. [Ali rights reserved.'} — —— CONTENTS OF VOL. II. Chapter VII. The Greek Alphabet. § I . The Science of Greek Epigraphy . I 2. Abu Simbel § ...... 5 § 3, The Legend of Cadmus 18 § 4. The Cadmean Alphabet .... 28 § 5. The Dated Monuments 44 § 6. Classification of the Greek Alphabets 61 § 7. The Abecedaria ..... 69 § 8. The Letters . 80 § 9. The Asianic Scripts .... 108 Chapter VIII. Alphabets of Hellenic Origin. § I. The Italic Alphabets 124 § 2. Latin . 136 § 3. Greek Uncials and Minuscules 145 § 4. Latin Uncials and Minuscules 163 § 5. Coptic 191 § 6. The Slavonic Alphabets . 195 § 7. The Albanian Alphabets 207 § 8. The Runes . 210 § 9. The Oghams .... .... 225 Chapter IX. The Iranian Alphabets. § I. The Primitive Scripts of Persia 228 § 2. The Pehlevi Alphabets 238 § 3. The Indo-Bactrian Inscription of Asoka . 256 — CONTENTS. PAGE Numerals 263 § 4. The Indian and Georgian Alphabets .268 § 5. The Armenian Chapter X. Indian Alphabets. § I. The Multiplicity of Indian Scripts . .285 § 2. Asoka 289 of India 296 § 3. The Primitive Alphabets § 4. The Origin of the Indian Alphabets 304 Transition § 5. The Epoch of 324 § 6. The Vernacular Alphabets 342 Chapter XI. The Epilogue 360 Index of Alphabets 374 General Index 377 TABLES. Chronological development of the Greek Alphabet 59 Geographical distribution of Greek Alphabets . 60 Greek test letters 66 The Sibilants, Greek and Semitic .... 97 Cypriote and Lycian characters .... 116 Hittite and Cypriote characters .... 123 The Italic Alphabets 126 Greek and Latin letters 138 Greek Uncials and Minuscules .... 154 Latin Uncials and Minuscules .... 164 The Coptic Alphabet 194 The Slavonic Alphabets 196 Origin of the Glagolitic Alphabet 203 Cyrillic and Russian ligatures 206 The Albanian Alphabets 209 The Runic Alphabets 218 The Oghams 225 The Iranian Alphabets 236 The Parsi or Zend Alphabet .... 252 The Arabic Numerals ...... 266 Armenian Alphabets 276 Georgian Alphabets 277 The Primitive Alphabets of India . , 298 Origin of the Asoka Alphabet .... 320 The Ancient Alphabets of India 336 Vernacular Alphabets of the Peninsula of India 338 Vernacular Alphabets of Further India and the Islands 340 The Maledevi Alphabets 357 — — ILLUSTRATIONS. Greek Inscriptions : Abu Simbel . 7, ii Thera . 30-33 Athens . 35. 3^ Melos 37 Branchidse 46 Plataean Trophy 50 Abecedaria : Formello 74 Caere 75 Colle 79 Grosseto 79 Cypriote Inscription . .114 Epitaph of Scipio Barbatus 141 CHAPTER VII. THE GREEK ALPHABET. § I. The Science of Greek Epigraphy. % 2. Abii Simbel. § 3. The Legend of Cadmus. \ 4. The Cadmean Alphabet. \ 5. The Dated Monuments. \ 6. Classification of Greek Alphabets. § 7. The Abecedaria. \ 8. The Letters. § 9. The Asianic Scripts. § I. THE SCIENCE OF GREEK EPIGRArHY. Upwards of ten thousand ancient Greek inscriptions are included in the four volumes of the Corpus Inscrip- tionum GrcBcarum. It has been estimated, however, that this is not more than half the number which a complete collection would comprise. How much, or rather how little, was known sixty years ago about this vast mass of epigraphic material, may be gathered from the scholarly work of Hugh James Rose, Inscrip- tiones Gvcbccb Vetustissimcs, published in 1825, which contains notices of less than one hundred inscrip- tions. Now, however, by the labours of the great school of German epigraphists, among whom the most illustrious names are those of Bockh, Franz, Mommsen, and Kirchhoff, our knowledge has been VOL. II. B 2 THE CREEK ALPHABET. greatly extended, chaotic confusion has been replaced by orderly arrangement, and the history of the Greek alphabet has been placed upon an unassailable scientific basis.^ In England the new science of Greek epigraphy, which may be said to deal with the chronological and geographical classification of Greek inscriptions, has found few followers, and there is only too much truth in the complaint urged by Professor Mahaffy that even eminent English Hellenists are * The publication of the Corpus Inscriptionum Grcecarum may be said to have made possible the science of Greek Epigraphy. The two first volumes, edited by the illustrious scholar, Bockh, appeared in 1828 and 1833, Without detracting from the extraordinary merit of Bockh's labours, it may be acknowledged that the time has cornel when a revised edition of these two volumes might be published with advantage. Bockh was followed by Franz, who discussed the fundamental principles of epigraphic science in his Elementa epi- graphices Greece, published in 1840, and brought out the 3rd volume of the Corpus in 1853. The important work of Mommsen, Die unteritalischen Dialekten^ appeared in 1850. The 4lh volume of the Corpus ^2iS published in 1856 by Kirchhoff, to whom we also owe a compendious and most valuable systematic manual of Greek epigraphy, the Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets, an essay originally published in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy for 1863, which has gone through three editions in its separate form. The Etudes sur Vorigine et formation de Falphabet grec of Lenormant appeared in the Revue Archeologique for 1867 and 1868. The substance of these essays will be found in the article entitled Alphabetum, published in 1873 in Daremberg and Saglio's Diction- naire des Antiquites Grecques et Roiraines, which still remains the most lucid elementary treatise on the subject. The works of Rangab^ {^Antiquites Ile/leniques), Ross, Le Bas, Waddington, Kumanudes, and Hicks, will also be found essential by the student. ' GREEK EPIGRAniY. 3 found to be helpless In face of a Greek inscription.* The fundamental principles of the science are however so simple, and the essential facts on which it rests are so few, that without going into an overwhelming mass of detail, it may perhaps prove possible to give within the compass of a single chapter a clear and useful summary of the results which have been obtained by the great German scholars who have been named. From the character of the alphabet employed, the science of Greek epigraphy professes to be able to determine approximately the date and the place of origin of inscriptions. Starting with the assumption that the Greek alphabet underwent a process of orderly evolution, which lasted continuously for several centuries, a series of cautious deductions and brilliant generalizations have been drawn from a very limited number of fundamental facts. The general nature of these facts and conclusions ' Mahaffy, History of Greek Literature, vol. ii., p. 2. Professor Mahaffy's book has elicited a striking illustration of the truth of his remark. Mr. Paley making acquaintance in it, for the first time, with the cardinal monument of Greek epigraphy, the inscription at Abu Simbel (see p. 11. infra), finds he cannot reconcile it with his Homeric theories, or his conjectures as to the date at which written literature commenced among the Greeks. So much the worse for the inscription. He pronounces "the whole thing a hoax." "I have no hesitation," he says, " in expressing my belief that it is not really earlier than the age of Pericles." (Paley, Bibliographia Graca, p. 32.) If Mr. Paley had been acquainted with the elements of epigraphic science he would doubtless have felt some * hesitation before setting aside the unanimous verdict of European epigraphists. I B 2 4 THE GREEK ALPHABET. can be indicated in a single paragraph. Up to the end of the fifth century we find that almost every Hellenic State possessed its own local alphabet. After this time a nearly uniform alphabet prevailed throughout Greece, which underwent only incon- siderable modifications. Now we know that in the year 403 B.C., after the close of the Peloponnesian war, the Ionian alphabet was formally adopted for public purposes at Athens by a decree of the people, and] within a few years the example of Athens was followed throughout the greater part of Greece. An inscription from Halicarnassus, containing internal evidence by which its date is fixed, establishes the fact that in Asia! Minor this Ionian alphabet had approximately attained) its final form as early as the 80th Olympiad (460 B.C.). For the history of its formation out of the Phoenician] alphabet—a process which must have occupied many centuries—and for the history of the local alphabets which it displaced, the definite materials consist of the inscriptions which happen to contain a date. Naturally these are few. It would be possible to reckon on the fingers the inscriptions earlier than the 80th Olympiad to which a positive date can be assigned. The rest of the science of Greek epigraphy has been built up of ingenious but fairly certain deductions based on these somewhat narrow foundations. These facts and conclusions have now to be examined. ABU SIMBEL. § 2. ABU SIMBEL. The first absolutely firm standing ground in the history of the Greek alphabet, and consequently in the history of our own, is furnished by a monument which appertains, not to Hellas, or to any of the numerous seats of Hellenic culture, but to the Nubian desert, a region so remote as to be almost beyond the confines of ancient civilization. At Abu Simbel, or as it used to be more correctly called, at Ipsambul,^ near the second cataract of the Nile, the most imposing of all the monuments of the ancient magnificence of Egypt still attracts, as It has done for five-and-twenty centuries, the wondering admiration of a host of visitors.