In one of the earliest runic records which we possess, the pendant found at Vadstena in Sweden in 1774, and dating from about A.D. 600 (see Plate) the signs are divided up into three series of eight (the twenty fourth, ᛞ, being omitted for want of room). Upon the basis of this division a Ogam writing.system of cryptography (in the sense that the symbols are unintelligible without knowledge of the runic alphabet) was developed, wherein the series and the position within the series of the letter indicated, were each represented by straight strokes, the strokes for the series being shorter than those for the runes or the series being represented by strokes to the left the runes by strokes to the right of a medial line.[1] From this system probably developed the ogam writing employed among the Celtic peoples of Britain and Ireland. The ogam inscriptions in Wales are frequently accompanied by Latin legends, and they date probably as far back as the 5th and 6th centuries A.D.. Hence the connexion between Celt and Teuton as regards writing must go back to a period preceding the Viking inroads of the 8th century. Taylor, however, conjectures (The Alphabet, ii. p. 227) that the ogams originated in Pembroke, “where there was a very ancient Teutonic settlement, possibly of Jutes, who as is indicated by the evidence of runic inscriptions found in Kent, seem to have been the only Teutonic people of southern Britain who were acquainted with the Gothic Futhoro.” However this may be, the ogam alphabet shows some knowledge of phonetics and some attempt to classify the sounds accordingly. The symbols are as follows[2]:—
Symbols of Ogam Alphabet.
The form of the ogam alphabet made it easy to carve hastily; hence in the old sagas, when a hero is killed we find the common formula “His grave was dug and his stone was raised, and his name was written in ogam.” According to Sophus Müller (Nordische Altertumskunde, ii. p. 264), it was from Britain that the use of runes upon gravestones was derived a use which, to judge from the number of bilingual inscriptions in Britain, the Celts derived from the Romans.
The special forms of the alphabet—the Cyrillic and the Glagolitic—which have been adopted by certain of the Slavonic peoples are both sprung directly from the Greek alphabet of the ninth century A.D., with the considerable additions rendered necessary by the greater variety of sounds in Slavonic as compared with Greek. Apart from other evidence, the use of B with the value of v, of H as well as I with the value of ī, of Φ with the value of f and X with that of the Scotch ch, would be proof that the alphabet was not borrowed till long after the Greek classical period, for not till later did β, φ, χ become spirants and η become identified with ι. The confusion of β with v necessitated the invention of a new symbol Б in the Cyrillic, Ⰱ in the Glagolithic for b, while new symbols were also required for the sounds or combinations of sounds ž (zh), dz, št (sht), č (ts), c (ch in church), š (sh), ŭ, ĭ, y (u without protrusion of the lips), ĕ (a close long e sound), for the combination of o, a and e with consonantal I (English y) and for the nasalized vowels e̬, a̬ (nasalized o in pronunciation) and the combinations je̬ and ja̬ (English ye̬, ya̬). In all these matters Glagolitic differs very little from Cyrillic; it has only one symbol for ja (ya) and ĕ because both in this dialect were pronounced the same. It has also only one symbol for e and je (ye) for the phonetic reason that je always appears in the old ecclesiastical Slavonic, for which the alphabets were fashioned, at the beginning of words and after vowels: cp. the English use of the symbol u in unspoken and uniform. Glagolitic has a symbol for the palatalized g (Ӡ), but it is used only in the transcription of Greek words, γ having become y early between vowels in the popular dialects.
Such an elaborate alphabet could hardly have been invented except by a scholar, and tradition, probably rightly, has attached the credit for its invention to Cyril (originally Constantine), who along with his brother Methodius proceeded in A.D. 863 to Moravia from Constantinople, for the purpose of converting the Slavonic inhabitants to Christianity. The only question which concerns us here is which of the two alphabets was the earlier in use, and after much discussion authorities on Slavonic seem generally agreed that it was the Glagolitic (the name is derived from the Old Bulgarian, i.e old ecclesiastical Slavonic glagolŭ, “word”). According to Professor Leskien (Grammatik der altbulgarischen (altkirchenslavischen) Sprache, Heidelberg, 1909, p. xxi.), Cyril had probably made a prolonged and careful study of Slavonic before proceeding on his missionary journey, and probably in the first instance with a view to preaching the Gospel to the Slavs of Macedonia and Bulgaria, who were much nearer his own home, Thessalonica, than were those of Moravia. The Glagolitic was founded upon the ordinary Greek minuscule writing of the period, as was shown by Dr Isaac Taylor,[3] though the writing of the letters separately without abbreviations and an obvious attempt at artistic effect has gradually differentiated it from Greek writing. This alphabet, which is much more difficult to read than the bolder Cyrillic founded on the Greek uncial, survived for ordinary purposes in Croatia and in the islands of the Quarnero till the 17th century. The Servians and Russians apparently always used the Cyrillic, and its advantages gradually ousted the Glagolitic elsewhere, though the service book in the old ecclesiastical language which is used by the Roman Catholic Croats is in Glagolitic.[4]
While the Carian and Lycian were probably independent of the Greek in origin, so, too, at the opposite end of the Mediterranean was the Iberian. On the other hand, the Phrygian was very closely akin to the Greek in alphabet as well as in linguistic character. The Greek alphabet, with which it was most closely connected, was the Western, for the evidence is strongly in Phrygian.favour of the form 𐌙 having the value of χ, not ψ, in Phrygian, as it certainly has in the Etruscan inscription found on Lemnos in 1886, which is in an alphabet practically identical.
To a much later era belongs the Armenian alphabet, which, according to tradition, was revealed to Bishop Mesrob in a dream. The land might have been Grecized had it not, about A.D. 387, been divided between Persia and Byzantium, the greater part falling to the former, who discouraged Greek and favoured Syriac, which the Christian Armenians did not understand. Armenian.As those within Persian territory were forbidden to learn Greek, an Armenian Christian literature became a necessity. Taylor contends that the alphabet is Iranian in origin, but the circumstances justify Gardthausen and Hübschmann in claiming it for Greek. That some symbols are like Persian only shows that Mesrob was not able to rid himself of the influences under which he lived.
Of the later development of Phoenician amongst Phoenician people little need be said here. It can be traced in the graffiti of the mercenaries of Psammetichus at Abu Simbel in Upper Egypt, where Greeks, Carians and Phoenicians all cut their names upon the legs of the colossal statues. Still later it is found on the stele of Byblos, and on the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar (about 300 B.C.). The most numerous inscriptions come from the excavations in Carthage, the ancient colony of Sidon. One general feature characterizes them all, though they differ somewhat in detail. The symbols become longer and thinner; in fact, cease to be the script of monuments and become the script of a busy trading people. While the Phoenician alphabet was thus fertile in developing daughter alphabets in the West, the progress of writing was no less great in the East, first among the Semitic peoples, and through them among other peoples still more remote. The carrying of the alphabet to the Greeks by the Phoenicians at an early period affords no clue to the period when Semitic ingenuity constructed an alphabet out of a heterogeneous multitude of signs. If it be possible to assign to some of the monuments discovered in Arabia by Glaser a date not later than 1500 B.C., the origin of the alphabet and its dissemination are carried back to a much earlier period than had hitherto been supposed. Next in date amongst Semitic records of the Phoenician type to the bowl of Baal-Lebanon and the Moabite stone comes the Hebrew inscription found in the tunnel at the Pool of Siloam in 1881, which possibly dates back to the reign of Hezekiah (700 B.C.). The only other early records are seals with Hebrew inscriptions and potters’ marks upon clay vessels found in Lachish and other towns.[5]
- ↑ A species of cryptography exactly like this, based upon the “abjad” order of the Arabic letters, is still in use among the Eastern Persia is (E. G. Browne, A Year amongst the Persians, p. 391 f.).
- ↑ Cf. Rhŷs, Outlines of Manx Phonology, p. 73 (publications of the Manx Society, vol. xxxiii.); Rhŷs and Brynmor Jones, The Welsh People, pp. 3, 502. An interpretation of the oldest ogam inscriptions is given by Whitley Stokes in Bezzenberger’s Beiträge, xi (1886), p. 143 ff. Besides the collections of ogams by Brash (1879) and Fergeson (1887), a new collection by Mr R. A. S. Macalister is in course of publication (Studies in Irish Epigraphy, 1897, 1902, 1907). Professor Rhŷs , who at one time considered runes and ogam to be connected, now thinks that ogam was the invention of a grammarian in South Wales who was familiar with Latin letters.
- ↑ Archiv für slavische Philologie, v. 191 ff., where the Glagolitic and the cursive Greek, the Cyrillic and the Greek uncial are set side by side in facsimile.
- ↑ For further details and references to literature see the introduction to Leskien’s Grammatik (not to be confused with his Handbuch), from which this is abbreviated.
- ↑ These are figured most accessibly in Lidzbarski’s article on the alphabet in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. i. (1901); see also his table of symbols added to the 27th edition of Gesenius’ Hebraische, Grammatik (1902).
