Alphabet
（
ἄλφα-βῆτα,
alphabētum). A
name given to any collection of graphic representations of sounds, and derived from the names
of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. The word
alphabetum is
not found in early writers. It occurs in Tertullian,
Haeret. 50, and from his
time on. The classical writers used the word
litteratura, or
litteratura prima (
Tac. Ann. xi.
13). Quintilian (i. 1, 24) uses the circumlocution
litterarum nomina et
contextum. (Cf.
Juv.xiv. 209.）
The alphabet is the oldest existing monument of civilization. In all, some two hundred
varieties have existed, of which only fifty are now in use. They are all modifications of the
primitive Phœnician alphabet, itself probably derived from the ideographic signs of
the Egyptians. Thus it is seen that all writing in its origin is due to the use of pictures or
symbols standing for either things or abstractions. These ultimately became phonographic,
representing syllables and elementary sounds. The Greek and Latin alphabets are, of course, of
the second class.
I. The Greek Alphabet
Many Greek alphabets are known from inscriptions on stone or pottery, varying according to
the district or the date; but the letters in which Greek literature, properly so called, has
descended to us belong to the Ionic alphabet, which, being formally adopted at Athens in B.C.
403, became that generally used by all Hellenes. Like the other Greek alphabets, it is in
general identical, in the names, forms, and number of the letters, with the
Phœnician or old Semitic alphabet. The Greeks must have obtained their knowledge of
it from the trading settlements of the Phœnicians in the Aegean not later than the
tenth century B.C. This belief was, indeed, held by the Greeks themselves; for though their
legends
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Ancient Alphabets
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ascribe the perfection of letters to various individuals, such as Palamedes, and
Simonides of Ceos, the actual introduction of the alphabet was almost universally credited to
Cadmus (q.v.), a Phœnician settled in
Boeotia (
Herod.v. 58, 59）—the name Cadmus being
undoubtedly the same as the Hebrew
Kadmi, “an Eastern.”
Further proof is found in the fact that the names of most of the Greek letters are pure
Semitic words. (See the table above.)
Scholars are nearly all agreed that writing was known to the Greeks in the Homeric Age (see
Iliad, vi. 168), and it is positively stated that lists of victors were kept
at Olympia from the year B.C. 776, while we actually possess inscriptions of the seventh
century. In the sixth century we hear of geographers, chroniclers, genealogists, legislators,
and of schools for teaching the alphabet (
Herod.vi. 27), showing
that by this period a knowledge of writing must have been very generally diffused. As all
Greek alphabets differ from the Phœnician in having characters for the vowels (a
striking fact), it is necessary to assume that a knowledge of writing was diffused over
Greece from a common centre, and that this diffusion occupied a considerable time. (See
Mahaffy,
Greek Literature, ii. 2, and the same writer in the
Journal of
Hellenic Studies, ii. 162.)
At the date of the oldest Greek inscriptions, the vowels
α, ε,
ο had been developed out of the Phœnician breath-signs
aleph, hé, and
ἁyin; and
ι and
υ out of
the Phœnician semi-consonants
yod and
vau. At this period the writing was still retrograde, i. e. from right to left, after
the Semitic fashion. A little later the direction is zigzag, or
boustrophedon (
βουστροφηδόν),
“plough-wise,” as an ox turns when ploughing, the lines proceeding
alternately from right to left and from left to right. In both these styles the writer often
began at the bottom of the roll, and wrote each succeeding line above the last. In the sixth
century the practice of writing all the lines from left to right was generally adopted. At
about the same time two more vowels were evolved—
η
out of the Semitic
cheth, and
ω from
ο. The character
φ had been
differentiated out of
θ, χ out of
κ, and
ψ (probably) out of
φ. The sounds of
ϝ (
vau）
and Q (Semitic
kōph) began to disappear, and the characters
as alphabetic symbols dropped out of use. Up to the third century B.C. only the ordinary
capitals were employed, but after this time the more rounded forms known as
“uncials” were introduced, together with cursive forms in correspondence.
The so-called “minuscules,” or small letters, familiar to us in our
modern books, were not evolved until the seventh or eighth century A.D. from a combination of
uncials and cursives. From a very early date the Greek alphabet showed a tendency to separate
into two types—the Eastern, or Ionic, and the Western, or Chalcidian. The final
difference between the two will be seen by the following comparison:
Ionic (Eastern) Alphabet.—
Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ
Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω.
Chalcidian (Western) Alphabet.—
Α Β Γ Δ
Ε Φ Ζ Η (=h)
Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ο Π Θ Ρ Σ Τ Υ
Χ (=x)
Φ Ψ (=kh).
II. The Latin Alphabet
The Chalcidian or Western Greek alphabet was carried by the Chalcidians to Italy as early
as the ninth century B.C. From it in Italy sprang five local Italic alphabets —the
Oscan, Umbrian, Etruscan, Faliscan, and Latin. (See
Dialects.) As the Latins ultimately attained to the intellectual and political
leadership of Italy, the last-named alphabet at last supplanted the other
four, and became the only one in general use throughout the Roman Empire, and later of
Christendom, thus becoming the prevailing alphabet of the world.
The Latin alphabet, received originally from the Chalcidian Greeks of Cumae in Campania,
has adhered more closely than any of the others to the original Phœnician type,
discarding only two letters and adding only three. Its archaic character as compared with
that of the Ionic Greek alphabet is seen
- 1. by its retention of the older signs for L and S;
- 2. by retaining the older value of H;
- 3. by retaining ϝ (vau) and Q
(κōπη).
At about the year B.C. 100 the letters Y and Z were reintroduced into the Latin alphabet,
but are only used in words borrowed from the Greek, in which they express the non-Latin
sounds of
Υ and Z. Originally the Latin C had the power of
G, but later, when K was disused, C took its place and sound, and the new character G was
invented (about B.C. 312) to express the sound formerly denoted by C. In abbreviations,
however, such as C., Cn., for Gaius , Gnaeus, the character C has its old power and =G. The
emperor Claudius (about A.D. 44) tried to introduce three new symbols into the alphabet, as
follows:
- 1. the inverted digamma ϝ, to make the consonantal
sound of V (i. e. the w sound);
- 2. the character known as anti-sigma C, to express the sound of the Greek Ψ (ps or bs); and
- 3. the sign , to express the sound of the Greek υ, i. e. of French u, or German ü.
These characters never secured any general adoption. The character V was not
developed until the tenth century A.D. as distinct from U; and J, as distinct from I, is no
older than the fifteenth century. Previously, I and U had been employed as medial and J and V
as initial characters to denote the same letters.
As in Greek, so in Latin, cursive forms arose to replace in part the angular forms of the
old capital letters. These cursive characters were used chiefly in correspondence and in
business, and are best known to us from the
graffiti found on the
walls of Pompeian houses. From the Roman cursive hand our own minuscules were developed.
For further information, see the articles
Abbreviations;
Boustrophedon;
Epigraphy;
Graffiti;
Logistica;
Palæography; Pronunciation;
Textual
Criticism; and the following works: Kirchhoff,
Geschichte des
griechischen Alphabets (Berlin, 1877); Faulmann,
Geschichte der
Schrift (Vienna, 1880); Humphreys,
Origin of the Art of
Writing (London, 1855); and Isaac Taylor,
The Alphabet, 2
vols.
(London, 1883).
