OCR Text |
Show Whence Come Our Letters? rfUffi alphabet we use is a queer 7" thing, when we come to think of it. In effect, it is made up of conventional conven-tional signs. Turn this page upside down, and you cannot read it It might almost as well be printed in Russian charactcis or in Aiabic. Few subjects have enlisted on the part of language students more speculative specu-lative thought than the origin of tho alphubet. It is today a matter much In dispute. There are those w'ho aver that on pebbles almost as ancient as the early cave dwellers of southern Europe have been found inscribed characters representing rep-resenting the origin of some of our alphabetical letters of today. But the theory most generally accepted ac-cepted at the present time Is that the letters of our alphabet originated with the ancient Egyptians. They were, to begin with, "ideographs." Tako "S" for example. In form it re resents a snake. The sound of the letter Is the hissing or a snake. Thers you ha it. What more could be demanded de-manded of a single letter In an alphabet? alpha-bet? It is a whole picture. "Q" is supposed to have been a knot in a string the latter being originally a piece of sinew. "G" was a bow pulled taut. "C" was the hollowed hand, from which one drank whence the sound of tho letter. "E" was the crooked stick used In primitive times as a plow "N" was a pickax. "V" was an ox oke. "X" was a crossroads "T" was a tally a primitive mode of counting. "Y" was the right hand upheld. |