Eureka Reporter | 1904-04-08 | Page 4 | First Use of Alphabet

first use of alphabet the two nations credited with the invention of the alphabet are the phoenicians and the persians but it is not usually conceded that the two are entitled to anything like equal credit the persians probably in the time of cyrus the great used certain characters of the babylonian script for the construct on ot an alphabet but at this time the phoenician alpha bet had undoubtedly been use tor some centuries and it Is more than probable that the persian borrowed his idea of an alphabet from a phoe bician source and that of course makes all the difference granted the idea of an alphabet it requires no gibat reach of construct ive genius to supply a set of alphabet leal characters though even here it may be added parenthetically a study of the development of alphabets will show that mankind has all along had a characteristic propensity to copy rather than to invent regarding the persian alphabet mal er then as a copyist rather than a true inventor it remains to turn at to the phoenician source whence as Is commonly believed the original alphabet which became the mother of all existing alphabets came into being it must be admit ted at the outlet that evidence tor the phoenician origin of this alphabet is traditional rather than remonstrative phoenicians were the great trad ers of antiquity they were largely responsible for the transmission of the alphabet from one part of the world to another once it had been invented henry smith wil liams in harper s magazine