In the Path of the Alphabet; An Historical Account of the Ancient Beginnings and Evolution of the Modern Alphabet (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 Excerpt: ...the ancient rule and influence, the old language held its own down to comparatively recent times. The Semites, however, seem to have received from the Accadians more than they gave. The arts and sciences and civilization of this ancient people became the arts and sciences and civilization of the Semitic Assyrians and Babylonians. They appropriated the religion and gods of these early Chaldeans. They became heirs of their literature and they adopted their system of writing. The most curious instance in these various adoptions of the Semites was the Sumerian syllabary. Now in applying the syllabary of one language to the uses of another, it might be expected that the signs expressing a certain syllabic sound in one language would be used to express the syllabic sounds in the other. This however, was not the case in this instance. When the Semites adopted the old Accadian syllabary they used these signs quite as often to express the Semitic sounds of the original ideographs as for syllabic signs. As an instance of this curious example of polyphony, Mr. Taylor gives the cuneiform sign which in the primitive pictorial form represented an ear. The name of ear in Accadian is pi. This sign had another syllabic value, signifying a drop of water. When the Semites adopted this sign to their uses they retained the phonetic value of the sign as pi. They, however, used this sign also to express the sound of the Semitic words, "eznu," an ear, and "giltanu," a drop of water. This use of signs is the reverse of homophonism, where by the use of one sign many words having the same sound are expressed. It is an instance of polyphonism where one sign is used to express words having different sounds. The result was, however, the same. It led in both cases to ...