This question has received considerable attention from scholars with reference to the development of the two most important alphabets of the world, the Egyptian and the Chinese. Both these began as simple picture writing, and both progressed to almost complete phoneticism. In both cases, however, the earliest steps are lost, and can be retraced only by indications remaining after a high degree of phonetic power had been reached. On the other hand, in the Mexican and probably in the Maya hieroglyphics, we find a method of writing which is intermediate between the two great classes I have mentioned, and which illustrates in a striking manner the phases through which both the Egyptian and Semitic alphabets passed somewhat before the dawn of history.
To this method, which stands midway between the ikonographic and the alphabetic methods of writing, I have given the name ikonomatic, derived from the Greek εικων-ονος, an image, a figure; ονομα-ατος, a name. That which the figure or picture refers to is not the object represented, but the name of that object—a sound, not a thing. But it does not refer to that sound as the name of the object, but precisely the contrary—it is the sound of the name of some other object or idea. Many ideas have no objective representation, and others are much more simply expressed by the use of figures whose names are familiar and of similar sound. Thus, to give a simple example, the infinitive “to hide” could be written by a figure 2, and the picture of a skin or hide. It is this plan on which those familiar puzzles are constructed which are called rebuses, and none other than this which served to bridge over the wide gap between Thought and Sound writing. It is, however, not correct to say that it is a writing by things, “rebus;” but it is by the names of things, and hence I have coined the word ikonomatic, to express this clearly.
I shall select several illustrations from two widely diverse sources, the one the hieroglyphs of Egypt, the other the heraldry of the Middle Ages, and from these more familiar fields obtain some hints of service in unraveling the intricacies of the Mexican and Maya scrolls.
The general principle which underlies “ikonomatic writing” is the presence in a language of words of different meaning but with the same or similar sounds; that is, of homophonous words. The figure which represents one of these is used phonetically to signify the other. There are homophones in all languages; but they abound in some more than in others. For obvious reasons, they are more abundant in languages which tend toward monosyllabism, such as the Chinese and the Maya, and in a less degree the ancient Coptic. In these it is no uncommon occurrence to find four or five quite different meanings to the same word; that is, the same sound has served as the radical for that many different names of diverse objects. The picture of any of these objects would, to the speaker of the language, recall a sound which would have all these significations, and could be employed indifferently for any of them. This circle of meanings would be still more widely extended when mere similarity, not strict identity, was aimed at.
Such was plainly the origin of phoneticism in the Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions. Take the word nefer. Its most common concrete signification was “a lute,” and in the picture writing proper the lute is represented by its figure. But nefer had several other significations in Coptic. It meant, a colt, a conscript soldier, a door, and the adjective good. The picture of the lute therefore was used to signify every one of these.
It will be observed that this is an example of a pure ikonograph—the picture is that of the object in full, a lute; but precisely in the same way the second class of figures in picture writing, those which are wholly symbolic, may be employed. This, too, finds ample illustration in the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Instead of the picture of a house, the figure of a square was employed, with one side incomplete. Phonetically, this conveyed the sound per, which means house, and several other things.
It will readily be seen that where a figure represents a number of homophonous words, considerable confusion may result from the difficulty of ascertaining which of these is intended. To meet this, we find both in Egyptian and Chinese writing series of signs which are written but not pronounced, called “determinatives.” These indicate the class to which a word has reference. They are ideographic, and of fixed meaning. Thus, after the word nefer, when used for conscript, the determinative is the picture of a man, etc.[[210]]
There is little doubt but that all the Egyptian syllabic and alphabetic writing was derived from this early phase, where the governing principle was that of the rebus. At the date of the earliest inscriptions, most of the phonetics were monosyllabic; but in several instances, as nefer, above given, neter, which represents a banner, and by homophony, a god, and others, the full disyllabic name was preserved to the latest times. The monosyllabic signs were derived from the initial and the accented syllables of the homophones; and the alphabet, so-called, but never recognized as such, by the Egyptians, either from monoliteral words, or from initial sounds. At no period of ancient Egyptian history was one sound constantly represented by one sign. In the so-called Egyptian alphabet, there are four quite different signs for the M, four for the T, three for the N, and so on. This is obviously owing to the independent derivation of these phonetic elements from different figures employed ikonomatically.
There are other peculiarities in the Egyptian script, which are to be explained by the same historic reason. For instance, certain phonetic signs can be used only in definite combinations; others must be assigned fixed positions, as at the beginning or at the end of a group; and, in other cases, two or more different signs, with the same phonetic value, follow one another, the scribe thinking that if the reader was not acquainted with one, he would be with the other. I note these peculiarities, because they may be expected to recur in other systems of ikonomatic writing, and may serve as hints in interpreting them.
Evidently, one of the earliest stimuli to the development of phonetics was the wish to record proper names, which in themselves had no definite signification, such as those drawn from a foreign language, or those which had lost through time their original sense. In savage conditions every proper name is significant; but in conditions of social life, as developed as that of the Egyptians of the earlier dynasties, and as that of the Mayas and Mexicans in the New World, there are found many names without meaning in the current tongue. These could not be represented by any mode of picture writing. To be recorded at all, they must be written phonetically; and to accomplish this the most obvious plan was to select objects whose names had a similar sound, and by portraying the latter, represent to the ear the former. The Greek names, Alexander and Alexandria, occurring on the Rosetta Stone, were wholly meaningless to the Egyptian ear; but their scribes succeeded in expressing them very nearly by a series of signs which in origin are rebuses.