Names in hieroglyphic text of three of the most famous Pharaohs, Cheops, Thothmes III and Rameses II.
Among the Assyrio-Babylonians the use of an entirely different kind of writing material caused the development of a very different type of script. The lands inherited by these people were clay lands and they made enormous use of clay and its products for building materials, utensils, and also writing material. The early inhabitants of this region very soon found that a permanent record could be made by marking a lump of soft clay with a sharp stick and then drying it in the sun or baking it in an oven. Naturally the picture very soon degenerated into a series of marks made by holding the stick, or pointed implement, nearly parallel to the clay and then thrusting it into the surface. The resultant mark was like the following:
This script is called “cuneiform,” from two Latin words meaning “wedge shaped,” from the obvious resemblance of the marks to wedges. The number and arrangement of these marks developed successively into phonograms, ideograms, and letters. The language, which was very complicated in its written form, retained all three to the last.
First line of a cuneiform inscription commemorating victory of Shalmaneser over Hazael, King of Syria.
The Cretan civilization has been unknown to us save through a few uncertain references in Greek literature until within about twenty years. Within that time many excavations have been made, many objects recovered, and much progress made in the reconstruction of this ancient civilization. The written language has been at least partially recovered, although we are not sure that we have all the signs and we do not know how to read any of them. These signs were of two sorts, described as hieroglyphic and linear. The hieroglyphic signs are either ideograms or phonograms. Whether the linear signs are a true alphabet or a syllabary (each sign representing a complete syllable) we do not know. These linear signs have close relations on one hand to the signs used in the island of Cyprus, which we know to have been a syllabary, and on the other to the signs used by the Phœnicians, which we know to have been an alphabet.
Inscription in the Cretan linear character from a vase. There seems to be no question that the final step of discarding all signs excepting the few representing the primary sounds of human speech, and thus developing an alphabet pure and simple without concurrent use of phonograms and ideograms, was made by the Phœnicians. The Phœnicians were a trading people of Semitic origin (akin to the Jews and other allied races) whose principal seats were at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Various theories have been put forth as to the origin of their alphabet. It is clear that they did not originate it absolutely but developed it from previously existing material. Attempts have been made to connect it with the Assyrian cuneiform, and for many years it was commonly believed to have been derived from the hieratic form of the Egyptian. The evidence of later discoveries, together with the difficulty of reconciling either of these theories with all the known facts, points strongly to the conclusion that the principal source of the Phœnician alphabet was the Cretan script, probably modified by other elements derived from commercial intercourse with the Egyptians and the Assyrians. From the Phœnician came the Greek alphabet. From the Greek came the Roman, and from the Roman, with very little change, came our own familiar alphabet. But that is not all. The Phœnician, through various lines of descent, is the common mother of all the alphabets in use to-day including those as different from our own and from each other as the Hebrew, the Arabic, and the scripts of India. It will be noted that there are now four great families of alphabets. They are the Aramean which have the Hebrew as their common ancestor; the Ethiopic which now exists in but one individual; the Indian which now exists in three groups related respectively to the Burmese, Thibetan, and Tamil; and the Hellenic, deriving from the Greek. The relations of these groups are well worth study as indicating ancient lines of conquest, immigration, and literary influence. The lines of descent are shown in the table on the following page.