ww, apparently a ship, like the cuneiform ma. Appears only on seals.

xx, only once found on the Babylonian bowl, and seems to represent the inscribed bowl itself.

SECTION 2.
SYLLABARIES AND ALPHABETS.

It is worthy of observation that the Greeks used the same word, γράφειν, to mean drawing and writing, suggesting their early identity. Drawing was the beginning of writing, and writing was a conventionalized drawing. The connection of both with gesture signs has been noticed above. A gesture sign is a significant but evanescent motion, and a drawing is produced by a motion which leaves significant marks. When man became proficient in oral language, and desired to give permanence to his thoughts, he first resorted to the designs of picture-writing, already known and used, to express the sounds of his speech.

The study of different systems of writing—such as the Chinese, the Assyrian, and the Egyptian—shows that no people ever invented an arbitrary system of writing or originated a true alphabet by any fixed predetermination. All the known graphic systems originated in picture-writing. All have passed through the stage of conventionalism to that commonly called the hieroglyphic, while from the latter, directly or after an intermediate stage, sprang the syllabary which used modifications of the old ideograms and required a comparatively small number of characters. Finally, among the more civilized of ancient races the alphabet was gradually introduced as a simplification of the syllabary, and still further reduced the necessary characters.

The old ideograms were, or may be supposed to have been, intelligible to all peoples without regard to their languages. In this respect they resembled the Arabic and Roman numerals which are understood by many nations of diverse speech when written while the sound of the words figured by them is unintelligible. Their number, however, was limited only by the current ideas, which might become infinite. Also each idea was susceptible of preservation in different forms, and might readily be misinterpreted; therefore the simplicity and precision of alphabetic writing amply compensated for its exclusiveness.

The high development of pictorial writing in Mexico and Central America is well known. Some of these peoples had commenced the introduction of phonetics into their graphic system, especially in the rendering of proper names, which probably also was the first step in that direction among the Egyptians. But Prof. Cyrus Thomas (b) makes the following remark upon the Maya system, which is of general application:

It is certain, and even susceptible of demonstration, that a large portion, perhaps the majority, of the characters are symbols.

The more I study these characters the stronger becomes the conviction that they have grown out of a pictographic system similar to that common among the Indians of North America. The first step in advance appears to have been to indicate, by characters, the gesture signs.

It is not possible now to discuss the many problems contained in the vast amount of literature on the subject of the Mexican and Central American writing, and it is the less necessary because much of the literature is recent and easily accessible. With regard to the Indian tribes north of Mexico, it is not claimed that more than one system of characters resembling a syllabary or alphabet was invented by any of them. The Cherokee alphabet, so called, was adopted from the Roman by Sequoya, also called George Gist, about A. D. 1820, and was ingenious and very valuable to the tribe, but being an imitation of an old invention it has no interest in relation to the present topic. The same is manifestly true regarding the Cree alphabet, which was of missionary origin. The exception claimed is that commonly, but erroneously, called the Micmac hieroglyphics. The characters do not partake of the nature of hieroglyphs, and their origin is not Micmac.