We have seen in the table of alphabets that in every language, from our own day to the time of the Phoenicians, o has been represented by a circle or a circle within a circle. Now where did the Phoenicians get it? Clearly from the Mayas. There are two figures for o in the Maya alphabet; they are ### and ### ; now, if we apply the rule which we have seen to exist in the case of the Maya m to these figures, the essential characteristic found in each is the circle, in the first case pendant from the hieroglyph; in the other, in the centre of the lower part of it. And that this circle was withdrawn from the hieroglyph, and used alone, as in the case of the m, is proved by the very sign used at the foot of Landa's alphabet, which is, ### Landa calls this ma, me, or mo; it is probably the latter, and in it we have the circle detached from the hieroglyph.
We find the precise Maya o a circle in a circle, or a dot within a circle, repeated in the Phoenician forms for o, thus, ### and ### , and by exactly the same forms in the Egyptian hieroglyphics; in the Runic we have the circle in the circle; in one form of the Greek o the dot was placed along-side of the circle instead of below it, as in the Maya.
Are these another set of coincidences?
Take another letter:
The letter n of the Maya alphabet is represented by this sign, itself probably a simplification of some more ornate form, ### . This is something like our letter S, but quite unlike our N. But let us examine into the pedigree of our n. We find in the archaic Ethiopian, a language as old as the Egyptian, and which represents the Cushite branch of the Atlantean stock, the sign for n (na) is ### ; in archaic Phoenician it comes still closer to the S shape, thus, ### , or in this form, ### ; we have but to curve these angles to approximate it very closely to the Maya n; in Troy this form was found, ### . The Samaritan makes it ### ; the old Hebrew ### ; the Moab stone inscription gives it ### ; the later Phoenicians simplified the archaic form still further, until it became ### ; then it passed into ### : the archaic Greek form is ### ; the later Greeks made ### , from which it passed into the present form, N. All these forms seem to be representations of a serpent; we turn to the valley of the Nile, and we find that the Egyptian hieroglyphic for n was the serpent, ### ; the Pelasgian n was ### ; the Arcadian, ### ; the Etruscan, ### .
Can anything be more significant than to find the serpent the sign for n in Central America, and in all these Old World languages?
Now turn to the letter k. The Maya sign for k is ### . This does not look much like our letter K; but let us examine it. Following the precedent established for us by the Mayas in the case of the letter m, let us see what is the distinguishing feature here; it is clearly the figure of a serpent standing erect, with its tail doubled around its middle, forming a circle. It has already been remarked by Savolini that this erect serpent is very much like the Egyptian Uræus, an erect serpent with an enlarged body—a sacred emblem found in the hair of their deities. We turn again to the valley of the Nile, and we find that the Egyptian hieroglyphic for k was a serpent with a convolution or protuberance in the middle, precisely as in the Maya, thus, ### ; this was transformed into the Egyptian letter ### ; the serpent and the protuberance reappear in one of the Phoenician forms of k, to wit, ### ; while in the Punic we have these forms, ### and ### . Now suppose a busy people trying to give this sign: instead of drawing the serpent in all its details they would abbreviate it into something like this, ### ; now we turn to the ancient Ethiopian sign for k (ka), and we have ### , or the Himyaritic Arabian ### ; while in the Phoenician it becomes ### ; in the archaic Greek, ### ; and in the later Greek, when they changed the writing from left to right, ### . So that the two lines projecting from the upright stroke of our English K are a reminiscence of the convolution of the serpent in the Maya original and the Egyptian copy.
Turn now to the Maya sign for t: it is ### , . What is the distinctive mark about this figure? It is the cross composed of two curved lines, thus, ### . It is probable that in the Maya sign the cross is united at the bottom, like a figure 8. Here again we turn to the valley of the Nile, and we find that the Egyptian hieroglyph for t is ### and ### ; and in the Syriac t it is ### . We even find the curved lines of the Maya t which give it something of the appearance of the numeral 8, repeated accurately in the Mediterranean alphabets; thus the Punic t repeats the Maya form almost exactly as ### and ### . Now suppose a busy people compelled to make this mark every day for a thousand years, and generally in a hurry, and the cross would soon be made without curving the lines; it would become X. But before it reached even that simplified form it had crossed the Atlantic, and appeared in the archaic Ethiopian sign for tsa, thus, ### . In the archaic Phoenician the sign for ### is ### and ### ; the oldest Greek form is ### or ### and the later Greeks gave it to the Romans ### , and modified this into ### ; the old Hebrew gave it as ### and ### ; the Moab stone as ### ; this became in time ### and ### .
Take the letter a. In the Maya there are three forms given for this letter. The first is ### ; the third is ### . The first looks very much like the foot of a lion or tiger; the third is plainly a foot or boot. If one were required to give hurriedly a rude outline of either of these, would he not represent it thus, ### ; and can we not conceive that this could have been in time modified into the Phoenician a, which was ### ? The hieratic Egyptian a was ### ; the ancient Hebrew, which was ### or ### ; the ancient Greek was the foot reversed, ### ; the later Greek became our A.
Turn next to the Maya sign for q (ku): it is ### . Now what is the peculiarity of this hieroglyph? The circle below is not significant, for there are many circular figures in the Maya alphabet. Clearly, if one was called upon to simplify this, he would retain the two small circles joined side by side at the top, and would indicate the lower circle with a line or dash. And when we turn to the Egyptian q we find it in this shape, ### ; we turn to the Ethiopian q (khua), and we find it ### , as qua, ### ; while the Phoenician comes still nearer the supposed Maya form in ### ; the Moab stone was ### ; the Himyaritic Arabian form became ### ; the Greek form was ### , which graduated into the Roman Q. But a still more striking proof of the descent of the Phoenician alphabet from the Maya is found in the other form of the q, the Maya cu, which is ### . Now, if we apply the Maya rule to this, and discard the outside circle, we have this left, ### . In time the curved line would be made straight, and the figure would assume this form, ### ; the next step would be to make the cross on the straight line, thus, ### . One of the ancient Phoenician forms is ### . Can all this be accident?