Alphabet

(al'fah-bet.) [Alpha, beta, the first two Greek letters.) The natural or customary series of the several letters ofa language. The carliest kind of writing was undoubtedly the representation of what was to be told by a kind of painting-the Greek word graph ein means either to paint or to write. This mode of writing was used very early in Egypt, and gave rise, no doubt, to the invention of hieroglyphics; being probably adopted by other ancient nations also. It was employed by the Mexicans to convey to Monte zum a information of the landing of the Spaniards. Syllabic writing must next have been devised, in which the different sounds or syllables were expre ed; a word, by this method, would have as many characters as syllables. Such writing, though a great improvement, was still very inconvenient. At length, syllables were decomposed into their elements, a few simple sounds; and the representation of these constituted an alphabet. It is now supposed that the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, which originally denoted objects, were ultimately employed to expre sounds; and from being ideographic, became not merely syllabic, but alphabetical. The Greeks believed that the Phœnicians were the inventors of letters; but there is reason to suppose that the Hebrew characters are older than the Phœnician, and were known in the time of Moses. The most ancient Greek, like the Oriental languages, was written from left to right: it was afterwards written in alternate lines from left to right and from right to left. It has been proposed to adopt a universal alphabet, which might contain a smaller number of elementary sounds than any used at present. [s. 22]