Chapter CXXI: Act 1895: , may be given to a married woman on applying to (10)

It has been argued that the runes of the Teutonic peoples have been derived from a form of the Etruscan alphabet, inscriptions in which are spread over a great part of northern Italy, but of which the most characteristic are found in the neighbourhood of Lugano, and in Tirol near Innsbruch, Botzen and Trent. The Danish scholar L. F. A. Wimmer, in his great work Die Runenschrift (Berlin, 1887), contends that the resemblance, though striking, is superficial. Wimmer's own view is that the runes were developed from the Latin alphabet in use at the end of the 2nd century A.D. Wimmer supports his thesis with great learning and ingenuity, and when allowance is made for the fact that a script to be written upon wood, as the runes were, of necessity avoids horizontal lines which run along the fibres of the wood, and would therefore be indistinct, most of the runic signs thus receive a plausible explanation. The strongest argument for the derivation from the Latin alphabet is undoubtedly the value of attaching to @; for, as we have seen, the Greek value of this symbol is w, and its value as f arises only by abbreviation from FH. On the other hand, several of Wimmer's equations are undoubtedly forced. Even if we grant that the Latin symbols were inverted or set at an angle (a proceeding which is paralleled by the treatment of the Phoenician signs in Greek hands), so that @ represents Latin V, M, Latin E, @ and @ Latin D; while the symbol for the voiced spirant th is @ doubled, @, @, it is difficult to believe that the symbol for the spirant g, viz. @, represents a Latin K (which was of rare occurrence), or again @, @ a Latin N, or that the symbol for ng, do, represents @ = c doubled. Moreover, the date of the borrowing seems too late. The runes are found in all Teutonic countries,and the Romans were in close contact with the Germans on the Rhine before the beginning of the Christian era. We hear of correspondence between the Romans and German chieftains in the early day's of the empire. It is strange, therefore, if the Roman alphabet, which formed the model for the runes, was that of two whole centuries later, and even then the formal alphabet of inscriptions. By that time the Teutons were likely to have more convenient materials than wood whereon to write, so that the adaptation of the forms would not have been necessary. That the Germans were familiar with some sort of marks on wood at a much earlier period is shown by Tacitus's Germania, chap. x. There we are told that for purposes of divination certain signs were scratched on slips of wood from a fruit-bearing tree (including, no doubt, tile beech; cp. book, German Buch, and Buchstabe, a letter of the alphabet); the slips were thrown down promiscuously on a white cloth. whence the expert picked them up at random and by them interpreted fate. In these slips we have the origin of the Norse kefli, the Scots kaivel, which were and are still used as lots. The fishermen of north-east Scotland, when they return after a successful haul, divide the spoil into as many shares as there are men in the boat, with one share more for the boat. Each man then procures a piece of wood or stone, on which he puts a private mark. These lots are put in a heap, and an outsider is called in who throws one lot or kaivel upon each heap of fish. Each fisherman then finds his kaivel, and the heap on which it lies is his. This system of ``casting kaivels,'' as it is called, is certainly of great antiquity. But its existence will not help to prove an early knowledge of reading or writing, for in order that everything may be fair, it is clear that the umpire should not be able to identify the lot as belonging to a particular individual. It has, however, been contended that a system of primitive runes existed whence some at least of the later runes were borrowed, and the ownership marks of the Lapps, who have no knowledge of reading and writing, have been regarded as borrowed from these early Teutonic runes.21 Be this as it may, the resemblances between the runic and the Mediterranean alphabets are too great to admit of denial that it is from a Greek alphabet, whether directly or indirectly, that the runes are derived. That Wimmer postdates the introduction of the runic alphabet seems clear from the archaic forms and method of writing. It is very unlikely that a people borrowing an alphabet which was uniformly written from left to right should have used it in order to write from right to left, or boustrofedon. Hence Hempl contends22 that Wimmer's view must be discarded, and that the runes were derived about 600 B.C. from a western Greek alphabet which closely resembled the Formello alphabet (one of the ancient Chalcidian abecedaria) and the Sabellic and North Etruscan alphabets. He thus fixes the date at the same period as Isaac Taylor had done in his Greeks and Goths and The Alphabet. Taylor, however, derived the runes from the alphabet of a Greek colony on the Black Sea. Hempl's initiative was followed by Professor Gundermann of Giessen, who announced in November 180723 that he had discovered the source of the runic alphabet, the introduction of which he declares preceded the first of the phonetic changes known as the ``Teutonic sound-shifting,'' since @ = g is used for k, X = ch for g, a Theta-like symbol for d, while zd is used for st. If this view (which is identical with Taylor's) be true, we have a parallel in the Armenian alphabet, which is similarly used for a new value of the sounds. Hempl, on the other hand, contends that the sound-shifting had already taken place, and, arguing that several of the symbols have changed places (e.g. @ f and @ a, @ u and @ b, because at this time b was a bilabial spirant and not a stop), ultimately obtains an order-- a b d e f z kgw h i j @@ p r s t u l m n th o. As neither Gundermann nor Hempl has published the full evidence for his view, no definite conclusion at the moment is possible.

Ogam writing.

In one of the earliest runic records which we possess, the pendant found at Vadstena in Sweden in 1774, and dating from about A.D. 600 (see Plate) the signs are divided up into three series of eight (the twenty fourth, @, being omitted for want of room). Upon the basis of this division a system of cryptography (in the sense that the symbols are unintelligible without knowledge of the runic alphabet) was developed, wherein the series and the position within the series of the letter indicated, were each represented by straight strokes, the strokes for the series being shorter than those for the runes or the series being represented by strokes to the left the runes by strokes to the right of a medial line.24 From this system probably developed the ogam writing employed among the Celtic peoples of Britain and Ireland. The ogam inscriptions in Wales are frequently accompanied by Latin legend, and they date probably as far back as the 5th and 6th centuries A D. Hence the connexion between Celt and Teuton as regards writing must go back to a period preceding the Viking inroads of the 8th century. Taylor, however, conjectures (The Alphabet ii. p 227) that the ogams originated in Pembroke, ``where there was a very ancieni Teutonic settlement, possibly of Jutes, who as is indicated by the evidence of runic inscriptions fonnd in Kent, seem to have been the only Teutonic people of southern Britain who were acquainted with the Gothic Futhoro.'' However this may be, the ogam alphabet shows some knowledge of phonetics and some attempt to classifv the sounds accordingly. The symbols are as follows25:--

The form of the ogam alphabet made it easy to carve hastily; hence in the old sagas, when a hero is killed we had the common formula. ``His grave was dug and his stone was raised, and his name was written in ogam.'' mccording to Sophus Muller (Nordische Altertumskunde, ii. p. 264), it was from Britain that the use of runes upon gravestones was derived a use which, to judge from the number of bilingual inscriptions in Britain, the Celts derived from the Romans.

The special forms of the alphabet--the Cyrillic and the Glagolitic --which have been adopted by certain of the Slavonic peoples are both sprung directly from the Greek alphabet of the ninth century A.D , with the considerable additions rendered necessary by the greater variety of sounds in Slavonic as compared with Greek. Apart from other evidence, the use of B with the value of v, of H as well as I with the value of i, of F with the value of f and X wiih that of the Scotch ch, would be proof that the alphabet was not borrowed till long after the Greek classical period, for not till later did b, f, ch become spirants and e become identified with i. The confusion of b wirh v necessitated the invention of a new symbol b in the Cyrillic, @ in the Glagolithic for b, while new symbols were also required for the sounds or combinations of sounds z (zh), dz, st (sht), c (ts), c (ch in church), s (sh), u, i, y (u without protrusion of the lips), e (a close long e sound), for the combination of o, a and e with consonantal I (English y) and for the nasalized vowels e, a (nasalized o in pronunciation) and the combinations je and ja (English je and ja) In all these matters Glagolitic differs very little from Cyrillic; it has only one symbol for ja (ya) and e because both in this dialect were pronounced the same. It has also only one symbol for e and je (ye) for the phonetic reason that je always appears in the old ecclesiastical Slavonic, for which the alphabets were fashioned, at the beginning of words and after vowels: cp. the English use of the symbol u in unspoken and uniform. Glagolitic has a symbol for the palatalized g (@), but it is used only in the transcription of Greek words, g having become y early between vowels in the popular dialects.

Such an elaborate alphabet could hardly have been invented except by a scholar, and tradition, probably rightly, has attached the credit for its invention to Cyril (originally Constantine), who along wi1h his brother Methodius proceeded in A.D. 863 to Moravia from Constantinople, for the purpose of converting the Slavonic inhabitants to Christianity. The only question which concerns us here is which of the two alphabets was the earlier in use, and after much discussion authorities on Slavonic seem generally agreed that it was the Glagolitic (the name is derived from the Old Bulgarian, i.e old ecclesiastical Slavonic glagolu, ``word''). According to Professor Leskien (Grammatlk der altbulgariechen (altkirchenslavischen) Sprache, Heidelberg, 1909, p. xxi.), Cyril had probably made a prolonged and careful study of Slavonic before proceeding on his missionary journey, and probably in the first instance with a view to preaching the Gospel to the Slavs of Macedonia and Bulgaria, who were much nearer his own home, Thessalonica, than were those of Moravia. The Glagolitic was founded upon the ordinary Greek minuscule writing of the period, as was shown by Dr Isaac Taylor,26 though the writing of the letters separately without abbreviations and an obvious attempt at artistic effect has gradually differentiated it from Greek writing. This alphabet, which is much more difficult to read than the bolder Cyrillic founded on the Greek uncial, survived for ordinary purposes in Croatia and in the islands of the Quarnero till the 17th century. The Servians and Russians apparently always used the Cyrillic, and its advantages gradually ousted the Glagolitic elsewhere, though the service book in the old ecclesiastical language which is used by the Roman Catholic Croats is in Glagolitic.27

Phrygian.

While the Carian and Lycian were probabIy independent of the Greek in origin, so, too, at the opposite end of the Mediterranean was the Iberian. On the other hand, the Phrygian was very closely akin to the Greek in alphabet as well as in linguistic character. The Greek alphabet, with which it was most closely connected, was the Western, for 1he evidence is strongly in favour of the form @ having the value of ch, not ps, in Phrygian, as it certainly has in the Etruscan inscription found on Lemnos in 1886, which is in an alphabet practically identical.

Armenian.

To a much later era belongs the Armenian alphabet, which, according to tradition, was revealed to Bishop Mesrob in a dream. The land might have been Grecized had it not, about A.D. 387, been divided between Persia and Byzantium, the greater part falling to the former, who discouraged Greek and favoured Syriac, which the Christian Armenians did not understand. As those within Persian terrirory were forbidden to learn Greek, an Armenian Christian liierature became a necessity. Taylor contends that the alphabet is Iranian in origin, but the circumstances justify Gardthausen and Hubschmann in claiming it for Greek. That some symbols are like Persian only shows that Mesrob was not able to rid himself of the influences under which he lived.

Of the later development of Phoenician amongst Phoenician people little need be said here. It can be traced in the graffiti of the mercenaries of Psammetichus at Abu Simbel in Upper Egyrt, where Greeks, Carians and Phoenicians all cut their names upon the legs of the colossal statues. Still later it is found on the stele of Byblos, and on the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar (about 300 B.C.). The most numerous inscriptions come from the excavations in Carthage, the ancient colony of Sidon. One general feature characterizes them all, though they differ somewhat in detail. The symbols become longer and thinner; in fact, cease to be the script of monuments and become the script of a busy trading people. While the Phoenician alphabet was thus fertile in developing daughter alphabets in the West, the progress of writing was no less great in the East, first among the Semitic peoples, and through them among other peoples still more remote. The carrying of the alphabet to the Greeks by the Phoenicians at an early period affords no clue to the period when Semitic ingenuity constructed an alphabet out of a heterogeneous multitude of signs. If it be possible to assign to some of the monuments discovered in Arabia by Glaser a date not later than 1500 B.C., the origin of the alphabet and its dissemination are carried back to a much earlier period than had hitherto been supposed. Next in date amongst Semitic records of the Phoenician type to the bowl of Baal-Lebanon and the Moabite stone comes the Hebrew inscription found in the tunnel at the Pool of Siloam in 1881, which possibly dates back to the reign of Hezekiah (700 B.C.). The only other early records are seals with Hebrew inscriptions and potters' marks upon clay vessels found in Lachish and other towns.28

Like the Phoenician, these Hebrew signs are distinctly cursive in character but, as the legend on the coins of the Maccabees shows, became stereotyped for monumental use, while the Jews after the exile gradually adopted the Aramaic writing, whence the square Hebrew script is descended. The Samaritans alone stuck fast to the old Hebrew as part of their contention that they, and not the Jews, were the true Hebrews.

Aramaic

The oldest records in Aramaic were found at Sindjirli, in the north of Svria, in 1890, and date to about 800 B.C. At this epoch the Aramaic alphabet, or at any rate the alphabet of these records, is but little different from that shown upon the Moabite stone. Either two sounds are confused under one symbol, or these records represent a dialect which, like Hebrew and Assyrian, shows sh, z, and c, where the ordinary Aramaic representation is t, d and t the Arabic th, dh, and th. The Aramaic became in time by far the most important of the northern Semitic alphabets. Even while long and important documents in Assyria were still written on clay tablets, in cuneiform, a docket or precis of the contents was made upon the side in Aramaic, which thus became the alphabet of cursive writing--a fact which explains its later development. Two changes, the inception of which is early, but the completion of which belongs to the Persian period, gave the impulse which Aramaic obeyed in all its later developments. These were (a) the opening of the heads of letters, so that beth @, daleth @, and resh @ become respectively @, @, and @, while O becomes first U and ultimatelv V. In thc later development the heads tend to be reduced in size, and finally to disappear. (b) As was natural in cursive wriiing, angles tend to become rounded, and the tails of the letters, which in, Phoenician are very long are curved round in the middie of words so as to join on to the succeeding letter. These characteristics were naturally emphasized in the Aramaic writing on papyrus which, beginning about 500 B.C., during the Persian sovereignty in Egypt, lasted on there till about 200 B.C. The gradual development of this script into the square Hebrew, and the more ornamental writing of Palmyra, may be traced in the works of Berger and Lidzbarski.30

Arabic.

In the land of the Nabataeans, a people of Arabian origin, the Aramaic alphabet was employed in a form which ultimately developed into the modern Arabic alphabet. Probably the earliest example of the Aramaic script in Atrabia is the stele of Tema, in north-western Arabia, whereon is commemorated the establishment of a worship of an Aramaic diviniry. This monument, now in the Louvre, is not later than the 5th century B.C. In it the writing preserves its ancient form, the heads of the closed letters being only very slightly opened. The Nabataean inscriptions belong to a different epoch and a different style. They were first discovered by Charles Doughty in 1876-1877, who was followed between 1880 and 1884 by Huber and Euting, to whom a complete collection of these records is due. The records are fortunately dated, and belong to the period from 9 B.C. to A.D. 75. A further development can be traced in the graffiti wirh which pilgrims adorned the rocks of Mount Sinai down to the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. By the help of these inscriptions it is possible to trace the development of the modern Arabic where so many of the forms of the letters have become similar that diacritic points are essential to distinguish them, the original causes of confusion being the continuous development of cursive writing and the adoption of ligatures. Arabic writing, as known to us from documents of the early Mahommedan period, exhibits two principal types which are known respectively as the Cufic and the nashki. The former soon fell into disuse for ordinary purposes and was retained only for inscriptions, coins, &c.; the latter, which is more cursive in character, is the parent of the Arabic writing of the present day. Another form of the Aramaic alphabet, namely, the so-called Estrangela writing which was in use amongst the Christians of northern Syria, mas carried by Nestorian missionaries into Central Asia and became the ancestor of a multitude of alphabets spreading through the Turkomans as far east as Manchuria.

South Semitic.

There still remains a branch of the Semitic languages which, except for one or two of the languages belonging to it, was practically unknown till recent years. This is the South Semitic. Till the 19th century the earliest form known of this alphabet was the Ethiopian or Geez, in which Christian documents have been preserved from the early centuries of our era, and which is still used by the Abyssinians for liturgical purposes. The travels of two English naval officers, Wellsted and Cruttenden, through Yemen in southern Arabia in 1835, first called attention to the earlier monuments of Arabia. Fulgence Fresnel first established the importance of the inscriptions discovered by these Englishmen, and in 1843, when French consul at Jeddah, obtained through a French traveller, Francois Arnaud, information about other monuments of the same kind. In 1869 Joseph Halevy brought back nearly seven hundred inscriptions from Yemen, and this number has been increased from other quarters by several thousands, through the energy of several adventurous scholars, but chiefly by Eduard Glaser's repeated journeys. The south Arabian inscrip1ions to which the terms Himyaritic aud Sabaean are applied fall into two groups, the Sabaean proper and the Minaean. These are distinguished by differences in grammar and phraseology rather than in alphabet. The relative age of the Minaean and Sabaean monuments is a matter of dispute amongst Semitic scholars. Inscriptions in a kindred dialect were brought from El-Ola, in the north of the Hedjaz, by Professor Euting. To these D. H. Muller31 gave the title of Lihyanite, from the name of the tribe (Lihjan) to which they belong. Their date is supposed to be earlier than that of the Sabaean and Minaean. Minaean inscriptions were found at the same place, the Minaeans having had a trading station there. In 1893 J. Theodore Bent copied carefully at Yeha in Abyssinia a few inscriptions, some of which had been already copied in 1814 by the English traveller Salt. These inscriptions are of the greatest importance, because they demonstrate, according to D. H. Muller,32 that the Sabaeans had colonized Abyssinia as early as 1000 B.C. Other inscriptions copied by Bent at Aksum belong to the 4th century A.D. and later. Two of the earliest are written in Sabaean characters, but in the language which is known as Geez or Ethiopic. From about A.D 500 Ethiopic was written in an alphabet which according to Muller was no gradual growth but an ingenious device of a Greek scholar of this period at the court of Abyssinia. The Sabaean, like other Semitic, inscriptions are generallv written from right to left, but a few are boustrofedon; the Ethiopic is written from left to right, and makes a marked advance upon the ordinary Semitic manner of writing by indicating the vowels. This is done by varying the form of the consonant according to the vowel which follows it. The Ethiopic system is thus rather a syllabary than an alphabet. It is noticeable that the changes thus established were made upon the basis of the old Sabaean script, which in its oldest form is evidently closely related to the old Phoenician, though it would be premature to say that the Sabaean alphabet is derived from the Phoenician. It is as likely, considering the date of both, that they are equally descendants from an older source. The characteristics of the Sabaean are great squareness aud boldness in outline. It has twenty-nine symbols, whereby it is enabled to differentiate certain sounds which are not distinguished from one another in the writing of the northern Semites. As we have seen, it is a tendency in northern Semitic to open the heads of letters, and therefore it is possible that the Sabaean form for Jod @ may be older32 than the Phoenician @. Similarly if Pe means mouth, Hommel is right in contending that the Sabaean @ is more like the object than the Phoenician @, if we suppose the form, like @ or the Phoenician @ and @ for the Phoenician @ turned through an angle of 90 deg. . So also if Kaf corresponds to the Babylonian Kappu, ``hollow-hand,'' the Sabaean form @ which Hommel33 interprets as the outline of the hand with the fingers turned in and the thumb raised is a better pictograoh than the various meaningless forms of k (@, &c.).

The rock inscriptions in the wild district of Safah near Damascus which have been collected by Halevv are also written in an Arabic dialect, but, owing chiefly to their careless execution, they are to a large extent unintelligible. The character appears to be akin to the Sabaean. It has been suggesred that they were the work of Arabs who had wandered thus far from the south.

Persia.

There still remain for discussion the alphabets of the Indo-European peoples of Persia and India from which the other alphabets of the Farther East are descended. When Darius in 516 B.C. caused the great Behistun inscription to be engraved, it was the cuneiform writing, already long in use for the languages of Mesopotamia, that was adopted for this purpose. We have seen that at Babylon itself the Aramaic language and character were well known. It is probable therefore, a priori, that from the Aramaic alphabet the later writing of Persia should be developed. The conclusion is confirmed by the coins, the only records with Iranian script which go back so far; but the special form of Aramaic from which the Iranian alphabet is derived must at present be left undecided. The later developments of the Iranian alphabet are the Pahlavi and the Zend, in which the MSS. of the Avesta are written. Of Cese manuscripts none is older than the 15th century A.D. The Pahlavi is properly the alphabet of the Sassanid kings who ruled in Persia from A.D. 226 till the Arab conquest in the 7th century A.D. Under the Sassanids the old Persian worship, which had fallen with the Achaemenid dynasty in Alexander's time, and had been neglected by the subsequent Arsacid line, was revived and the remains of its liturgical literature collected. The name is, however, also applied to the alphabet on the coins of the Parthian or Arsacid dynasty, which in its beginnings was clearly under Greek influence; while later, when a knowledge of Greek had disappeared, the attempts to imitate the old legends are as grotesque as those in western Europe to copy the inscriptions on Roman coins. The relationship between the Pahlavi and the Aramaic is clearest in the records written in the ``Chaldaeo-Pahlavi'' characters; the most important of these documents is the liturgical inscription of Hadji-abad, where the Arsacid and Sassanian alphabets are found side by side. Taylor (The Alphabet, ii. p. 248 f.) regards the former as probably derived from the ``ancient alphabet of Eastern Iran, a sister alphaber of the Aramaean of the satrapies,'' while the Sassanian belongs to a later stage of Aramaic.

India.

The alphabets of India all spring from two sources: (a) the Kharosthi, (b) the Brahmi alphabet. The history of the former is clear. It was always a local alphabet, and never attained the importance of its rival. According to Buhler,34 its range lay between 69 deg. and 73 deg. 30' E. and 33 deg. to 35 deg. N., a conclusion which is not invalidated by the fact that some important modifications are found beyond this area, nor by Dr Stein's discovery of a great mass of documents in this alphabet at Khotan in Turkestan, for, according to tradition, the ancient inhabitants of Khotan were emigrants banished in the time of King Acoka from the area to which Buhler assigns this alphabet (see Stins's Preliminary Report, 1901, p. 51). Rapson35 has pointed out that both Kharosthi and Brahmi letters are found upon Persian silver sigloi, which were coined in the Punjab and belong to the period of the Achaemenid kings of Persia. As Buhler shows in detail, the Kharosthi alphabet is derived from the alphabet of the Aramaic inscriptions which date from the earlier part of the Achaemenid period. The Aramaic alphabet passed into India with the staff of subordinate officials by whom Darius organized his conquests there. The people of India already possessed their Brahmi alphabet, but had this other alphabet forced upon them in their dealings with their rulers. The Kharosthi is then the gradual development under local conditions of the Aramaic alphabet of the Persian period. As Stein's explorations show, both alphabets may be found on ooposite sides of the same piece of wood.

The history of the Brami alphabet is more difficult. In its later forms it is so unlike other alphabets that many scholars have regarded it as an invention within India itself. The discovery of earlier inscriptions than were hitherto known has, however, caused this view to be discarded, and the problem is to decide from which form of the Semitic alphabet it is derived. Taylor (The Alphabet, ii. p. 314 ff.), following Weber, argues that it comes from the Sabaeans who were carrying on trade with India as early as 1000 B.C. Even if the alphabet had not reached India till the 6th century B.C., there would be time, he contends, for the peculiarities of the Indian form of it to develop before the period when records begin. The alphabet, according to Taylor, shows no resemblance to any northern Semitic script, while its stiff, straight lines and its forms seem like the Sabaean. Buhler, on the other hand, shows from literary evidence that writing was in common use in India in the 5th, possibly in the 6th, century B.C. The oldest alphabet must have been the Brahmi lipi, which is found all over India. But he rejects Taylor's derivation of this alphabet from the Sabaean script, and contends that it is borrowed from the North Semitic. To the pedantry of the Hindu he attributes its main characteristics, viz. (a) letters made as upright as possible, and with few exceptions equal in height; (b) the majority of the letters constructed of vertical lines, with appendages attached mostly at the foot, occasionally at the foot and at the top, or (rarely) in the middle, but never at the top alone: (c) at the tops of the characters the ends of vertical lines, less frequently straight horizontal lines, still more rarely curves or the points of angles opening downwards, and quite exceptionally, in the symbol ma, two lines rising upwards. A remarkable feature of the alphabet is that the letters are hung from and do not stand upon a line, a characteristic which, as Buhler notes (Indian Studies, iii. p. 57 n.), belongs even to the most ancient MSS., and to the Asoka inscriptions of the 3rd century B.C. When these specially Indian features have been allowed for, Buhler contends that the symbols borrowed from the Semitic alphabet can be carried back to the forms of The Phoenician and Moabite alphabets. The proof deals with each symbol separarately; as might be expected of its author, it is both scholarly and ingenious, but, it must be admitted, not very convincing. Further evidence as to the early history of this alphabet must be discovered before we can definitely decide what its origin may be. That such evidence will be forthcoming there is little doubt. Even since Buhler wrote, the vase, the top of which is reproduced (see Plate), has been discovered on the borders of Nepal in a stupa where some of the relics of Buddha were kept. The inscription is of the same type as the Asoka inscriptions, but, in Buhler's opinion (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xxx., 1898, p. 389), is older than Asoka's time. It reads as follows: iyam salilanidhane Budhasa bhagavate sakiyanam sukitibhatinaim sabhaginikam saputadalanam. ``This casket of relics of the blessed Buddha is the pious foundation (so Pischel, no doubt rightly, Zeitsch. d. deutsch. morg. Gesell. lvi. 158) of the Sakyas, their brothers and their sisters, together with children and wives.''

How this alphabet was modified locally, and how it spread to other Eastern lands, must be sought in the specialist works to which reference has already been made. Its extension to new and hitherto unknown languages was in 1910 in process of being rapidly demonstrated by English and German expeditions in Chinese Turkestan.

AUTHORITIES.---Owing to the rapid increase of materials, all early works are out of date. The best general accounts, though already somewhat antiquated, are: (1) The Alphabet (2 vols., with references to earlier works), by Canon Isaac Taylor (1883), reprinted from the stereotyped plates with small necessary corrections (1899); and (2) Histoire de l'ecriture dans l'antiquite, by M. Philippe Berger (Paris, 1891, 2nd ed. 1892). An excellent popular account is The Story of the Alphabet, by E. Clodd (no date, about 1900). Faulmann's Illustrierte Geschichte der Schrift (1880) is a popular work with good illustrations. For the beginnings of the alphabet, Dr A. J. Evans's Scripta Minoa (vol. i., 1900) is indispensable, whether his theories hold their ground or not. The Semitic alphabet is excellently treated by Lidzbarski in the Jewish Encyclopaedia (1901); his Nordsemitlsche Epigraphik (1898) has excellent facsimiles and tables of the alphabets, and there are many contributions to the history of the alphabet in the same writer's Ephemeris fur semitische Epigraphik (Giessen, since 1900). See also ``Writing'' (by A. A. Bevan) in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, and ``Alphabet''(by Isaac Taylor) in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. A very good article, now somewhat antiquated, is Schlottmann's ``Schrift und Schriftzeichen'' in Riehm's Handworterbuch des biblischen Altertums (1884, reprinted 1894). For Greek epigraphy the fullest and also most recent work is W. Larfeld's Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik (vol. ii., 1902; vol. i., 1907) (see especially Herkunft un Alter des griechischen Alphabets, i. 330 ff.). For the history of the Greek alphabet the fundamental work was A. Kirchhoff's Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets (4th ed., 1887).: His theories were adopted and worked out on a much larger scale in E. S. Roberts's Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, pt. i. ``The Archaic Inscriptions and the Greek Alphabet'' (1887), pt. ii. (wirh E. A. Gardner) ``The Inscriptions of Attica'' (1905); See also Salomon Reinach's Traite d' epigraphie grecque (1885). in Iwan von Muller's Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft important articles on both Greek and Latin epigraphy and alphabets have appeared (Greek in edition 1 by G. Heinrichs, 1886; in edition 2 by W. Larfeld, 1892; Latin by Emil Hubner). See also ``Alphabet,'' by W. Deecke, in Baumeister's Denkmaler des klassischen Altertums (1884), and by Szanto (Greek) and Joh. Schmidt (italic) in Pauly's Realencyclopadie edited by Wissowa (1894). Mommsen's Die unteritalischen Dialekte (1850) is not without value even now. Other literature and references to fuller bibliographies in separate departments have been given in the notes. Elsewhere in this edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica the articles on the various languages and under the headings INSCRIPTIONS, PALAEOGRAPHY, WRITING, &c., should be consulted, while separate articles are given on each letter of the English alphabet. The writer is indebted to Dr A. J. Evans for a photograph of the Cretan linear script, and to Professors A. A. Bevan and Rapson of Cambridge, and to Mr F. W. Thomas, librarian of the India Office, for help in their respective departments of Semitic and Indian languages. (P. Gt.) 1 Breasted, History of Egypt (1906), p. 45.

2 Op. cit. p. 484.

3 Die Schrift und Sprache der alten Agypter (1907), p. 24.

4 Scripta Minoa, i. (1909), sec. 10, pp. 77 ff.

5 E. Piette, L'Anthropologie, vii. (1896) pp. 384 ff.

6 E. Piette, L'Anthropologie, xvi. (1905) pp. 8-9. The apparent inscriptions of this period are conveniently collected and figured together in Dechelette's Malnuel d'archeologie prehistorique celtique et gallo-romaine, i. (1908) p. 233.

7 Der Ursprung des alt-semitischen Alphabets aus der neu-assyrischen Keilschrift (ZDMG. xxxi. pp. 102 ff.). A still more sweeping theory of the same nature is propounded by the Rev. C. J. Ball in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, xv. 1893) pp. 392 ff.

8 In an excellent summary of the different views held as to the origin of the alphabet (Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xxii, first half, 1901), Dr J. P. Peters agrees (pp. 191 fl.) that the best test is ihe etymology of the names of the letters. He shows that twelve of the letter-names are words wiih meanings [in the northern dialects of Semitic], all of them indicating simple objects, six of the twelve being parts of the body. The objects denoted by the other six names--ox, house, valve of a door, water, fish and mark or cross--clearly do not belong to any people in a nomadic state, but to a settled, town-abiding population. . . . Six of the letter-names are not words in any known tongue, and appear to be syllables only. Four lerter-names are triliterals, and resemble in their form Semitic words.'' As 11 of the 12 which have meanings are to be found in the Assyrian-Babylonian syllabaries, he suggests a possible Babylonian origin. Different views with regard to some of these symbols are expressed by Lidzbarski, Ephemeris fur semitische Epigraphik, ii. pp. 125 ff. (1906). The earliest tradition of the names is discussed by Noldeke in his Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissenschait (1904), pp. 124 fl.

9 See, for example, the tables at the end of Roberts's Introduction to Greek Epigraphy (1887); or Kirchhoff's Studien zur Geschichte des grieschischen Alphabets (4th ed. 1887); or Larfeld's Handbuch der grieschischen Epigraphik, vol. i. (1907).

10 Cp. Frankel, Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum Pelopennesi, i., No. 1607.

11 See Witton, in American Journal of Philology, xix. pp. 420 ff., and Lagercrantz, Zur griechischen Lautgeschichte (Upsala, 1898).

12. See Foat, ``Tsade and Sampi'' (Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxv. pp. 338 fl., xxvi. p. 286). A number of ingenious points often uncertain are raised by A. Gercke, ``Zur Geschichie des altesten griechischen Alphabets'' (Hermes, xli., 1906, pp. 540 ff.).

13 See especially Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaology for 1895, p. 40; cf. also Kalinka, Neue Jahrbucher fur Philologie, iii. (1899), p. 683. Similar forms are also found in the Safa inscriptions (South Semitic) with similar values, and Praetorius argues (Z.D.M.G. lvi., 1902, pp. 677 ff., and again lviii., 1904, pp. 725 f.) that these were somehow borrowed by Greek in the 8th century B.C., while in lxii. pp.283 ff. he argues that the reason why the Greeks borrowed Th for the aspirated t was its form, the cross in @ being regarded as T and the surrounding circle as a variety of @ an occasional form of @ the aspirate. Here also (p. 287) as in his Ursprung des kanaanaischen Alphabets, pp. 13 f., he argues that the two forms of the digamma f and @, and also the South Semitic @ = o, could all have developed from the Cyprian I = we. But proof is impossible without evidence of the intermediate steps.

14 Inscriptiones Graecae, xii., fasc. iii. Nos. 811, 1149.

15 See especially Athenische Mitteilungen, xxi. p. 426.

16 Figured in Roberts's Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, p. 65.

17 Details of the history of the individual letters will be found in separate articles.

18 It is figured most accessibly in Egbert's Introduction to the Study of Latin Inscriptions, p. 16.

19 Gardthausen ``Ursprung und Entwicklung der grieschen-lateinischen Schrift '' (Germanisch-romanische Monatsschrift, i. (1909), pp. 337 ff.) argues for a ``proto-Tyrrhenian '' alphabet from which Etruscan, Umbrian and Oscan descended as one group, and Faliscan and Latin as the other. Evidence in favour of such a position for the Latin alphabet is not forthcoming.

20 For further details of these alphabets, see Conway, The Italic Dialects, ii. pp. 458 ff. The recent discovery by Keil and Premerstein (Denkschriften der Wiener Akademie, liii., 1908) of Lydian inscriptions containing the symbol @ suggests that the old derivation of the Etruscans from Lydia may be true and that they brought this symbol with them (see article on f.) But the inscriptions are not yet deciphered, so that conclusive proof is still wanting.

21 R. M. Meyer, Paul Braune und Sievers' Beitrage, xxi. (1896), pp. 162 ff.

22 In a paper published in the volume of Philologische Studien, presented as a ``Festgabe'' to Professor Sievers in 1896, and in a second paper in the Journal of Germanic Philology, ii. (1899), pp. 370 ff.

23 See Literaturblott fur germanische und romanische Philologie for 1897, col. 429 f.

24 A species of cryptography exactly like this, based upon the `abjad' order of the Arabic letters, is still in use among the Eastern Persia is (E G. Browne, A Year amongst the Persians, p. 391 f.).

25 Cf. Rhys, Outlines of Manx Phonology, p. 73 (publications of the Manx Society, vol. xxxiii.) ; Rhys and Brynmor Jones, The Welsh People, pp 3, 502. An interpretation of the oldest ogam inscriptions is given by Whitley Stokes in Bezzenberger's Beitrage, xi (1886), p 183 ff. Besides the collections of ogams by Brash (1879) and Fergeson (1887), a new collection by Mr R. A. S. Macalister is in course of publication (Studies in Irish Epigraphy, 1897, 1902, 1907). Professor Rhys, who at one time considered runes and ogam to be connected, now thinks that ogam was the invention of a grammarian in South Wales who was familiar with Latin letters.

26 Archiv fur slavische Philologie, v. 191 ff., where the Glagolitic and the cursive Greek, the Cyrillic and the Greek uncial are set side by side in facsimile.

27 For further details and references to literature see the introduction to Leskien's Grammatik (not to be confused with his Handbuch), from which this is abbreviated.

28 These are figured most accessibly in Lidzbarski's article on the alphabet in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. i. (1901) ; see also his table of symbols added to the 27th edition of Gesenius' Hebraische, Grammatik (1902).

29 See Berger's Histoire de l'ecriture dans l'antiquite, p. 252 ff.; Nordsemitische Epigraphik, p. 186 ff., from whom this summary is taken. Lidzbarski's second volume and G. A. Cooke's Textbook of North-Semitic Inscriptions (Oxford, 1903) contain the most convenient collections of Northern Semitic inscriptions for the student's purposes.

30 Muller, Epigraphische Denkmaler aus Arabien (Vienna, 1889).

31 Epigraphische Denkmaler aus Abessinien (Vienna, 1894). Praetorius (Z.D.M.G. lviii. p. 724) holds that the oldest Sabaean inscriptions may date from about 700 B.C., that the Lihyan inscriptions are at earliest of the Hellenistic period and the Safa inscriptions still later.

32 Praetorius (Z.D.M.G. lviii. p. 461 f.) attempts to trace the development of the Sabaean form from the Phoenician.

33 Hommel, Sud-arabische Chrestomathie (Munich, 1893), p. 5.

34 Buhler, Indian Studies, iii. (2nd. ed., 1898), p. 93. The account of these alphabets is drawn from this work and from the same author's Indische Palaographie in the Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie, to which is attached an atlas of plates (Strassburg, 1896), and in which a full bibliography is given.

35 For a coin and a gild token with inscriptions see Rapson's Indian Coins (in Grundriss d. ind.-ar. Phil.), Plate I.

AL-PHASI, ISAAC (1013--1103), Jewish rabbi and codifier, known as Riph, was born near Fez in 1013 and died at Lucena in 1103. 'Al-Pinasi means the ``man of Fez'' (medieval Jews were often named after their birthplaces). He was forced to leave Fez when an old man of 75, being accused on some unknown political charge. He then settled in Spain where he was held in much esteem. His magnanimous character was illustrated by two incidents. When 'Al-phasi's opponent Isaac 'Albalia died, 'Al-pinasi received 'Albalia's son with the greatest kindness and adopted him as a son. When, again, 'Al-phasi was himself on the point of death, he recommended as his successor in the Lucena rabbinate, not his own son, but his pupil Joseph ibn Migash. The latter became the teacher of Maimonides, and thus 'Al-phasi's teaching as well as his work must have directly influenced Maimonides. 'Al-phasi's fame rests on his Talmudical Digest called Halakhoth or Decisions. The Talmud was condensed by him with a special view to practical law. He omitted all the homiletical passages, and also excluded those parts of the Talmud which deal with religious duties practicable only in Palestine. 'Al-pinasi thus occupies an important place in the development of the Spanish method of studying the Talmud. In contradistinction to the French rabbis, the Spanish sought to simplify the Talmud and free it from casuistical detail. 'Al-pinasi succeeded in producing a Digest, which became the object of close study, and led in its turn to the great Codes of Maimonides and of Joseph Qaro.

ALPHEGE [AELFHEAH], SAINT (954-1023), archbishop of Canterbury, came of a noble family, but in early life gave up everything for religion. Having assumed the monastic habit in the monastery of Deerhurst, he pased thence to Bath, where he became an anchorite and ultimately abbot, distinguishing himself by his piety and the austerity of his life. In 984 he was appointed through Dunstan's inlluence to the bishopric of Winchester, and in 1006 he succeeded AElfric as archbishop of Canterbury. At the sack of Canterbury by the Danes in 1011 AElfheah was captured and kept in prison for seven months. Refusing to pay a ransom he was barbarously murdered at Greenwich on the 19th of April 1012. He was buried in St Paul's, whence his body was removed by Canute to Canterbury with all the ceremony of a great act of state in 1023.

Lives of St. Alphege in prose (which survives) and in verse were written by command of Lanfranc by the Canterbury monk Osborn (d. c. 1090), who says that his account of the solemn translation to Canterbury in 1023 was received from the dean, (Godric, one of Alphege's own scholars.

ALPHEUS ('Alfeios; mod. Ruphia), the chief river of Peloponnesus. Strictly Ruphia is the modern name for the ancient Ladon, a tributary which rises in N.E. Elis, but the name has been given to the whole river. The Alpheus proper rises near Asea; but its passage thither by subterranean channels from the Tegean plain and its union with the Eurotas are probably mythical (see W. Loring, in Journ. Hell. Studies, xv. p. 67). It consists for the most part of a shallow and rapid stream, occupying but a small part of its broad, stony bed. It empties itself into the Ionian sea. Pliny states that in ancient times it was navigable for six Roman miles from its mouth. Alpheus was recognized in cult and myth as the chief or typical river-god in the Peloponnesus, as was Acholous in northern Greece. His waters were said to pass beneath the sea and rise again in the fountain Arethusa at Syracuse; such is the earlier version from which later mythologists and poets evolved the familiar myth of the loves of Alpheus and Arethusa.

ALPHONSE I., COUNT OF TOULOUSE (1103-1148), son of Count Raymond IV. by his third wife, Elvira of Castile, was born in 1103, in the castle of Mont-Pelerin, Tripoli. He was surnamed Jourdain on account of his being baptized in the river Jordan. His father died when he was two years old and he remained under the guardianship of his cousin, Guillaume Jourdain, count of Cerdagne (d. 1109), until he was five. He was then taken to Europe and his brother Bertrand gave him the countship of Rouergue; in his tenth year, upon Bertrand's death (1112), he succeeded to the countship of Toulouse and marquisate of Provence, but Toulouse was taken from him by William IX., count of Poitiers, in 1114. He recovered a part in 1119, but continued to fight for his possessions until about 1123. When at last successful, he was excommunicated by Pope Calixtus II. for having expelled the monks of Saint-Gilles, who had aided his enemies. He next fought for the sovereignty of Provence against Raymond Berenger I., and not till September 1125 did the war end in an amicable agreement. Under it Jourdain became absolute master of the regions lying between the Pyrenees and the Alps, Auvergne and the sea. His ascendancy was an unmixed good to the country, for during a period of fourteen years art and industry flourished. About 1134 he seized the countship of Narbonne, only restoring it to the Viscountess Ermengarde (d. 1197) in 1143. Louis VII., for some reason which has not appeared, besieged Toulouse in 1141, but without result. Next year Jourdain again incurred the displeasure of the church by siding with the rebels of Montpellier against their lord. A second time he was excommunicated; but in 1146 he took the cross at the meeting of Vezelay called by Louis VII., and in August 1147 embarked for the East. He lingered on the way in Italy and probably in Constantinople; but in 1148 he had arrived at Acre. Among his companions he had made enemies and he was destined to take no share in the crusade he had joined. He was poisoned at Caesarea, either the wife of Louis or the mother of the king of Jerusalem suggesting the draught.

See the documentary Histoire generale de Languedoc by De Vie and Vaissette, vol. iii. (Toulouse, 1872).

ALPHONSE, COUNT OF TOULOUSE AND OF POITIERS (12201271), the son of Louis VIII., king of France, and brother of St Louis, was born on the 11th of November 1220. He joined the county of Toulouse to his appanage of Poitou and Auvergne, on the death, in September 1249, of Raymond VII., whose daughter Jeanne he had married in 1237. He took the cross with his brother, St Louis, in 1248 and in 1270. In 1252, on the death of his mother, Blanche of Castile, he was joint regent with Charles of Anjou until the return of Louis IX., and took a great part in the negotiations which led to the treaties of Abbeville and of Paris (1258--1259). His main work was on his own estates. There he repaired the evils of the Albigensian war and made a first attempt at administrative centralization, thus preparing the way for union with the crown. The charter known as ``Alphonsine,'' granted to the town of Riom, became the code of public law for Auvergne. Honest and moderate, protecting the middle classes against exactions of the nobles, he exercised a happy influence upon the south, in spite of his naturally despotic character and his continual and pressing need of money. He died without heirs on his return from the 8th crusade, in Italy, probably at Savona, on the 21st of August 1271.

See B. Ledain, Histoire d'Alphonse, frere de S. Louis et du comte de Poltou sous son administration (1241-1271) (Poitou, 1869); E. Bourarie, Saint Louis et Alphonse de Poitiers (Paris, 1870); A. Molinier, Etude sur l'administration de S. Louis et d'Alphonse de Poitiers (Toulouse, 1880); and also his edition of the Correspondance adminiistrative d'Alphonse de Poitiers in the Collection de documents inedits pour servir a l'histoire de France (Paris, 1894 and 1895).

ALPHONSO, the common English spelling of Alfonso, Alonso and Alfonso, which are respectively the Galician, the Leonese and the Castilian forms of Ildefonso (Ildefonsus), the name of a saint and archbishop of Toledo in the 7th century. The name has been borne by a number of Portuguese and Spanish kings, who are distinguished collectively below.

Kings of Portugal.

Portuguese Kings.--ALPHONSO I. (Affonso Henriques), son of Henry of Burgundy, count of Portugal, and Teresa of Castile, was born at Guimaraes in 1094. He succeeded his father in 1112, and was placed under the tutelage of his mother. When he came of age, he was obliged to wrest from her by force that power which her vices and incapacity had rendered disastrous to the state. Being proclaimed sole ruler of Portugal in 1123, he defeated his mother's troops near Guimaraes, making her at the same time his prisoner. He also vanquished Alphonso Raymond of Castile, his mother's ally, and thus freed Portugal from dependence on the crown of Leon. Next turning his arms against the Moors, he obtained, on the 26th July 1139, the famous victory of Ourique, and immediately after was proclaimed king by his soldiers. He assembled the Cortes of the kingdom at Lamego, where he received the crown from the archbishop of Braganza; the assembly also declaring that Portugal was no longer a dependency of Leon. Alphonso continued to distinguish himself by his exploits against the Moors, from whom he wrested Santarem in 1146 and Lisbon in 1147. Some years later he became involved in a war that had broken out among the kings of Spain; and in 1167, being disabled during an engagement near Badajoz by a fall from his horse, he was made prisoner by the soldiers of the king of Leon, and was obliged to surrender as his r:asom almost all the conquests he had made in Galicia. In 1184, in spite of his great age, he had still sufficient energy to relieve his son Sancho, who was besieged in Santarem by the Moors. He died shortly after, in 1185. Alphonso was a man of gigantic stature, being 7 ft. high according to some authors. He is revered as a saint by the Portuguese, both on account of his personal character and as the founder of their kingdom.

ALPHONSO II., ``the Fat,'' was born in 1185, and succeeded his father, Sancho I., in 1211. He was engaged in war with the Moors and gained a victory over them at Alcacer do Sal in 1217. He also endeavoured to weaken the power of the clergy and to apply a portion of their enormous revenues to purposes of national utility. Having been excommunicated for this by the pope (Honorius III.), he promised to make amends to the church; but he died in 1223 before doing anything to fulfil his engagement. He framed a code which introduced several beneficial changes into the laws of his kingdom.

ALPHONSO III., son of Alphonso II., was born in 1210, and succeeded his brother, Sancho II., in 1248. Besides making war upon the Moors, he was, like his father, frequently embroiled with the church. In his reign Algarve became part of Portugal. He died in 1279.