Probably it is not by accident that the three sonant mutes, b, g, d, come together, next after the aleph; nor that the three liquids, I, m, n, are also found side by side later; but all attempts at explanation beyond this are little better than mere guesses, and involve theories respecting the origin of the alphabet which reach far beyond our actual knowledge. For we really are wholly in the dark as to the antecedents of the old Semitic mode of writing; neither tradition and history, nor the traced relation of its characters to those of other modes of writing, nor their own shapes and names, afford ground for anything more than unrestrained conjecture. The names of the characters are each the name of some sensible and depictable object, which has for its initial the letter named: thus, aleph, ox; beth, house; gimel, camel; daleth, door; and so on. Considering that many Egyptian phonetic hieroglyphs are well known to have gained the office of representing certain sounds because those sounds were the initials of the objects depicted (thus, the eagle, ahom, becoming a sign for a; the lion, labo, for I), the supposition has seemed a highly plausible one that the Phoenician letters also were originally rude pictures of the objects indicated by their names.

And this supposition receives a degree of confirmation from a certain resemblance traceable in a few cases between the letter and the object: thus, the sign for aleph is not unlike the front of an ox's head; mem, water, is like one of the common conventional signs of water, a waving or indented surface; and ain, eye (our O), is a tolerable eye in outline. Yet the evidence of such a kind is too scanty to be much relied on, and it is quite as plausible a theory that names should have been chosen on acrophonic grounds for a set of signs otherwise originated; and that a few among them should happen to be, or should have been, chosen because they were suggestive of an object resembling the sign itself. - The Phoenician alphabet, as completed in system and worked over in shape by the Greeks and Romans, has become the most convenient and useful of all the modes of writing invented by men; and it has gone with European civilization over a great part of the globe. Efforts arc making to introduce it among various eastern nations in substitution for their own more cumbrous and incomplete alphabets; but with little success hitherto, since national prepossession clings with especial tenacity to an institution so inwoven by tradition and custom with a nation's feeling as is its national mode of writing.

Efforts, again, have been made to expand this alphabet, by diacritical marks and added signs, into a system capable of accurately representing all the various sounds (some scores in number) which are made by human organs in the utterance of language; the most conspicuous of these efforts is that of Prof. Lepsius of Berlin ("Standard Alphabet," etc, 2d edition, London and Berlin, 1803). Others, yet again, have devised alphabets founded on an analysis of the physical processes of production of each sound, and representing those processes by suggestive signs, so as to make each letter by its shape define the precise mode of its own utterance: for example, Dr. Brueke of Vienna ("Proceedings of the Vienna Academy," vol. xli., 1863), and Mr. A. M. Bell of London ("Visible Speech," etc, London, 1867). Into an account of these attempts we cannot here enter. Nor can we speak in detail of the other alphabets invented and in use among other parts of the human race. Respecting some of them, the articles on special languages, and that on Writing, will give information. - In order to make clearer the relations of the Greek and Latin to the Phoenician or ancient Semitic alphabet, as they have been described above, the following comparative table is given.

The first or left-hand column presents the Phoenician letters: their forms (which vary more or less considerably in records of different age and locality) are in part those of the great Sidonian monument of King Eshmunezer (probably 500 B. C), in part those of the recently discovered Moabite inscription of King Mesha (earlier than 800 B. C.); the prefixed names have their Hebrew version, and their correspondence with the Greek is apparent at a glance. The second column gives the forms of the letters as first employed by the Greeks, when writing from right to left. In the third are seen the Greek letters as finally adopted, being made to face in the other direction and somewhat further modified in form. The fourth column is that of the Latin letters; here some of the earlier forms are added to those with which we are familiar, for the purpose of illustrating the transition more fully.

Phoenician.

Earliest Greek.

Later Greek.

Latin.

1.

aleph.............................

Alphabet 100172

Alphabet 100173

A

Alphabet 100174 A

2.

beth...........

Alphabet 100175

Alphabet 100176

B

B

Alphabet 100177

3.

gimel.........

Alphabet 100178

Alphabet 100179Alphabet 100180

Alphabet 100181

Alphabet 100182 C

4.

daleth.........

Alphabet 100183

Alphabet 100184

Alphabet 100185

Alphabet 100186 D

5.

he........

Alphabet 100187

Alphabet 100188

E

E

6.

vav..........................

Alphabet 100189

Alphabet 100190

F

F

7.

zayin..........

Alphabet 100191

Z

Z

Z

8.

cheth..........

Alphabet 100192

Alphabet 100193

H

H

9.

teth...........

Alphabet 100194

Alphabet 100195

Alphabet 100196

10.

yod...........

Alphabet 100197

Alphabet 100198

l

l

11.

kaph..........

Alphabet 100199

Alphabet 100200

K

K

12.

lamed.........

Alphabet 100201

Alphabet 100202

Alphabet 100203

Alphabet 100204 L

13.

mem..........

Alphabet 100205

Alphabet 100206

M

Alphabet 100207 M

14.

nun............

Alphabet 100208

Alphabet 100209

N

Alphabet 100210 N

15.

samech........

Alphabet 100211

Alphabet 100212

Alphabet 100213

16.

ain..................................

O

O

O

O

17.

pe ..........

Alphabet 100214

Alphabet 100215

Alphabet 100216

Alphabet 100217 P

18.

tsade..........

Alphabet 100218

M

19.

qoph...............................

Alphabet 100219

Alphabet 100220

Alphabet 100221Alphabet 100222

20.

resh................................

Alphabet 100223

Alphabet 100224

P

Alphabet 100225 R

21.

shin...........

W

Alphabet 100226

Alphabet 100227

Alphabet 100228Alphabet 100229 S

22.

tav................................

Alphabet 100230

Alphabet 100231

T

Alphabet 100232 T