A history of alphabets from around the world
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A history of alphabets from around the world | |
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The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering by Frederic W. Goudy Chapter 1: The Beginnings of the Alphabet, page 2 In the first class just named belong the wedge-shaped, or cuneiform, characters inscribed in the clay tablets, cylinders, and monuments of Assyria, Babylonia, & other Near Eastern countries - characters the very existence of which was overlooked or forgotten for some sixteen hundred years. They were almost purely pictorial - were drawings only, really not writing at all, and, as far as we now know, have little direct bearing on the derivation of our present alphabet. To this first class also belong the hieroglyphs of Egypt, highly elaborated types of picture writing which changed so little over a long period that "it is like a language which has never forgotten the derivation of its words, or corrupted their etymological forms, however much it may have altered its meaning." Developed at least five thousand years B.C., the purely pictorial character was preserved by its Egyptian users until the end. Sir Edw. Maunde Thompson asserts that "we may without exaggeration... carry back the invention of Egyptian writing to six or seven thousand years B.C." Most of the material available goes back not farther than the First Dynasty [3300 B.C]. Possibly the earliest method of recording the payment of taxes indicates, too, the earliest stage in the process of learning to write. The farmer living on the banks of the Nile was obliged every season to give up a share of the grain or flax gathered from his fields as payment for the water needed to fill his irrigation ditches. A picture of a basket for measuring grain, together with strokes indicating the number of measures paid, rudely scratched on the mud walls of his home, served as a record of the payment and constituted his receipt for it as well. From this simple parent of our alphabet a further step came quite naturally - the use of rude pictures to indicate other activities of a simple life, each picture representing an object the form of which was fixed and established and easily recognized as a sign to denote that particular object only and yet recall to mind some simple fact. But this was not really writing: exact words were not represented; only simple ideas could be conveyed. Two steps had yet to be taken before the pictures would actually become phonetic writing. First, each object drawn had to attain a fixed form, easily recognized, always exactly the same and always denoting specifically the particular object depicted. The figure of the sun denoted that star only; a picture of a dog or lion, simply those animals. Later, when an attempt was made to express qualities as well, the pictures became figurative; thus the sun, in addition to its original sense, might denote glory, light, warmth; a lion, courage; the dog, fidelity; and so on. But even this symbolism was not adequate to encompass all the ideas incident to an improved civilization: a broader culture required a new picture and a new expression for each new idea, until finally the number became too great for easy execution. Then, too, there were many ideas too difficult to express by pictures alone, and hence requiring the invention or use of an arbitrary sign, called a "determinative," to be used with the picture, more definitely explaining its symbolism. A large number of the determinative signs that accompany many of the hieroglyphs on Egyptian monuments are graphic pictures of human or animal forms or their parts; they are descriptive of the words they depict and are always found after the sign which represents a word belonging to the category to which the sign itself belongs. To illustrate: a picture of an egg with a collection of signs indicating the name of a person would show that the person was of the feminine gender. Continue to page 3 |
The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering by Frederic W. Goudy Introduction What Letters Are Letters in General The Development of the Roman Capital Letters Before Printing The National Hands The Development of Gothic The Beginnings of Types The Qualities of Lettering Some Practical Considerations Notes on the Plates |