Article December 6, 1900 Issue

Origin of Alphabets

Boston Transcript

A unique volume has just been presented to the Smithsonian Institution by Professor J. C. C. Clarke of Upper Alton, Ill. The work is on the origin and evolution of the alphabets. For many years Professor Clarke was at the head of the department of Greek at Shurtleff College, which was named in honor of Dr. Benjamin Shurtleff of Boston. Since retiring from active work in that department Professor Clarke has spent most of his time in travel and original research work. The materials for the work just finished lands by correspondence with specialists. Professor Clarke published in 1884 a volume of twenty pages of illustrations on "The Origin and Varieties of the Semitic Alphabet." In the new work, which is folio, elegantly bound in morocco and gilt, the compilation of the alphabets of the world is so tabulated as to show the origin of all them in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and to exhibit the development of each from its earliest to its latest forms.

The volume contains about a thousand varieties of the alphabet, of which two or three hundred may be called distinct alphabets. They are arranged according to dates and geographical and racial connections. All the Hebrew, Arabic, and Syric, and the European alphabets are traced from the Greek. The Persian, Indian, Manchu, Thibetan, and Malay are traced from the Syric. Not the least curious feature of the book is the exhibition of the six Philippine alphabets, and those of the other islands, as Sumatra, Java, the Celebes, and Formosa. The exhibition of the evolution of the alphabet of Java alone fills two pages. The volume also exhibits the numeral cyphers of all the world. The latest European books on this subject say that the origin of the numerals and the zero is unknown. Professor Clarke shows that they are Syric letters of about the Christian era, and are the first ten letters of the alphabet. The figures four and eight are older forms than the others, and our circular zero has been made from the Syric "I" enlarged.

Boston Transcript.

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