The characters by which the elementary sounds of any language are denoted, arranged in order, constitute its Alphabet. A perfect alphabet would be one in which every letter represented but one simple sound, and every simple sound was represented by but one letter—a perfection never yet attained. It is to the Egyptians that the world is indebted for Alphabetic Writing. Their hieroglyphics were partly alphabetic, partly syllabic, and partly determinative, the latter, in the course of centuries, becoming word-signs or ideograms (see p. 120). From a modification of their alphabet employed by them in transliterating Semitic words and names, the Phœnician alphabet was derived. This modified alphabet, including several syllabic signs, consisted of about thirty characters. It has been conjectured that Phœnicians, dwelling or trading in Egypt, saw the advantage of written language, and employed this transliteration alphabet to write their own tongue. All the modifications introduced by them are graphic in nature, and designed to simplify the original characters. It is further important to note that the Phœnician alphabet is not derived from the hieroglyphics, but from the second form of the hieratic (see p. 122, and table, p. 87, where the theory is illustrated). The Hittite hieroglyphics (p. 114) may be derived from the Egyptian; but other ancient Oriental alphabets, as the Babylonian, the Chinese, and perhaps the Sanscrit, were possibly independently invented and developed. Such is the most probable account of the origin of letters. Tradition variously ascribes their invention to Thoth, an Egyptian god, to Cadmus of Phœnicia, to Odin the supreme deity of the Scandinavians, and to others. Of the varied exports of the Phœnicians, their alphabet was the most precious. Wherever their sails were spread, their letters were made known, and all nations sooner or later profited by this great Semitic invention. In the table on page 87 may be traced a decided resemblance between several of the Phœnician characters and the hieroglyphics in which they originated; also the successive changes by which they were modified in the earlier and later Greek and Latin letters—whence most of our English capitals. (_See Taylor’s “The Alphabet.”_)