[Illustration: TOTEMIC WRITING INDIAN PETITION TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS (_see page 68_)] THE STORY OF THE ALPHABET BY EDWARD CLODD AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF PRIMITIVE MAN", "PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION", "THE STORY OF CREATION", ETC. ETC. "_The two greatest inventions of the human mind_ _are writing and money--the common language of intelligence_, _and the common language of self-interest._"-- MARQUIS DE MIRABEAU. WITH NINETY ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND 1900 THIS LITTLE HISTORY OF A B C IS DEDICATED TO DOROTHY DAY BY HER LOVING GRANDFATHER PREFACE If this little book does not supply a want, it fills, however imperfectly, a gap; for the only work in the English language on the subject--Canon Isaac Taylor's "History of the Alphabet"--is necessarily charged with a mass of technical detail which is stiff reading even for the student of graphiology. Moreover, invaluable and indispensable as is that work, it furnishes only a meagre account of those primitive stages of the art of writing, knowledge of which is essential for tracing the development of that art, so that its place in the general evolution of human inventions is made clear. Prominence is therefore given to this branch of the subject in the following pages. In the recent reprint of Canon Taylor's book no reference occurs to the important materials collected by Professor Flinders Petrie and Mr. Arthur J. Evans in Egypt and Crete, the result of which is to revolutionise the old theory of the source of the Alphabet whence our own and others are derived. This opens up a big question for experts to settle; and here it must suffice to present a statement of the new evidence, and to point out its significance, so that the reader be not taken into the troubled atmosphere of controversy. That he may, further, not be distracted by footnotes, references to the authorities cited are printed in the text. E. C. ROSEMONT, 19 CARLETON ROAD, TUFNELL PARK, N. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY 9 II. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ALPHABET 23 III. MEMORY-AIDS AND PICTURE-WRITING 37 (_a_) Mnemonic 39 (_b_) Pictorial 51 (_c_) Ideographic 72 (_d_) Phonetic 79 IV. CHINESE, JAPANESE, AND COREAN SCRIPTS 82 V. CUNEIFORM WRITING 89