VI
Comparative Alphabetic Tables showing Sumerian Origin & Evolution of the Alphabetic Letters
The Alphabetic letters in the leading scripts ancient and modern are compared with their Sumerian pictographic parents in the following Tables, Plates I and II, with the letters in their modern alphabetic order, and discloses the evolution of the Alphabetic Letters. In comparing the forms of the letters or signs at different periods, it is to be noted that a change of writing material exercises usually some change in the form of the signs. Thus the writing with pen and ink or a brush on parchment, wood or pottery is generally more curving and cursive than when the signs are cut on stone or pottery with a chisel, when the curves tend to become straight lines, and circles tend to become square or diamond or lozenge shaped. While on wet clay the signs impressed by dabs with a style, to avoid tearing the clay, become wedge-shaped lines. Later there is the further change or modification due to writing the letter as far as possible without lifting the pen, by which E becomes ɛ and e.
The order of the columns is generally that of relative age; but it has been deemed desirable to separate the "Western or European" (cols. 13-21) from the "Eastern" (cols. 1-12). Sumerian as the parent comes first, followed by the Akkad (some early and some later forms), this is succeeded by the Egyptian, Phœnician, Asia Minor, Old Persian and Indian, followed by the European alphabets including the Brito-Phœnician of the 11th b.c. to 4th b.c.
14
