Alphabet

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A variety of legends are told about the origin of the Greek alphabet.  According to Hyginus, the letters were devised by the [[Fate]]s in collaboration with the god [[Hermes]], who was inspired to create their shapes by watching the shadows of flying cranes.<ref>Hyginus, ''Fabulae'', 227.</ref>  [[Herodotus]] is on solider ground when he attributes its invention to Cadmus, prince of Tyre -- a Phoenician.<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories''. lib. V, ss. 58.</ref>
 
A variety of legends are told about the origin of the Greek alphabet.  According to Hyginus, the letters were devised by the [[Fate]]s in collaboration with the god [[Hermes]], who was inspired to create their shapes by watching the shadows of flying cranes.<ref>Hyginus, ''Fabulae'', 227.</ref>  [[Herodotus]] is on solider ground when he attributes its invention to Cadmus, prince of Tyre -- a Phoenician.<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories''. lib. V, ss. 58.</ref>
  
[[Nationalism]] frequently is the motive for unlikely claims about the history of the alphabet.  A fair number of [[Hinduism|Hindu]] scholars claim that the Brahmi script and its many descendants are entirely indigenous, and owe nothing to the Aramaic script.<ref>Richard Salomon A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages, Oxford University Press (1998), p. 20</ref>  The Brahmi script itself bears witness to a profound grasp of the phonology of the [[Sanskrit]] and Indic languages it was created to represent.  It appears in history around 250 BCE.  It postdates the remarkably sophisticated Sanskrit grammer by Pāṇini, who lived during the fourth century BCE. Still, the inventors of the script did not need to reinvent the wheel. In fact, many of the letter forms of Brahmi seem to be plausible variants of the Aramaic characters, which would of course require substantial expansion to deal with the full consonant inventory of Sanskrit:
+
[[Nationalism]] frequently is the motive for unlikely claims about the history of the alphabet.  A fair number of [[Hinduism|Hindu]] scholars claim that the Brahmi script and its many descendants are entirely indigenous, and owe nothing to the Aramaic script.  Some even claim that it is in fact descended from the undeciphered Indus Valley script.<ref>Richard Salomon A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages, Oxford University Press (1998), p. 20</ref>  The Brahmi script itself bears witness to a profound grasp of the phonology of the [[Sanskrit]] and Indic languages it was created to represent.  It appears in history around 250 BCE.  It postdates the remarkably sophisticated Sanskrit grammer by Pāṇini, who lived during the fourth century BCE. Still, the inventors of the script did not need to reinvent the wheel. In fact, many of the letter forms of Brahmi seem to be plausible variants of the Aramaic characters, which would of course require substantial expansion to deal with the full consonant inventory of Sanskrit:
  
 
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Revision as of 05:28, 24 August 2013

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The alphabet is a sinister but seductive device, one of Satan's dark inventions. It was introduced to sow discord among sinful humans by allowing them an impersonal and perhaps anonymous means of imperfect communication, free from disambiguating and humanizing features such as intonation and facial contact, and thus to multiply the occasions of sin. If you are reading this you have already been corrupted.

Contents

History

Proto-Sinaitic script.

Almost all of the world's alphabetic scripts originate in the Phoenician alphabet of ancient Palestine, which in turn derives from an inventory of semi-pictographic symbols known as the Proto-Sinaitic script. This Sinaitic script, in turn, derives from or at least was inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphics. Phoenician in turn is the direct ancestor of both the Greek alphabet, which innovated by writing out vowels in full, and which in turn was developed into both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets; and the several varieties of Aramaic script, which in turn is the direct ancestor of both the current 'square' Hebrew script, and the Arabic alphabet.

The relationship between Aramaic and the Brahmi-derived alphabets that originated on the Indian subcontinent is more contested, but seems well established. A large variety of scripts, sharing a common structure and widely varying letter shapes, derive from Brahmi; these spread through Burma, Thailand, Java, and Indonesia, and as far away as the Philippine Islands.[1][2]

Historians of writing divide alphabets typologially into three different kinds:

  • the abjad type, scripts resembling the original Phoenician alphabet, and the current Hebrew and Arabic alphabets; these are usually used for Semitic languages. These scripts do not mark vowels in the text, only consonants, though in some variants letters representing glottal stops or semivowels like y and w are used to indicate vowels. These languages sometimes indicate vowels with diacritical marks.
  • the alphabet type proper, with characters for both vowels and consonants, like the Greek, Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets.
  • the abugida type, usually derived from an ancestral abjad, in which vowels are marked for each letter by diacriticals or variants on the original letter form. In the Brahmi-derived alphabets such as Devanagari, Thai, and Burmese, each character has an inherent vowel, transliterated 'a' but pronounced /ə/; diacriticals change this vowel to different values.

The two neologisms abjad and abugida were proposed by Peter T. Daniels in 1996.

Pseudohistory

Alectryomancy. For best results, get naked.

A variety of legends are told about the origin of the Greek alphabet. According to Hyginus, the letters were devised by the Fates in collaboration with the god Hermes, who was inspired to create their shapes by watching the shadows of flying cranes.[3] Herodotus is on solider ground when he attributes its invention to Cadmus, prince of Tyre -- a Phoenician.[4]

Nationalism frequently is the motive for unlikely claims about the history of the alphabet. A fair number of Hindu scholars claim that the Brahmi script and its many descendants are entirely indigenous, and owe nothing to the Aramaic script. Some even claim that it is in fact descended from the undeciphered Indus Valley script.[5] The Brahmi script itself bears witness to a profound grasp of the phonology of the Sanskrit and Indic languages it was created to represent. It appears in history around 250 BCE. It postdates the remarkably sophisticated Sanskrit grammer by Pāṇini, who lived during the fourth century BCE. Still, the inventors of the script did not need to reinvent the wheel. In fact, many of the letter forms of Brahmi seem to be plausible variants of the Aramaic characters, which would of course require substantial expansion to deal with the full consonant inventory of Sanskrit:

Possible derivation of Brāhmī from the Phoenician script
Phoenician Aleph Beth Gimel Daleth He Waw Zayin Heth Teth Yodh Kaph Lamedh Mem Nun Samekh Ayin Pe Sadek Qoph Res Sin Taw
Aramaic Aleph.svg Beth.svg Gimel.svg Daleth.svg He0.svg Waw.svg Zayin.svg Heth.svg Teth.svg Yod.svg Kaph.svg Lamed.svg Mem.svg Nun.svg Samekh.svg Ayin.svg Pe0.svg Sade 1.svg, Sade 2.svg Qoph.svg Resh.svg Shin.svg Taw.svg
Brahmi Brahmi a.svg Brahmi b.svg Brahmi g.svg Brahmi dh.svg Brahmi ddh.svg  ? Brahmi v.svg Brahmi d.svg Brahmi dd.svg  ? Brahmi th.svg Brahmi tth.svg Brahmi y.svg Brahmi k.svg Brahmi c.svg Brahmi l.svg Brahmi m.svg Brahmi n.svg Brahmi nn.svg Brahmi sh.svg  ? Brahmi p.svg Brahmi ph.svg Brahmi s.svg Brahmi kh.svg Brahmi ch.svg Brahmi r.svg Brahmi ss.svg Brahmi t.svg Brahmi tt.svg

Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet Versus the Goddess[6] proposes that the invention of literacy brought a curse down upon human minds, forcing their thought patterns towards the verbal and away from the image-based thinking that supposedly prevailed before. This broke our connection with our goddess mothers and brought about the Evil "Patriarchy":[7]

Of all the sacred cows allowed to roam unimpeded in our culture, few are as revered as literacy. Its benefits have been so incontestable that in the five millennia since the advent of the written word numerous poets and writers have extolled its virtues. Few paused to consider its costs. Sophocles once warned, "Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse." The invention of writing was vast; this book will investigate the curse.

There exists ample evidence that any society acquiring the written word experiences explosive changes. For the most part, these changes can be characterized as progress. But one pernicious effect of literacy has gone largely unnoticed: writing subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook. Writing of any kind, but especially its alphabetic form, diminishes feminine values and with them, women's power in the culture.

Science fiction writer Richard Shaver believed he could unearth the earliest language of humankind, which he dubbed Mantong, from the English language names of the letters of the Roman alphabet. In his system, 'D' stood for "detrimental" and was particularly unlucky; he expounded the true meaning of the English word "bad" as B-A-D: "be a de(trimental)".

Occult uses of the alphabet

Alphabets figure in many sorts of divination, including the casting of runes and the use of the Ouija board. One form of alphabetic divination is called alectryomancy: here, the alphabet is drawn into a circle; a kernel of grain is placed near each letter, and then a (presumably both literate and psychic) chicken is placed in the circle. The letter chosen by the chicken is thus freighted with divinatory meaning.

The famous magic word Abracadabra first finds its way into writing in Quintus Serenus Sammonicus's medical poem Liber Medicinalis. Sufferers from malaria are instructed to carry an amulet bearing the following text:

A - B - R - A - C - A - D - A - B - R - A
A - B - R - A - C - A - D - A - B - R
A - B - R - A - C - A - D - A - B
A - B - R - A - C - A - D - A
A - B - R - A - C - A - D
A - B - R - A - C - A
A - B - R - A - C
A - B - R - A
A - B - R
A - B
A

As the magic word vanishes, so will their symptoms.[8]

Another frequently reported magical inscription is called the Sator Square:

S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S

This Latin palindrome is gibberish; to the extent that it can be rendered into English, it means "Arepo the sower (sator) holds (tenet) the wheels (rotas) by means of work (operā). Arepo is assumed to be a proper name; the word is not elsewhere attested in Latin, and no Arepo figures in Latin history or literature. The text is commonly held to be an anagram of Latin Pater Noster, the Lord's Prayer; however, it appears in Pompeiian graffiti as well, so it must have been current before 79 AD.[9] Inscriptions containing this text are widely distributed; there's one in the Vatican, there's one in Cirencester Cathedral, and the text occurs in Pennsylvania Dutch country as well.

A variety of alphabets are used by occultists, largely to make the text seem more impressively secret. A supposed "Theban" alphabet from the Grimoire of Pope Honorius is sometimes used by Wiccans. Other neopagans may use an Ogham "tree alphabet," alleged to be a Celtic tradition from Ireland, but in fact another fanciful invention from Robert Graves's The White Goddess. Other magical alphabets are based on Hebrew characters. Freemasons occasionally resort to the simple "Pigpen" cipher.[10]

Kabbalah and numerology

Some alphabets are also used as numbers. Roman numerals originally did not have alphabetic shapes, but were remade to resemble the Latin letters the original tally marks they were derived from. But the Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek letters all have numerical values. Thus, in the Textus Receptus of the Greek New Testament, the infamous 666, the Number of the Beast, is written out ΧΞF, Chi Xi Digamma, so if they show up on your campus watch out. (Chi = 600, Xi = 60, Digamma=6)[11]

Of these numbers, a great deal of speculation has attached especially to the Hebrew alphabet, which has a particular significance in kabbalah. A technique called gematria is used to determine the numerical values hidden in Hebrew words; by relating these words to words of equivalent value, or by observing how grammatical changes change the numeric values, kabbalists seek to extract secret messages from the text of the Bible.

The Phoenician alphabet: prototype for almost all the others.
A variety of alphabets used by occultists. Most of them are made for writing Hebrew; only the "Theban" alphabet at top is based on Latin letters.
Key to the Pigpen cipher.
Decimal Hebrew Glyph Cardinal
(ex. one, two, three)
Ordinal
(ex. first, second, third)
Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine
0 N/A efes (אֶפֶס) N/A
1 Aleph א ehad
(אֶחַד)
ahat
(אַחַת)
rishon
(רִאשׁוֹן‏)
rishona
(רִאשׁוֹנָה‏)
2 Beth ב shnayim
(שְׁנַיִם)
shtayim
(שְׁתַּיִם)
sheni
(שֵׁנִי‏)
shniya
(שְׁנִיָה‏)
3 Gimel ג shlosha
(שְׁלוֹשָׁה)
shalosh
(שָׁלוֹשׁ)
shlishi
(שְׁלִישִׁי‏)
shlishit
(שְׁלִישִׁית‏)
4 Daleth ד arba'a
(אַרְבָּעָה)
arba'
(אַרְבַּע)
revi'i
(רְבִיעִי‏)
revi'it
(רְבִיעִית‏)
5 He ה hamisha
(חֲמִשָׁה)
hamesh
(חָמֵשׁ)
hamishi
(חֲמִישִׁי‏)
hamishit
(חֲמִישִׁית‏)
6 Vau ו shisha
(שִׁשָּׁה)
shesh
(שֵׁשׁ)
shishi
(שִׁשִּׁי‏)
shishit
(שִׁשִּׁית‏)
7 Zayin ז shiv'a
(שִׁבְעַה)
sheva'
(שֶׁבַע)
shvi'i
(שְׁבִיעִי‏)
shvi'it
(שְׁבִיעִית‏)
8 Heth ח shmona
(שְׁמוֹנָה)
shmone
(שְׁמוֹנֶה)
shmini
(שְׁמִינִי‏)
shminit
(שְׁמִינִית‏)
9 Teth ט tish'a
(תִּשְׁעָה)
tesha'
(תֵּשַׁע)
tshi'i
(תְּשִׁיעִי‏)
tshi'it
(תְּשִׁיעִית‏)
10 Yodh י 'assara
(עֲשָׂרָה)
'eser
(עֶשֶׂר)
'asiri
(עֲשִׂירִי‏)
'asirit
(עֲשִׂירִית‏)
20 Kaph כ 'esrim
(עֶשְׂרִים)
30 Lamedh ל shloshim
(שְׁלוֹשִׁים)
40 Mem מ arba'im
(אַרְבָּעִים)
50 Nun נ hamishim
(חֲמִשִּׁים)
60 Samekh ס shishim
(שִׁשִּׁים)
70 Ayin ע shiv'im
(שִׁבְעִים)
80 Pe פ shmonim
(שְׁמוֹנִים)
90 Tzaddei צ tish'im
(תִּשְׁעִים)
100 Qoph ק mea
(מֵאָה)
200 Resh ר matayim
(מָאתַיִם)
300 Shin ש shlosh meot
(שְׁלוֹשׁ מֵאוֹת)
400 Tau ת arba' meot
(אַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת)

See also

External links

Notes

  1. David Diringer, The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind (Philosophical Library, 1947; ISBN 81-215-0748-0)
  2. Orly Goldwasser, "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs", Biblical Archeology Review 36:02, Mar/Apr 2010.
  3. Hyginus, Fabulae, 227.
  4. Herodotus, Histories. lib. V, ss. 58.
  5. Richard Salomon A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages, Oxford University Press (1998), p. 20
  6. (Penguin, 1999; ISBN 0140196013)
  7. The Alphabet Versus the Goddess
  8. Vollmer, Friedrich. Quinti Sereni Liber Medicinalis. Leipzig: Teubner, 1916, chap. LII, v. 4.
  9. "'Arepo' in the Magic 'Sator' Square'": J. Gwyn Griffiths, The Classical Review, New Ser., Vol. 21, No. 1., March 1971, pp. 6–8.
  10. See generally, Nigel Pennick, Magical Alphabets (Weiser, 1992; ISBN 0877287473)
  11. The Greek letter Digamma is no longer a part of the Greek alphabet. It represented the sound of /w/, which was lost in most Greek dialects in historical times. It is descended from, and corresponds to the sixth letter of the Phoenician/Aramaic/Hebrew alphabet, Vau, and was formerly used in Greek dialects that preserved the sound. When the sound was lost in Attic and Ionic Greek, the character was dropped from the writing system, but was preserved with the sole meaning of the number 6. The character was also present in the Etruscan alphabet, and as such remains in the Latin alphabet, where it continues to stand in sixth place as the letter 'F'.
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