Book Title: Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind
Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications
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196
THE ALPHABET
originated later than the alphabet. On the whole it may be said that the Egyptian symbols were so numerous, 604 without the ligatures and numbers, and many of them had some variants, that accidental resemblances to some of them are to be expected. In this connection, I may mention that Maurice Dunand points out that Dr. Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar
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44
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9
Fig. 98-Origin of the alphabet
1, Halévy's hieroglyphic theory (1, Hieroglyphic symbols; 2, derived North Semitic letters; 3, "differentiated" North Semitic letters). 2, Taylor's hieratic theory
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Hieratic
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contains 734 hieroglyphic symbols, and Lefevre indicates 749 (in later times, that is in the periods of the Saite and Ptolemaic kings, there were a few thousand hieroglyphic symbols).
Since the earliest times Egyptian writing, in addition to the signs for words with three consonants, also used as we have already mentioned in the chapter on Egyptian writing signs for bi-consonantal and uni-consonantal words or parts of words. Later the uni-consonantal signs were used
