Book Title: Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind
Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications
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INDIAN BRANCH
335
(2) The other theories can be subdivided into two groups: (a) James Prinsep, Raoul de Rochette, Otfried Mueller, Émile Senart, Goblet d'Alviella, and others believe that the Brahmi script derived from the Greek alphabet. Hellenic influence on the invention of the Brahmi script has been also suggested by Joseph Halévy, Wilson and others. I do not think that this theory is satisfactory: (1) the Indians came in direct contact with Greek civilization only after they had long been in contact with other peoples using alphabetic writings, and the invention of the Brahmi script seems to be at least one or two centuries older than the earliest Indo-Greek cultural relations; (2) the main improvement of the Greek alphabet on the Semitic was the introduction of vowels, while the chief weakness of the Indian scripts is their unsatisfactory solution of vocalization.
(b) Most historians of writing consider the Brahmi as a derivation of a Semitic alphabet. This theory already suggested in 1806 by Jones, in 1811 by von Seetzen, in 1821 by Kopp, in 1834 by Lepsius, was extended in 1856 by Weber and at the end of the last century by Buchler.
Within this general theory, four secondary ones have been propounded: (1) The derivation of the Brahmi from the Phenician alphabet suggested by eminent scholars such as Benfey, Weber, Buehler, Jensen, and others, who tried to prove that about one-third of the Phoenician letters were identical with the earliest forms of the corresponding Brahmi signs; that another third were somewhat similar, and the remainder can be more or less harmonized. The chief objection to this opinion is that there was no direct communication, at the requisite date, between India and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and it seems probable that the Phoenicians had no influence whatever on the origins of the scripts of countries lying to the east of them.
(2) According to Professor Deecke, Canon Taylor, and quite recently, the late Professor Sethe, the Brahmi script descended from the South Semitic alphabet. This view is also unacceptable; although it is quite probable that there was direct communication between India and southern Arabia, cultural influences of the latter on the former do not appear to have taken place at that early period; besides, the resemblance between the South Semitic letters and the Brahmi characters is slight.
(3) Still less probable is the derivation of the Brahmi alphabet from. the cuneiform script propounded by Professor Rhys Davids, who suggested "that the only hypothesis harmonizing these discoveries is that the Indian letters were derived, neither from the alphabet of the Northern, nor from that of the Southern Semites, but from that source from which these, in their turn, had been derived from the pre-Semitic form of writing used in the Euphrates Valley." This great authority on Buddhist literature is practically alone in his theory, which is unsubstantiated by any important evidence in its favour.
