Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 488

THE GREEK ALPHABET AND ITS OFFSHOOTS 487 Ilchester Lectures on Græco-Slavonic Literature, London, 1887); such similarity, however, is categorically denied by Sir Ellis Minns.
Professor (now Sir) Ellis H. Minns is opposed to this theory. He holds the opinion that Constantine invented both, the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets; he rightly points out (Saint Cyril Really Knew Hebrew, in "MÉLANGES PUBLIÉS EN L'HONNEUR DE M. PAUL BOYER," Paris, 1925) that "No two men setting out to reduce the multitudinous sounds of Slavonic to writing would have hit on systems so nearly identical in everything but the shapes of the letters and the numerical values"; and that "The general impression of Glagolitic is singularly unlike any sort of cursive Greek." After having proved that Cyril took over from the Hebrew alphabet two letters (tsade and shin) and transformed them into three Slavonic letters adopting them for both alphabets, the Cyrillic and the Glagolitic, for the sounds ts, tch, and sh, which do not exist in Greek, and for which therefore the Greek alphabet had no letters, he decides "to regard both alphabets as the conscious creations of the same mind." "Cyril first made Cyrillic, using the natural basis of uncial Greek as described above and intending his creation for the benefit of Slavs about Salonica. Afterwards when sent on a mission into a land where Greek influence was struggling with Latin he transformed the Greek letters to make them less suspect in Latin eyes." "At the same time one or two signs were added or omitted in accordance perhaps with the phonetics of the dialect to which Cyril was transferring his work." Professor Minns therefore concludes "We can put Cyril side by side with Mesrob as having invented two alphabets quite different in form but closely allied in system. Both scholars used the same method of working upon a pre-existing basis by differentiation, borrowing and invention." Even if one does not agree in all the details, there is no doubt that Sir Ellis Minns is right in opposing the current theories which minimized the part consciously played by individuals in the formation of new alphabets.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
V. Jagich, Specimina lingue paleoslovenice, St. Petersburg, 1882; The Glagolitic Script, in Russian, St. Petersburg, 1911.
N. Karinskij, Glagolitic Specimens, in Russian, St. Petersburg, 1908.
E. Boguslawski, On the Problem of the Illyrinn Script called Glagolitsa, in Polish, Warsaw, 1909.
1. Milcherich, Croatian Glagolitic Bibliography, in Croatian, "STARINE,"
1911.
P. A. Lavrov, Survey of Cyrillic Paleography, in Russian, Petrograd, 1915: Specimens from Yugoslav Manuscripts in Bulgarian and Serbian Writings, in Russian, Petrograd, 1916.
P, Smirnovskij, Grammar of the Old-Church-Slavonic Language, in Russian, 15th ed., Moscow, 1914.