The disorders of speech.

  • Wyllie, John, 1914-
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The disorders of speech. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    make this clear, when ripple is indicated, the sign for water is added to that for ship. In like manner, as the sound chow may mean loquacity, the sign for speech is added to that for ship when loquacity has to be indicated. Thus the great mass of characters at present in use are double, consisting of two signs, one for sound and the other for sense.1 Egyptian Hieroglyphic Inscriptions consist of figures of objects, animate and inanimate, men and animals, and parts of them, plants, and heavenly bodies, and an immense number of different weapons, tools, and articles of the most miscellaneous character. These figures are arranged in upright columns or horizontal bands, and are to be used in succession, but they are not all intended to act upon the mind in the same way. When an ordinary inscrip- tion is taken to pieces, it is found that the figures composing it fall into two great classes. Part of them are to be read and under- stood as pictures, a drawing of a horse for 'horse,' a branch for • wood,' etc., upon the same principle as in any savage picture- writing. The other part of the figures are phonetic. Thus, the figure of a strap, the name of which is m — s becomes a phonetic sign to write the sound m — s with. (The — stands for some vowel, which is represented by ou in the Coptic form of the word, mous.) 2 Here then we have represented the rebus or syllabic stage of phonetic writing, as it is met with in Aztec and Chinese writing. But the hieroglyphics went further than this. Along with the two sets of characters above indicated, there is a third set, which, by most authorities, is held to represent simple con- sonant sounds without attached vowels. Thus it appears that the figure of a mouth is often used with the simple signification of the letter r—the Egyptian word for mouth being ro;—and there are many other signs which apparently stand for simple consonants. In the same inscription, all three stages in the development of written characters may thus be found to be represented: (1.) Pure picture-writing; (2.) The rebus stage of syllable phonetic writ- ing ; and (3.) Alphabetical phonetic writing. In ancient Egyptian, as in Chinese, the poverty of the language displayed itself in the employment of the same spoken word in a great variety of senses. To indicate the specific meaning to be attached to the word, the same device was employed in the Hiero- 1 E. B. Tylor, op. cit., p. 400. 2 p> 98>