On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c7.2

c7.2

[52] Nevertheless the theory of a South-Semitic origin of the Brāhma alphabet appears to me untenable. What has been brought forward in its favour by the two chief advocates, is to a great extent far from convincing. The ocular evidence, it seems to me, speaks against many of their identifications.¹ Further, in some cases late or at least secondary forms of Indian letters have been used for comparison.² Again in other cases the most extraordinary and absolutely unnecessary changes in the phonetic value of the signs are assumed to be quite natural and hardly worthy of an explanatory remark. When one is told that the Hindus utilised the Semitic *Qoph* to express the sound *cha* (Deecke) or *cha* and *ka* (Taylor), that they employed the Semitic *Shin* for *ja*, *śa*, *ṣa* and *sa* (Deecke) or at least for *ja* and *ṣa* (Taylor), that the Semitic *Wāw* furnished both the signs for *ya* and *va*, or that *Lamed* became *ra* and *Resh* was turned into *la*, one can only say that such assertions are hard to believe. As the Hindus are always very particular, even pedantic, in matters connected with phonetics, and as the framers of the Brāhmī lipi evidently have been careful with respect to the formation of many derivative signs, duly deriving *ḍha* from *ḍa*, *pha* from *pa*, *bha* from *ba* and so forth, it seems incredible that they should have had no regard for phonetic affinities in utilising the signs, which they borrowed. And the assumed vagaries appear absolutely inexplicable if one considers that the Semitic alphabet has the *Tsade*, the phonetic value of which comes close to *ca* and *cha*, and that it possesses separate signs for *Wāw* and *Yod*, which might be used to express *va* and *ya*.