On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c8.35
On the Origin of the Indian Brāhma Alphabet c8.35
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c8.35
No 4. *Da* (Col. III) comes, as has been asserted by all my predecessors, from a *Daleth* like that in Col. I, a, which is found, as Professor Euting informs me, already on an Assyrian Weight of circiter 600 B. C. The cursive simplification of this letter was therefore ancient in Mesopotamia. It re-occurs in the Papyri, with a slight [54] modification, compare especially Euting, Col. 14 b. The hook at the foot of the *da*, (Col. III, b), which occurs twice in the Aśoka Edicts and survives in the later inscriptions, seems to have been added in order to distinguish the letter from *na* (No 13, III, a).