The sounds d and t were probably
indicated in the Maya tongue by the same sign, called t in the Landa
alphabet. The Finns and Lapps do not distinguish between these two
sounds. In the oldest known form of the Phoenician alphabet, that found
on the Moab stone, we find in the same way but one sign to express the d
and t. D does not occur on the Etruscan monuments, t being used in its
place. It would, therefore, appear that after the Maya alphabet passed
to the Phoenicians they added two new signs for the letters d and r; and
it is a singular fact that their poverty of invention seems to have been
such that they used to express both d and r, the same sign, with very
little modification, which they had already obtained from the Maya
alphabet as the symbol for b. To illustrate this we place the signs side
by side:
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It thus appears that the very signs d and r, in the Phoenician, early
Greek, and ancient Hebrew, which are lacking in the Maya, were supplied
by imitating the Maya sign for b; and it is a curious fact that while
the Phoenician legends claim that Taaut invented the art of writing, yet
they tell us that Taaut made records, and "delivered them to his
successors and to foreigners, of whom one was Isiris (Osiris, the
Egyptian god), the inventor of the three letters.
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