It must be remembered that some of the letters of our alphabet are inventions of the later nations.  In the oldest alphabets there was no c, the g taking its place.  The Romans converted the g into c; and then, finding the necessity for a g Sign, made one by adding a tail-piece to the c (C, G).  The Greeks added to the ancient alphabet the upsilon, shaped like our V or Y, the two forms being used at first indifferently:  they added the X sign; they converted the t of the Phoenicians into th, or theta; z and s into signs for double consonants; they turned the Phoenician y (yod) into i (iota).  The Greeks converted the Phoenician alphabet, which was partly consonantal, into one purely phonetic—­“a perfect instrument for the expression of spoken language.”  The w was also added to the Phoenician alphabet.  The Romans added the y.  At first i and j were both indicated by the same sound; a sign for j was afterward added.  We have also, in common with other European languages, added a double U, that is, VV, or W, to represent the w sound.

The letters, then, which we owe to the Phoenicians, are A, B, C, D, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, Z. If we are to trace out resemblances with the alphabet of any other country, it must be with these signs.

Is there any other country to which we can turn which possessed a phonetic alphabet in any respect kindred to this Phoenician alphabet?  It cannot be the Chinese alphabet, which has more signs than words; it cannot be the cuneiform alphabet of Assyria, with its seven hundred arrow-shaped characters, none of which bear the slightest affinity to the Phoenician letters.

It is a surprising fact that we find in Central America a phonetic alphabet.  This is in the alphabet of the Mayas, the ancient people of the peninsula of Yucatan, who claim that their civilization came to them across the sea in ships from the east, that is, from the direction of Atlantis.  The Mayas succeeded to the Colhuas, whose era terminated one thousand years before the time of Christ; from them they received their alphabet.  It has come to us through Bishop Landa, one of the early missionary bishops, who confesses to having burnt a great number of Maya books because they contained nothing but the works of the devil.  He fortunately, however, preserved for posterity the alphabet of this people.  We present it herewith.

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Landa’s alphabet (From “North Amer. of Antiquity,” p. 434.)

Diego de Landa was the first bishop of Yucatan.  He wrote a history of the Mayas and their country, which was preserved in manuscript at Madrid in the library of the Royal Academy of History. . . .  It contains a description and explanation of the phonetic alphabet of the Mayas.  Landa’s manuscript seems to have lain neglected in the library, for little or nothing was heard of it until it was discovered by the French priest Brasseur de Bourbourg, who, by means of it, has deciphered some of the old American writings.  He says, ’the alphabet and signs explained by Landa have been to me a Rosetta stone.’” (Baldwin’s “Ancient America,” p. 191.)