Author: [DAVY (Charles)]:
Title: Conjectural Observations on the Origin and Progress of Alphabetic Writing.
Description: London: Printed y T. Wright, for T. Cadell, and P. Emslly..., 1772. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 201 x 123 mms., pp. [vi], ix [x Errata], 126 [127 Hymn to Isis, 128 blank], including half-title, 3 folding engraved plates, engraved vignettes in text, rebound in half calf, linen boards, gilt spine; half-title and title-page browned, text also slightly browned. The Church of England clergyman and writer on music Charles Davy (1722/3–1797). Conjectural Observations on the Origin and Progress of Alphabetical Writing was his first substantial book. Davy presents a survey of Chinese, Hebrew, and Greek writing systems, as well "symbolic writing" of the Egyptians, with folding tables of Greek, Hebrew, Samaritan, Syriac, Persian, Arabic, and Coptic letters. In his conjectural observations on the origin of alphabets he puts forward theories that did not hold up to later scrutiny, though they would curiously anticipate Kipling's 'phi' of the Just So Stories. The Monthly Review noticed the work shortly after it was published in 1772 and commented, "The subject of these observations is involved in much darkness and uncertainty. Th Writer seems fully conscious of the obscurity attending it, and proceeds with great diffidence and caution.... How far the ingenious author has succeeded in his conjectures, and by what strength of argument he has supported them, must be left to the impartial judgment of the intelligent reader. In a question of this nature, there is much room for difference of opinion. It must, however, be allowed that the design is laudable, and the execution not without considerable merit."

Keywords: alphabet philology prose


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