10 THE PHOENICIANS

腓尼西亚人

THE PHOENICIANS WHO GAVE US OUR ALPHABET

THE Phoenicians, who were the neighbours of the Jews, were a Semitic tribe which at a very early age had settled along the shores of the Mediterranean. They had built themselves two well-fortified towns, Tyre and Sidon, and within a short time they had gained a monopoly of the trade of the western seas. Their ships went regularly to Greece and Italy and Spain and they even ventured beyond the straits of Gibraltar to visit the Scilly islands where they could buy tin. Wherever they went, they built themselves small trading stations, which they called colonies. Many of these were the origin of modern cities, such as Cadiz and Marseilles.

THE PHOENICIAN TRADER（腓尼西亚商人）

They bought and sold whatever promised to bring them a good profit.They were not troubled by a conscience. If we are to believe all their neighbours they did not know what the words honesty or integrity meant. They regarded a well-filled treasure chest the highest ideal of all good citizens. Indeed they were very unpleasant people and did not have a single friend. Nevertheless they have rendered all coming generations one service of the greatest possible value. They gave us our alphabet.

The Phoenicians had been familiar with the art of writing, invented by the Sumerians. But they regarded these pothooks as a clumsy waste of time. They were practical business men and could not spend hours engraving two or three letters. They set to work and invented a new system of writing which was greatly superior to the old one. They borrowed a few pictures from the Egyptians and they simplified a numberof the wedge-shaped figures of the Sumerians. They sacrificed the prett looks of the older system for the advantage of speed and they reduced the thousands of different images to a short and handy alphabet of twenttwo letters.

In due course of time, this alphabet travelled across the Ægean Sea and entered Greece. The Greeks added a few letters of their own and carried the improved system to Italy. The Romans modified the figure somewhat and in turn taught them to the wild barbarians of western Europe. Those wild barbarians were our own ancestors, and that is the reason why this book is written in characters that are of Phoenician origin and not in the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians or in the nail-script of the Sumerians.

中文阅读

创造欧美字母的始祖腓尼西亚人

与犹太人为邻的腓尼西亚人是一个西米族的部落；他们在很早时就住在地中海沿岸。他们建造两个防御坚固的城：一名推罗，一名西顿。在很短的期间，他们攫得了西海贸易的专利权。他们的商船按期开到希腊、意大利、西班牙，甚至于冒险渡过直布罗陀海峡到西利群岛去买锡。他们每到一地方，必建造许多小商场，做他们的殖民地。其中好些处，如卡迪斯与马赛等城，便是近代都市的滥觞。

他们只要能获利，什么买卖都做。他们不受良心的拘束。如果我们相信他们邻人说的是实话，他们是不懂诚实与廉耻的意义的。他们认为盛满钱柜，才是良善市民的最高理想。他们实在是不讨喜欢的人，所以没有一个朋友。虽然如此，他们却给了后代一个很有价值的贡献，就是供给现在欧美人所用的字母。

腓尼西亚人已经熟习了苏曼利亚人所发明的写字技术。但他们认为这种钩形字是一种太费时间的呆笨方法。他们是讲实际的生意人，不能费去许多钟点只刻二三字，所以开始研究，发明了一个胜过旧的万万倍的新的写字法。他们采用有限的几个埃及画，又简单化了一部分的苏曼利亚楔形字，为求简捷起见，牺牲了旧法的美观，把几千个不同样的像缩成二十二个简便的字母。

经过相当的时间，这种字母渐渐由伊近海传入希腊。希腊人添上了几个自己的字母，将这改良的制度运入意大利。罗马人把字体略加修改，又教给做今日欧美人祖先的欧洲西部的野蛮民族。如今欧美人所用的字母，所以根据腓尼西亚字母，而不用埃及的像形字或苏曼利亚的楔形字，原因在此。