The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs

Cartomancer

More about the ten stems and twelve branches

The correspondences between the alphabet and the Chinese ten stems and twelve branches may have been obscured by the antiquity of the symbols and their meanings, but Moran did see a correspondence between the zodiac constellation Sagittarius and the alphabetic letter tsade, as both have a connection to an arrow. Moran was not able to capitalize on the tip given him by his venerable master Yeh Hsien Seng regarding correspondences between the twenty-two Chinese horary signs and the early alphabet, but did make another discovery that became the basis of his thesis.

When Moran compared the alphabet to the Chinese lunar calendar he found a correspondence that matched. When he consulted the Chinese astrological book called Yung Tai Ta Ch’eng he noticed that the twenty-eight lunar characters were matched with stars that were drawn as circles and connected by lines. Figure 6 in his book shows a Map of the River of Heaven from the Yung Tai Ta Ch’eng and depicts the lunar asterisms with the Milky Way as the "River of Heaven" stretched across the northern sky. He immediately noticed that the Chinese character 'nui' meant ‘the ox’ and decided that it corresponded to the Hebrew letter aleph, which means ‘the bull’. He went around the circle of the Chinese lunar signs and found startling correspondences that he postulated could not have arisen from chance. He then investigated the correspondences and noted the similarities in meanings between the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the Chinese lunar signs.

Moran then went on to investigate the meanings of the Hebrew letters and Chinese lunar signs from the point of view of a dualistic philosophy. He tied the two systems together using word meanings of the letters and their possible correspondences to the word meanings of the Chinese lunar signs. He also took into account the letter forms and resemblances to constellations and ‘subconstellations’ or minor asterisms. He noted that the letters of the Hebrew and Greek alphabets have both a numerical and phonetic value and suggests that the use of the alphabet for numerical purposes may have predated its use as a phonetic tool. He also states that the letters of the alphabet could have been directly derived from constellations. He simply saw the alphabet arising from astrological signs.

Moran theorized that writing was first used to record astronomical information that corresponded to harvests, equinoxes and solstices, lunar phases, lucky and unlucky days, and events such as eclipses. The writing system that evolved into the alphabet could have been based upon the existing symbols used to record celestial symbols such as the sun, moon, and constellations. Moran notes that the phonetic symbols used by the Chinese, Sumerians, and Egyptians could have had an astrological basis. He suggests that the alphabet was a form of shorthand that was inevitable as the written form became simplified and presents a theory about a clever priest or leader that experimented with written characters and developed a form of shorthand using the astrological symbols available in his local area, but only used twenty-two symbols because that was all that was necessary for the Semitic languages they used at that time. Could the alphabet symbols found in Egypt have been created by a clever Canaanite priest who knew Egyptian hieroglyphic writing? Could the Tarot have later been created by another clever priest or scholar who knew the secret of the alphabet and wanted to encode that information for future generations. Next, diffusion of the alphabet will be investigated. Could the Tarot be the result of cultural diffusion much in the same way that the alphabet was spread around the world?
- Cartomancer (Lance Carter)
 

Cartomancer

Diffusion of the alphabet

The area of the world that used the Semitic languages and similar constellations extended from Egypt through the Middle East into Lebanon and beyond. Moran suggests that the use of these symbols could have been in use about the third millennium B.C.E. due to the alphabet beginning with the symbol for the bull, which was worshiped around that time.

Moran suggests that this early alphabet spread across the ancient world by those speaking Semitic languages, but was not used by the Egyptians who already had a system of hieroglyphs and literature. The Sumerians also had already developed a system of writing so a new alphabet would not be useful to them. The Hebrews, Phoenicians, and later the Greeks were able to adapt their spoken language to the written characters in the early alphabet even though vowels were not used until the Greeks modified the alphabet to their liking. The traveling astrologers most likely carried this new system of alphabetical writing to the nations and peoples in the area, who made use of its simplicity and modified it for their words and speech.

Moran also suggests that the extra letters necessary for some languages could have borrowed from the unused lunar signs that would have been from twenty-three to twenty-eight and provides some possible evidence for that. The Latin alphabet could have also taken letters from the Chinese lunar signs that were not used to form the alphabet, but does not provide drawings or correspondences that can be examined. Moran disparaged astrology as an unscientific pseudoscience that is grossly superstitious and disreputable, yet he believed that astrology provided Western civilization with the alphabet, which is regarded as one of the greatest tools ever invented. Moran goes on to state that he has met the requirements of providing the source of the alphabet.

Moran relates the alphabet to astrological signs by their identification with specific stars or star groups. He returns to the letter 'aleph', which is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and relates it to the Chinese lunar sign 'niu', both of which mean ‘ox’. He continues to compare the alphabet letters with lunar signs, but concedes that there are problems that cannot be solved without adequate mastery of many ancient languages, astronomy, astrology, archaeology, and paleography - to begin with. There are many approaches to the riddle of the alphabet and Moran wondered which way was best to unravel the mysteries of its construction. He asked how should the celestial poles be seen in relation to the lunar signs and the alphabetic letters if there is a relationship between the letters of the alphabet and the constellations in the sky? Next, problems with the comparisons between the systems will be investigated
- Cartomancer (Lance Carter)
 

Cartomancer

Problems with the comparisons

Moran wondered when the alphabet was first created because it undoubtedly had an effect on how the sky was perceived although the planisphere of stars would not change much even taking into account the precession of the equinoxes. How would calendar reformers and astrologers change the order of the alphabetic letters, possibly at the whim of their employers such as the priests or kings as was the case of the constellation symbols in the Chow dynasty? Moran wondered how the alphabet could have retained its consistency during the centuries of use. It came down to simply experimenting with the order of the alphabets, zodiacs, meanings, and phonetic values.

Moran’s method was to try various combinations and arrangements of alphabetical letters with the Chinese astrological characters in order to find possible correspondences. He continued to use the ten stems and twelve branches to find an answer to the enigma of the origin of the alphabet, but even when he reversed those letters and characters in relation to each other he could not find a satisfactory correspondence. He noted that the ancient solar zodiacs were probably set in stone about the twenty-fourth century B.C.E. when Taurus was in ascendancy and was worshiped around the world by many early peoples. He also noted that the order of the solar and lunar symbols may have been in reverse order due to demands of the rulers of the day such as the Chow dynasty.

Additional problems were seen in the practice of assigning the same meaning to multiple star groups, such as having a bear or ox being seen in multiple places in the sky like we have the large bear Ursa Major and the small bear Ursa Minor. Compounding this problem is determining what star group was important to what group of people at a certain point in history, who might have their new year begin at the winter solstice or spring equinox and use different star groups to determine the start of their years.

Moran comes to the conclusion that astrology originated in Western Asia and was taken intact to China, but that the alphabet and its correspondence to the Chinese lunar signs was keyed by aligning the constellation Taurus the Bull with letter A or 'Aleph' with the Chinese lunar sign 'niu', meaning ‘the ox’. Figure 10 (p.64) in the book presents Moran’s comparison of the Western alphabet with the Chinese astrological signs and is his Fifth Edition of the chart that was first presented to the American Oriental Society at Princeton in March, 1923.

Figure 10 -- Comparative chart of Western alphabet and Oriental astrological signs.
From: The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs by H. Moran and D. Kelly.
http://piecework.deviantart.com/art/Fig-10-Alphabet-and-Ancient-Calendar-Signs-400505509

Moran then compares the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the Roman alphabet, the Western astronomical solar zodiac constellation where applicable, the Chinese lunar zodiac sign, and the Chinese solar zodiac sign where applicable. He goes into great detail about the meanings of each letter and includes the letter meanings from the Phoenician, Assyrian, Greek, and Egyptian where available. The Hebrew letters are fully explained and compared to the Chinese lunar signs and the symbolism is described in great detail. Additional astrological and astronomical information is used to help explain the more difficult concepts as well as give a background to the framework of ancient thinking. Moran's work comparing various alphabets and calendar systems will be reviewed in more detail later in this investigation. Next, some words in conclusion before the Tarot's connection to the alphabet is shown in future posts.
- Cartomancer (Lance Carter)
 

Cartomancer

An interesting book for those interested in the alphabet

In The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs, Moran uses references from many sources and even presents derivative names associated with the Hebrew letters and also provides insight into the so-called inscrutable thinking of the ancient Chinese astrologers. The startling correspondences Moran finds between the meanings of the Hebrew alphabet letters and the Chinese lunar sign meanings may be taken as evidence of a close correspondence between the two systems. This letter-by-letter comparison to the Chinese lunar signs has intrigued both Western and Chinese scholars who have studied this book.

Moran postulates that there must have been a list of twenty-eight or twenty-nine symbols available to the creators of the first alphabet, but that only twenty-two were chosen. Perhaps another alphabet script might be unearthed that used a full twenty-eight letters that corresponds to the Chinese lunar signs. Moran goes further and spreads the twenty-two symbols of the alphabet around the calendar in a symbolic manner that he compares to the method used by the Chinese on their P’u Pan board. Moran again states that all attempts to correlate the Chinese horary signs with the Semitic alphabet have met with failure and have not been proven as practical, but he reiterates that the meanings of the Hebrew alphabet closely correspond to the Chinese lunar sign meanings.

This is an interesting book for those interested in the alphabet, but it is not for everyone. The subjects discussed are too technical for the casual reader and the references are in many cases outdated. Parts of the thesis of the work is valid in my opinion, but only in certain contexts and perhaps not in the manner suggested in the book. The information is in a format that may not be understandable by those without a keen interest in the origin of the alphabet, which may require scholarly training or intense personal study. The book is complete as it is and in the context and time that it was written.

I would not recommend this book to anyone unless they are willing to accept its limitations and regard it as a monograph that addresses a historical controversy with a thesis that is not supported by primary sources or literary works that conclusively prove its contentions. In general, this book does add to the historical knowledge in its field, although many of the references used are too out-of-date to be obtainable and probably are of little use to a modern investigator. This book will no doubt remain a subject of conjecture and debate between scholars of etymology and cultural historians, but it requires the finding of actual primary source evidence in the form of inscriptions to support its conclusions. Next, a letter-by-letter investigation of the alphabet and its relationship to the Tarot.
- Cartomancer (Lance Carter)
 

venicebard

In The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs, Moran dismissed the early investigators as being desperate to pin down the origin on the Egyptians with little evidence and finally he totally rejected the Egyptian hieroglyphs as being the origin of the Semitic alphabet.
If he was merely dismissing the 'proto-Sinaitic' theory of origin, I concur. But did he bother to investigate whether the origin of north Semitic letters might have been the hieratic the early Egyptian empire used for transcription of foreign words? for this was the prevailing theory once it was proposed (in the 1800s) by de Rougé then further exposited and defended by Isaac Taylor. Frankly, they traced most of the letters back to figures of quite similar shape and identical sound, though some few I felt required correction on the basis of more plausible evolution of shape (in the case of tav's cross from the cross prevalent in the hieratic sign for 'duck') or deeper bardic considerations (e.g. zayin's being degeneration of bardic I into dj by corruption of D, as in Zeus from dyaus), by which I mean the underlying (poetry- or incantation-rooted) letter-tradition as it maintained its creation over several cultures and millennia, as discernible both from surviving lore (mainly Irish and Judaic) and comparison of the various alphabets involved: Egyptian hieroglyphic, north and south Semitic, Tifinag and Numidian, tree ogham (which as ogam consaine dates at least from bronze age Scandinavia, as does Tifinag), Greek and Italic (and Anatolian), Meroitic, and of course runic.