TSie Story of the Alphabet 75

before Kemal Ataturk introduced the Roman alphabet in Turkey
(Fig 40) Missionary enterprise has been the single most significant
social agency which has influenced choice This circumstance has left a
permanent impress on the study of speech habits

Conquests, political, rehgious^ or both5 have imposed scripts on
languages ill-adapted for them. This is true of Burmese and Siamese
which have Sanskrit and Pah scripts It is even more true of Arabic
script, which Islam has forced upon communities with languages of a
phonetic structure quite diflerent from that of the Semitic family, e g
Berber, Persian, Baluchi, Smdhi, Malay, Turhsh, Swahili, etc The

t r

*** fi * ••*

JL i t k ih b I v s n, y

i

*•« *•* .** ^1S

v r

m g* ng z r raozz

Scandinavian, 'Runic & Ogzzzi
FIG, 17 — KEY TO RUNIC AND OGAM SCRIPTS
Compare with Runic and Ogam inscriptions of Figs 18 and 29.
The Runic symbols he above the Roman equivalents, the Ogam below them
secular impetus which trading gave to the spread of writing among the
Mediterranean civilizations of classical antiquity extended to Northern
Europe without having a permanent influence upon it. Before they
adopted Roman Christianity, and with it the Roman alphabet, some
Teutonic peoples were already literate In various parts of Northern
Europe, and especially m Scandinavian countries, there are inscriptions
m symbols like those which pre-Christian invaders from the Continent
also brought to Britain. This Rumc script (Figs 17 and 29) has no
straightforward similarity to any other Supposedly it is a degenerate
form of Greek or Roman writing carried across Europe by migratory
Germanic (Goths) and probably also by Celtic tribes, who learned it