Thomas Harriot, An Universal Alphabet (1585)

Date

1585

Author

Thomas Harriot Note: 30/09/2005

Book title

An vniversall Alphabet conteyninge six & thirty letters, whereby may be expressed the lively image of mans voyce in what language soeuer; first devised vpon occasion to seeke for fit letters to expresse the Virginian speche

Transcription source

1. Westminster Library MS; 2. British Library Additional MS 6788, fol. 417v: one Harriot sentence in Algonkian with translation (Keeow hit tamen -- What is your name); 3. Richard Busby's copy: see John Sergeaunt, "Busby's Account Book," A Memoir of Richard Busby D.D., ed. G. F. Russell Barker (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1895): 104-19; 4. Copy of phonetic transcription. Sion College MS (2 pages): see Ethel M. Seaton, "Thomas Hariot's Secret Script," Ambix 5 (1956): 111-14; 5. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich MS: Alex Wallace, "Thomas Harriot and Walter Raleigh in Ireland," Durham Thomas Harriot Seminar, Occasional Paper 2 (1985), a phonetic transcription; 6. British Library Additional MS 6782, fol. 337: see Wallace (1985), a partial key to phonetic symbols

Text type

manuscript

Genre

Bilingual and polyglot dictionaries, glossaries, and vocabularies

Subject area

Algonkian

Language

headwords: English

Word-group

type: alphabetical

Word-entry

type: headword

Criticisms

Salmon, Vivian. "Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) and the English Origins of Algonkian Linguistics." Historiographia Linguistica 19.1 (1992): 25-56. view record