LANGUAGES

CLASSES, Orders, and Families of LANGUAGES.

I. MONOSYLLABIC.

1. 1. Chinese
2. 2. Siamese
3. 3. Avanes
4. 4. Tibetan

iii. Tartarian

1. 27. Turcotartarian
2. 28. Mantshuric
3. 29. Tungusic

iv. Siberian

1. 30. Permian
2. 31. Wogulic
3. 32. Ostiak
4. 33. Tsheremissic
5. 34. Morduic
6. 35. Teptjerai
7. 36. Samoiedic
8. 37. Camashic
9. 38. Jeniseostiak
10. 39. Jukadshiric
11. 40. Koriak
12. 41. Kamtshatkan

v. Insular

1. 42. Kurilee
2. 43. Eastern Islands
3. 44. Japanese
4. 45. Leu Cheu
5. 46. Formosan
6. 47. Philippine
7. 48. New Holland, E.
8. 49. Van Diemen's
9. 50. New Caledonian
10. 51. New Zealand
11. 52. Easter Island

II. INDOEUROPEAN.

i. Sporadic

1. 17. Tshudish
2. 18. Hungarian
3. 19. Albanian

ii. Caucasian

1. 20. Armenian
2. 21. Georgian
3. 22. Abassan
4. 23. Circassian
5. 24. Ossetish
6. 25. Kistic
7. 26. Lesgian

III. TATARIC

IV. AFRICAN

V. AMERICAN.

Languages, FAMILIES, Species, or Distinct Languages, and Varieties or Dialects, with Specimens.

III. TATARIC CLASS.

i. SPORADIC ORDER.

ii. CAUCASIAN ORDER.

IV. AFRICAN CLASS.

(The Hottentots have three particular clicking sounds, made by withdrawing the tongue from the teeth, the fore part, and the back part of the palate: they are respectively denoted by T', T'', and T''' ; the two first appear to resemble the sounds sometimes used to express a trifling vexation, and to make a horse go on, or to call to poultry.)

V. AMERICAN CLASS.

i. SOUTH AMERICAN.

These tables will at least serve, notwithstanding some imperfections and uncertainties, as a convenient synopsis for facilitating the reference to a brief sketch of the history of the different families of languages.

1. The strongest proof of the great antiquity of the CHINESE language appears to be the great simplicity of its structure, and the want of those abbreviations and conventional implications which have been sometimes called the wings of languages. It is natural that, in attempting to express ideas at once by characters, the rude pictures of material objects should first have been principally, if not exclusively traced; thus the Egyptians had ⊙, 丿 for the sun and moon, and ⊕ for a country or field, and the

Chinese have still ⊞, 𠂇, ⊕ for these objects respectively, the characters having been made square instead of round, which some of them were in their more ancient forms. The Egyptians represented a man by a figure kneeling, and stretching out his hand, or in the enchorial character, thus 𐀀. (See the article EGYPT, Pl. LXXV. n. 73.) The Chinese figure may originally have been of the same form, but at present is more like a pair of legs only, 人, while a dog seems to have three or four legs; 犬, or 𐀀.

A thousand, according to Mr Jomard's ingenious conjecture, was copied from the lotus, with its seed vessel, having a great multitude of seeds, and the Chinese 千 is certainly not altogether unlike the Egyptian 𐀀

Languages. in writing the former of these, sometimes called K'hömen, according to Dr Leyden, the Bali, or old Sanscrit character, is employed; and the latter has some analogy with the Siamese; indeed, both the Siamese and the Avanes are disposed to derive themselves from Laos. It may be seen, from the specimens exhibited in the article PHILOLOGY of the Encyclopædia, b. 125, that at least some of the Chinese dialects have sounds agreeing in several instances with European words of the same import; but the agreement is scarcely precise enough to justify our inferring from it an original connexion between the languages.

2. The language of SIAM resembles the Chinese in its simplicity and metaphorical structure, though not so decidedly monosyllabic. It is obvious, however, that the distinction of monosyllabic and polysyllabic could not, in very ancient times, have been so positively laid down as at present, since it was usual, in almost all countries, to write the words contiguous to each other, in a continued series, without any divisions between them; and, even in modern printing, there is a happy invention, which often restores this agreeable obscurity, under the name of a hyphen, by the use of which we avoid the difficulty of determining whether we wish to employ one word or several. The Siamese call themselves T'hay; and a part of their country is distinguished by the appellation Tai hai, or Great T'hay. The numerals resemble the Mandarin Chinese; several words of the language are borrowed from the Bali; it is written in an alphabetical character, which is said to be complicated and refined.

3. The AVANESE or Burmanish has also borrowed some polysyllabic words from the Bali, and is written in a peculiar alphabetical character. It must be considered as an era in the history of this country that its Emperor has employed Mr Felix Carey, at his own expense, to establish a printing press at Ava, his metropolis, for printing a translation of the Scriptures in Burmanish. A dialect, spoken in the district called Tanengrari, is said to be of greater antiquity. The Môn or Peguan is called by Dr Leyden a distinct original language; but it is written in the Avanes character, and Adelung's specimen scarcely differs at all from the Burmanish. The language of Arakan and Rashaan is called Rukheng; it contains a number of words from the Bali, many of them converted into monosyllables by an imperfect pronunciation. Dr Leyden considers it as the connecting link between the monosyllabic and the polysyllabic languages, and he calls it an original language, notwithstanding its acknowledged derivation from its neighbours. It employs the Devanagri alphabet, including the letter r. Out of 50 words of Rukheng, quoted by Buchanan, the seven which are not Burman are only varieties of pronunciation. The Kiayn or Kolin, and the Kukis, northeast of Chatigong, are mentioned as neighbouring tribes, speaking languages almost entirely different from the Rukheng. We find, in Mr Buchanan's paper, some specimens of the languages of the Burma empire, which it is difficult to distribute methodically, without a further knowledge of their pe-

culiar characters, but some of which may, without Languages. impropriety, be introduced here.

4. The language of TIBET, or the Tangutish, has some words in common with the Chinese, but is less simple in its structure. It is at least as ancient as the religion of the country, which is nearly coeval with Christianity. Its character is well known to be alphabetical, from the title of the learned work of Father Georgi on the subject.

5. The Indoeuropean languages have been referred to a single class, because every one of them has too great a number of coincidences with some of the others, to be considered as merely accidental, and many of them in terms relating to objects of such a nature, that they must necessarily have been, in both of the languages compared, rather original than adoptive. The SANSKRIT, which is confessedly the parent language of India, may easily be shown to be intimately connected with the Greek, the Latin, and the German, although it is a great exaggeration to assert any thing like its complete identity with either of these languages. Thus we find, within the compass of the Lord's Prayer only, Pida, Pitir, among the Sanscrit terms for Father, Gr. Pater; Nama, or Namadheya for Name, Gr. Onoma, Onomati; Radshiam, Kingdom, Lat. Regnum from Rego; Manasam, Will, like the Greek Menio, and the Latin Mens; Stira, Earth, Gr. Era, whence perhaps the Latin Terra; and Danim, or Devanagri Dia, Day, Lat. Dies. There are also some singular resemblances of declension and conjugation between the Sanscrit and the Greek, as Dodami, Dodasti, Dodati; in old Greek Didomi, Didosi, Didoti. In a tablet of the date 23 B. C. we find Kritico for a Judge, Gr. Crites, Criticos. In Mr Townsend's work we also find some well selected instances of resemblance between the Sanscrit and other languages; thus Bhru, is Brow; Pota, a Boat; Bad, a Bath; Germ. Bad; Dhara, Terra; Nava, Novus; Nakta, Nocte, Night; Pad, Foot, Patte;

Languages. Prathama or Protoma, first, whence we may deduce both the Greek protos, and the Latin primus; and Upadesaca, Didasco, Docco, and Disco. We have also Vayajan, wind, in Russian Vieyanie; and Vidhava, widow, Latin, Vidua, German, Wittwe, Russian, Vdova. The vr of the plural verb is found in the Sanscrit Bhavanti, they are, Dadanti, they give. Sir William Jones and many others have attributed to some of the works, which are still extant in Sanscrit, an antiquity of four or five thousand years; but Professor Adelung denies the validity of any of the arguments, which have been adduced, in favour of a date at all approaching to this.

The Sanscrit, even in its earliest state, can scarcely have been altogether uniform throughout all the countries in which it was spoken, and it has degenerated by degrees into a great diversity of modern dialects: the term signifies learned, or polished. Beyond the Ganges, it is called Bali or Magudha, which the missionaries say "scarcely" differs from Sanscrit; the term Magudha is said to mean mixed or irregular. In Siam the Sanscrit is still the language of elegant literature; and it is often employed throughout India, with some little difference of construction, under the name of Devanagara, the divine language. The Prakrit is rather a vague term, meaning, according to Mr Colebrooke, common or vulgar, but it is also applied to the language of the sacred books of the "Jainas." We find in a little publication, entitled, A Brief View of the Baptist Missions and Translations, some useful information respecting the Indian languages and dialects, into a great number of which these laborious and disinterested persons have made or procured translations of the whole of the Scriptures, which they have printed at Serampore near Calcutta. The dialects, which they enumerate, are principally arranged in a geographical order; and beginning with those which are spoken towards the middle of India, as the pure Sanscrit and its least modified dialects, we may place next to them the languages of the countries bordering on the monosyllabic nations, towards the North and East; we have here the dialects of Nepal, Assam, or Uhumiya, Tiperah, and Kassai, of which little more is known than that translations into the first two have been already executed: the Bengalee is spoken in and about Calcutta: the Hindee or Hinduee is spoken about Agra; it is printed in the Devanagri character, the font of which contains more than 800 varieties of letters and their combinations; the Urdu or Oordoo is a subdialect of the Hindee, as well as the Brijbassa, which is nearer to the Sanscrit than some other dialects: the Jypura is mentioned as another language, belonging to the same neighbourhood: the Hindustanee is spoken in Hindustan Proper, or Lower Hindustan; the missionaries say it is "diametrically different" from the Hindee: the Moors or "Mongol Indostanish" seems to belong to this country, being mixed with a good deal of Persian and Arabic, unless it be rather referable to the Hindee: the dialects of Udaipura, Benaes, and Munipura, are also called separate languages: the Goandee is spoken at Nagpore, in the Mahratta country: further east is Orissa or Uriya, the language of which is printed in a character requiring

300 different types: the Telug or Warug is spoken about Cuddalore and Madras: the Telinga further west: the Carnatic has a peculiar language, besides the Tamul, which is spoken from Palacate, near Madras, to Cape Comorin, and the Marwa, which appears to belong to a part of this country. About Cochin in Travancore we have the Maleiam: further north the languages of Malabar, Kanara, and of the Decan; the dialect of Malabar is of considerable antiquity, being found in two copper tablets as old as the eighth or ninth century; then comes the Kunkuna, about Bombay: the Mahratta is further inland: the Guzurat on the coast: and beyond the Indus the Beloshee in Belochistan: north of this we find the Afghan or Pushtu language, which contains more Hebrew words than any of its neighbours; the people are said to have come from the north, about 2000 years ago, and, according to a Persian tradition, to be descended from King Saul: indeed, the language stands somewhat more correctly under the Median family in the Mithridates, but since it forms the connecting link between the two families, it might perhaps be as conveniently arranged among the more numerous species of the Sanscrit; it is written in the Arabic character, with some additional letters for expressing the Sanscrit sounds. The language of Multan, north of Sindh, has about one tenth of Persian mixed with it. The Gipsies were certainly expelled from some part of India by the cruelties of Timur Leng, about 1400; and they were probably some of the Zingans, in the neighbourhood of Multan; their language having a great number of coincidences with that of Multan, and being still more manifestly a dialect of the Sanscrit, although they have adopted many European, and especially Sclavonian words. When they first appeared in Europe, they were supposed to amount to about half a million; at present they are less numerous.

The Maldivian is peculiar to the group of small islands from which it is named; the Baptists have already printed some books in it. The people are said greatly to resemble those of Ceylon. The Cingalese, which is spoken in great part of Ceylon, is a mixture of several of the continental dialects; and it has been observed that the proper names in Ceylon mentioned by Ptolemy are of Sanscrit origin. Dr Leyden gives as a proof of the antiquity of the Malayan, that the Temala of Ptolemy is derived from Tema, tin. The connexion of this language with the Sanscrit has not been very universally admitted; and some of those who have studied it most are disposed to consider it as wholly original; but in the purest part of the language, Dr Leyden confesses that there is a considerable resemblance to the Avanese and the Siamese; the words derived from the Sanscrit he considers as somewhat less numerous, amounting however to about 5000; they are generally less like the Bali than the Sanscrit; and a still smaller number are borrowed from the Arabic. The character of the monosyllabic languages is in some measure retained. Sir William Jones considered the Malayan as a derivative of the Sanscrit; Mr Marsden supposes it to have received its Sanscrit words through Guzurat; Dr Leyden rather from Ka-

Languages. linga or Telinga; and it exhibits some traces of the dialects of Tamil and Maleialam. Besides these various sources, it is said to have borrowed some of its simplest words from the Javanese and the Búgis; and it has become more nearly monosyllabic by dropping the first syllables of some of the words which it has adopted. The Javanese is said to be more ancient than the Malayan; the empire of Java was formerly powerful and flourishing: the ancient language was much like the Sanscrit, more so than the Malayan, but was written in a peculiar character. Dialects of this language are still spoken in Bali and in Madura. Leyden thinks the Malays were derived from Java; Marsden rather from Sumatra: though he allows that there are some reasons for conjecturing that an old Sanscrit colony may have settled many hundred years ago in Java, and mixed its language with a supposed mother tongue of that Asiatic race.

Of the Sumatran dialects, the principal, according to Dr Leyden, is the Batta, spoken by a people who occupy the centre of the island, and who still, like some other Indian nations, retain the custom of eating their old relations. The language seems to be partly original, and partly connected with the Malayan, and other dialects of the neighbouring islands. The Rejang is chiefly a mixture of Batta and Malayan; in the Lampun or Lampung, there is also some Javanese. The Achi has admitted a still further influx of words belonging to all the Musulman jargons of the neighbourhood, especially to that of the Mapulas of Malabar. There are other dialects of less note in Nêas and the Poggy Islands, most resembling the Batta. This language is provided with a peculiar alphabet, which is remarkable for being written from the bottom of the paper upwards, like the Mexican hieroglyphics: though the Battas, as well as the Chinese, sometimes hold their books so as to read horizontally. In Borneo there appear to be several dialects, or rather separate languages, two of them, according to Dr Leyden, are the Biaju and the Tisun. The Andaman language is inserted here for want of a better place only; it does not appear to have any connexion with the Sanscrit, and may possibly be found to be more like that of Madagascar: the people seem to belong to the Papuas, a distinct original race, according to Dr Leyden, black, and with woolly hair.

Besides the numerous translations into languages of the Indoeuropean class, the Baptist Missionaries have also printed some Armenian and Persian works at the indefatigable press of Serampore, which is supplied by a letter foundry and a paper mill, belonging to the same establishment, enabling them to execute the whole business at less than half the expense of European books of the same magnitude. The little pamphlet, already quoted, contains also specimens of the characters of the Sanscrit, Assam, Bengalee, Mahratta, Sikh, and Cashmirian, which somewhat resemble each other in the square form of their characters, as well as of the Burman, Orissa, Telinga, and Cingalese, which have a more rounded and flourished appearance; of the Tamil, which looks a little like Armenian; of the Afghan and the Persian used in India; and of the Chinese, both as

printed from blocks, and from the moveable metal Languages. types which have been cast at Serampore.

6. The connexion of the MEDIAN family with the Sanscrit on one side, and with the Greek and German on the other, is sufficiently proved by the words Abitap, Zend. Sun, Sanscr. Abitaba; Dar, Ter, Pers. Door, Sanscr. Dura, Tuwara, Javanese, Turi, Gr. Thiura, Germ. Thür, Thor; Dip, Pers. Land or Island, Sanscr. Dihp; Dochtar, Pers. Pothré, Zend. Daughter, Gr. Thiigater, Germ. Tochter, Sanscr. Putri; Jaré, Zend. Year, Sanscr. Jahran, Germ. Jahr; and Ishk, Zend. Love, Sanscr. Itsha. To this list we may add, from Dr Leyden, Stree, Zend. Woman, Sanscr. Stri; Asté, Zend. He is, Sanscr. Asti, Gr. Esti; Haplé, Zend. Seven, Sanscr. Saptah, Gr. Hepta. There are also some coincidences with the Chaldee, but the Median is certainly not a dialect of the Chaldee. Sir W. Jones and others have said that the Zendish was nearest to the Sanscrit, and the Pehlvi to the Chaldee or Arabic. In ancient Media, the Zendish was the language of the northern, and Pehlvi, or Parthian, of the southern parts; the word Pehlvi or Pahalevi is supposed by Leyden to have been nearly synonymous with Pali or Bali, though this is said to be derived from Bahlika, an Indoeuropean country. The Zendish was more particularly appropriated to religious purposes, and the Pehlvi had in a great measure superseded it for common use at a very early period; under the Sassanides again, from the third to the seventh century, the use of the Pehlvi was discouraged, and the old Persian substituted for it. It is said, however, that in the remote parts of the country, about Shirwan, some traces of the Pehlvi may still be found in existence. The Zendavesta of Zoroaster, which is still extant in Zendish, is supposed to have been written 520 years B. C.; and Adelung follows Anquetil in asserting its authenticity, even in opposition to the opinion of Jones and Richardson. These languages have little or no connexion with the Georgian and Armenian, which have succeeded them in some of the same countries. The old Persian, which seems to be much connected with the Pehlvi, has remained in use either as a living or as a learned language ever since the time of the Sassanides; it was current among the Persians when they were conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century; and it is the language of the Shah Nameh of Firdusi, written in the tenth century, as well as of the Ayeen Akbery, of which the date is about 1600. The modern Persian became a cultivated language about the year 1000, having received a considerable mixture of Arabic and Turkish words. The term Parsee is commonly applied to a corrupt Pehlvi, spoken by the refugee fire-worshippers in Bombay.

The Goths are said to have inhabited, for some centuries, the countries about the Black Sea, and may originally have bordered on Persia; from this circumstance, and probably also from the effects of a later irruption of the Goths into Persia, which is recorded in history, we may easily explain the occurrence of many Persian words in German, and in the other languages of Northern Europe. Professor Adelung has examined more than two hundred

Languages. cases of such resemblances, and has found only one sixth part of them in Anquetil's vocabularies of the more ancient dialects; he has, however, omitted to state what proportion the whole magnitude of these vocabularies bears to that of a complete dictionary of the language. It is well known that an Essay was published a few years since in London On the Similarity of the Persian and English Languages; and a more elaborate work on the relations of the Persian languages, by Mr Le Pileur, has since appeared in Holland. Mr Le Pileur attempts to explain the is or s of the genitive of the northern languages, by the Persian proposition ez, which seems to be synonymous with the Greek and Latin ex; but he has not shown that this ez ever follows the noun to which it relates.

The Kurds speak a corrupt dialect of the Persian; they are probably derived from the Carduchi of the Greeks, who inhabited the Gordian hills. They spread into Persia about the year 1000, and are now situated on the borders of the Persian and Turkish dominions. The language of the Afghans, about Candahar, is said to contain about one fourth of Persian, and some Tartarian, besides the Sanscrit which abounds in it.

7. The ARABIAN family is called by the German critics Semitic, from Shem the son of Noah, as having been principally spoken by his descendants. Though not intimately connected with the European languages, it is well known to have afforded some words to the Greek and Latin; it has also some in common with the Sanscrit, though apparently fewer than either the Greek or the German. Thus we have Acer, Hebr. a Husbandman; Ager, Lat. a Field; Asther, a Star, Gr. Aster; Bara, Buri, Germ. Burg; Ben, Hebr. Son, Sanscr. Bun, Child; Esh, Hebr. Eshta, Chald. Fire, Sanscr. Aster; and Ish, Hebr. Man, Sanscr. Isha, Man or Lord. The Hebrew Ani, Anoki, I, has been noticed by Townsend and others as affording an etymology for Ego as well as for Ni or Mi of verbs, for the Anok of the Egyptians, and even for the Ngo of the Chinese.

The northern nations of this family have sometimes been comprehended under the name Aramaic, in contradistinction to the middle, or Canaanitic, and the southern, or Arabian. The Eastern Aramaic, or old Chaldee, is very little known; it was the language of a people situated in the north of Mesopotamia, which is now the south of Armenia; a part of them extended themselves further south, and became Babylonians; of whose dialect some traces are said still to exist, about Mosul and Diarbeker. The old Assyrians, between the Tigris and Media, were a colony of the Babylonians, and spoke a language unintelligible to the Jews. (II. Kings, 18.) The western Aramaic has become known, since the Christian era, as the Syriac, in which there is an ancient and valuable translation of the New Testament. It is still spoken about Edessa and Harran. The Palmyrene was one of its dialects; the modern Assyrian of the Russian Vocabularies appears to be another.

The language of the Canaanites is said, by St Jerome, to have been intermediate between the Hebrew and the Egyptian.

The people are supposed to have come originally from the Persian Gulf; the Philistines, who were found among them, to have emigrated from the Delta to Cyprus, to have been thence expelled by the Phenicians, and to have adopted the language of the Canaanites, when they settled among them. The book of Job is considered as affording some idea of the dialect of Edom; it is well known to contain many Arabisms, besides some other peculiarities. The Phenician is only known from a few coins and inscriptions found chiefly in Cyprus and in Malta, and not yet very satisfactorily deciphered, though Akerblad is convinced, by some of them, that it varied but very little from the Hebrew; of its descendant, the Punic, or Carthaginian, a specimen is preserved in the speech of Hanno in Plautus, as happily arranged by Bochart; the objection of Adelung, respecting the want of a proper name, appearing to have arisen from a mistake. The last six lines of the text are probably either a repetition of the same speech in the old Lybian of the neighbourhood, or a jargon intended to imitate it.

The Hebrews originated among the Chaldeans; Terah, the father of Abraham, having been a native of Ur, or Edessa, beyond the Euphrates; they adopted the language of the Canaanites, among whom they led a nomadic life, till their residence in Egypt, which must probably have had some effect in modifying their language. After that time, however, it appears to have varied but little, in a period of 1000 years, from Moses to Malachi, and this circumstance Adelung considers as so uncommon and improbable, that he is disposed to believe that the writings of Moses must have been modernised, at least as late as the time of Samuel. The old Hebrew became extinct, as a living language, about 500 B. C.; 1000 years afterwards, the Masoretic points were added, to assist in its pronunciation; and this was done in some measure upon the model of the Syrochaldaic, which at that time was still spoken. The Septuagint version, which is much older, supports, in the instances of many of the proper names, the reading indicated by the points, but in about as many others it appears to deviate from that system, and to agree with a mode of pronunciation founded upon the text or principal characters alone. The reading in Greek letters of Origen, in his Hexapla, tends, on the whole, very strongly to support the points. The Chaldee had superseded the Hebrew at the time of the captivity, and was gradually converted into the Syrochaldaic, which is called Hebrew in the New Testament. The Targums, and the Talmud of Babylon, are in the older Chaldee; and a Syrochaldaic translation of the New Testament has been discovered to be still in existence.

The Samaritan somewhat resembles the Chaldee; it was formed among the Phenicians and others, who occupied the habitations of the ten tribes, when they were carried into captivity by Salmanassar and Esarhaddon. Its peculiar alphabet is well known as a mere variation of the Hebrew.

The Rabbinic dialect was principally formed in the middle ages, among the Spanish Jews, who were chiefly descended from the inhabitants of Jerusalem;

Languages. while those of Germany and Poland were generally Galileans, and spoke a ruder dialect of the Hebrew than the fugitives from the metropolis.

The Arabs have been a distinct, and in great measure an independent nation, for more than 3000 years. Some of them were descended from Shem; others, as the Cushites, Canaanites, and Amalekites, from his brother Ham. Their language, as it is found in the Koran, contains some mixture of Indian, Persian, and Abyssinian words. Its grammar was little cultivated until a century or two after the time of Mahomet. It is certainly copious, but its copiousness has been ridiculously exaggerated, and absurdly admired. The best Arabic is spoken by the upper classes in Yemen; in Mecca it is more mixed; in Syria corrupt, and still more so in some parts of Africa. There are dialects which require the assistance of an interpreter to make them intelligible; at the same time, it has been maintained by Aryda, a learned Arab of Syria, in contradiction to Niebuhr, that the Arabic of the Koran is still employed in conversation among the best educated of the people, as well as in correct writing. The Arabs living in houses are called Moors; and those of Africa are the best known under this name. The Mapuls, or Mapulets, of Malabar and Coromandel, are a numerous colony of Arabs, who have been settled there above a thousand years.

The Ethiopians are descended from the Cushite Arabs. In the time of Nimrod they conquered Babylon: before that of Moses they emigrated into Africa, and settled in and about Tigri; in Isaiah's time, they seem to have extended to Fez; and at present they occupy Tigri, Amhara, and some neighbouring countries. They became Christians in 325, but retained the initiatory ceremony of the Jews and Mussulmen. The pure or literary Ethiopic is called Geez, or Axumitic, in contradistinction to the Amharic, by which it was superseded as the language of common life in Amhara, about the fourteenth century, although it is still spoken, without much alteration, in some parts of Tigri; while, in others, as in Hauasa, a different dialect is spoken. The Ethiopic was first particularly made known in Europe by the elaborate publications of Ludolf. Mr Asselin has lately procured a translation of the whole of the Bible into the Amharic, as it is now spoken at Gondar; it was executed by the old Abyssinian traveller who was known to Bruce and to Sir William Jones, and it is said to be now printing at the expense of some of the British societies.

The Maltese is immediately derived from the modern Arabic, without any intervention of the Punic. The island, having been successively subject to the Phœacians, Phœnicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, and Goths, was subdued by the Arabians, in the ninth century; in the eleventh, the Normans conquered it, and it remained united with Sicily, until it became in some measure independent, under the Knights of St John.

8. The LYCIAN is only known from a few short inscriptions, copied by Mr R. Cockerell, and published in Mr Walpole's collection, together with two or three longer ones, which have been lately brought from Antiphellos, by the enterprising and indefatigable

Mr W. J. Bankes. By means of a proper name, in Languages. one of Mr Cockerell's inscriptions, we obtain a part of the alphabet; thus $\backslash dot\{I\}$ is $\backslash Delta$; $\backslash Delta$, $D$; $E$, $I$; $P$, $R$; $S$;

$s$; and probably $\backslash Lambda$, $H$; and $I$, $L$. A further comparison of the different parts of the other inscriptions, with the Greek phrases that almost uniformly accompany them, implying "FOR HIMSELF AND HIS WIFE AND HIS CHILDREN;" gives us the words $\backslash Lambda$, or $\backslash Lambda\backslash dot\{H\}$, himself; $\backslash Delta$, his, or for his, $H\backslash dot\{R\}DI$, or perhaps $H\backslash dot\{R\}OI$, wife; $T\backslash dot\{I\}DAIMI$, son; $T\backslash dot\{I\}DAIMA$, children; and $\backslash Lambda\backslash dot\{T\}BI$, and. It does not appear that any of these words would authorise us to place the Lycian language as a member of the great Indoeuropean class; but it is reported to have been much mixed with Greek, and on account of its geographical situation, it may be allowed to occupy a temporary rank between the principal Oriental and European languages. If it has a shadow of likeness to any other language, it is perhaps to the Cimbrian; and Tidaimi may also possibly be allied to the Greek Titheno, to nurse.

9. Respecting the ancient PHRYGIAN, we have a few traditions only, which at least agree in giving it a high antiquity, as the source of several Greek words. Thus, Plato observes, in his Cratylus, that the terms denoting fire and water are not derived from any other Greek words, but are Phrygian primitives. It seems, however, that water was called Bedi by the Phrygians, and the word resembles the Bada, Bath, of the northern nations, as well as the Vate, water, of the Swedes; Moirai, the fates, derived from the Phrygian, is compared to Meyar, virgins, of the Gothic; and Bek, bread, is as much like our Bake, as like the Albanian Buk, bread.

10. The Greek has no very intimate or general connexion with any of the older languages, which have been preserved entire, although there are a number of particular instances of its resemblance to the Sanscrit, some of which have been already mentioned; it has also many German and Celtic words, some Slavonian, and, as it is said, a few Finnish. It can only have been immediately derived from the language of the neighbouring Thracians and Pelasgians, who seem to have come originally from the middle of Asia, through the countries north of the Black Sea, and to have occupied not only Greece and Thrace, but also the neighbouring parts of Asia Minor, where they probably retained their ancient dialect to a later period than elsewhere. The whole of the Thracian states were greatly deranged by the expedition of the Celts, in 278 B. C., which terminated in their settling the colony of Galatia. The Dacians, or Getae, who principally occupied Bulgaria, extended themselves further northwards, and afterwards constituted the Roman provinces of Moesia and Dacia, which were conquered by the Goths, in the third century. The Macedonians, in the time of Alexander, spoke a language which was nearly unintelligible to the Greeks in general; even the Pelasgi, in Epirus and Thessaly, long retained a dialect materially different from their neighbours; and in Arcadia still longer. The Hellenes, who emigrated from Asia Minor into Greece, were not sufficiently

Languages numerous to carry their own dialect with them, although the language assumed their name. The Graeci in Italy were Pelasgians, although Dionysius of Halicarnassus includes them in the denomination Hellenic; their language must have been Aeolodoric, and it was in this form that the Latin received its mixture of Greek; the Lacedemonian also retained it till a late period, writing, for instance, instead of Pais, Poir, as in Latin Puer. The Aeolic appears once to have extended over Attica, and to have left some Aeolisms in the old Attic dialect. This dialect was the principal basis of the Common language of Greece at a later period, which must have been the most cultivated under the protection of the court of Alexandria, and which continued to be spoken and written in the highest circles of Constantinople throughout the middle ages; by degrees it degenerated into the modern Romaic, having received a mixture of Turkish and Italian, and perhaps of some other neighbouring languages.

11. The GERMAN family is sufficiently connected with a variety of others, belonging to the Indoeuropean class, to be admitted into it upon a very short investigation. Its resemblances to the Greek, within the compass of the Lord's Prayer, besides Father and Name, are Wille, Wollen, Gr. Boule, perhaps Brot or Proat, bread, like Artos, and Freyen or Lösen, like Rhūein and Lūsein. Dr. Jamieson has shown very clearly, in his Hermes Scythicus, how immediately the structure of the Gothic languages is derived from that of the Greeks. Thus the ein of the Greek infinitive became in the Moesogothic an or ian, in German en; the icos of the adjectives, Moesogothic, ags, igs, or eigs, as mahteigs, mighty; Germ. machtig; the Sclavonians have ski, the Swedes ska: the ikos, Lat. enus, Anglosaxon en: the licos, Latin, lis, German lich, English like; thus pelicos is what like, as least in Scotland; the Moesogothic swaleiks is our such; sameleiks is similis. los, lis, lion, of diminutives, in Latin lus, becomes in Moesogothic ilo, as barnilo, a little child; in German männl is a little man. Among the pronouns we have ego in Greek and Latin, Moesogothic ix, Icelandic eg, Swedish jag; emou, mou, Gr., Latin mei, Moesogothic meina, German meiner; emoi, moi; Latin mihi, Moesogothic mis; Swedish mig, Dutch my; eme, me; Latin me, Moesogothic mik, Anglosaxon me, Dutch my. Sü, Doric tū; Latin tū; Moesogothic thu. Is in Latin, Moesogothic is; ijus, Moesogothic is, izos; id, Moesogothic ita, English it; quis, cujus, cui, quem; Moesogothic quhas, quhis, quhe, quhana, the last having the n; as the Greek non; uter, whether; alter, other, seems to be derived from anther, enthera, meaning one of them, so that in this instance the Gothic has the appearance of the greater antiquity, while the Greek affords, on the other hand, an etymology for ekeinos, from ekei, there, which is wanting to the Moesogothic gains or jains, the Alemannic gener, the German jener, and the English yonder or yon. Again, among the numerals, deka has been derived from deo, as if both hands were tied together, and penite has a strong resemblance to panta, as if all the five fingers were reckoned: and on the other hand, da cwig in Gaelic,

meaning twice five, has been considered as the original of DECA. But none of these etymologies seems to be so decisive of originality as that of caterva, which is evidently related to turba or turma; while the first syllable remains unexplained in Latin, but in the Celtic we have cad tarf, or cath tarf, a war troop, agreeing undeniably with the sense. For another example, we may take ventus and wind, for which we find no Latin etymology, while the German furnishes us with wehen to blow, and thence wehend and wind; the words nodus and knot afford also a similar instance, nodus having nothing nearer to it in Latin than neo to spin, necto to unite; but in German we have knüthen to join, and in English knit and knead from the same root. The degrees of comparison are expressed in Greek by eros and istos; in Anglosaxon by er or era, and ist or ast. Er seems to mean before, as well as the Latin or. The Coptic has no comparative, but for better than I, the Egyptians said very good before me. It would seem at first sight natural to make than a preposition, as well as before, and to say better than me; but the fact is that in English, as well as in German, it was usual of old to say then or denn in this sense; and he is wiser than I meant only, he is wise BEFORE, THEN I follow. The idea of time or place is now dropped as unessential to the kind of priority in question, but the ground of the grammatical construction remains unaltered. In Moesogothic the comparative termination is izo or ozo; the superlative ists or ista; thus the Greek MEIZON becomes MEIZO; and MAISTS is obviously MEGISTOS. The old megalos is mikils, mickle or muckle; and minor, minimus, became minnizo, minnists; in Persian mih is great, mihter, greater, mihtras, greatest; better seems to be from the old German bied or bieder, upright, honest, and resembles the Persian BIHTER, better. The Moesogothic verbs have also some striking resemblances in their form to the Latin, thus the present tense of to have is HABA, HABAIS, HABAITH; HABAM, HABAITH, HABAND; HABAIT is HABAIDA; HABENS, HABANDS; HABENTIS, HABANDIS; HABENTEM, HABANDAM; HABENTES, HABANDANS. The substantive verb singular in Greek is EIMI, EIS, ESTI; the plural in Latin SUMUS, ESTIS, SUNT; the Moesogothic has Im, is, ist, sijum, sijuth, sind; and sis is sijais; esse, WISAN. The Moesogothic nouns frequently retain the resemblance of the Greek more strongly than their more modern derivatives; thus a TOOTH does not seem to point very immediately to DENTEM or ODONTA as its source; but the older form TUNTHU is clearly the intermediate stage of this modification; and numberless other instances of the same kind might easily be found.

The Germans were known, as early as the time of Pytheas, that is 320 B. C. as consisting of the Jutes in Denmark, the Teutones on the coast to the east of them, the Ostiacans next, and lastly the Cosini, Cotini, or Goths. Professor Adelung imagines that the eastern nations, or Suevi, employed almost from the earliest times a high German dialect, and the western, or Cimbri, a low German; the Suevi he supposes to have been driven, at a remote period, into the south of Germany by the Sclavonians; and some of the Goths appear to have extended as far as

Languages. the Crimea. The Bible of Ulphilis, in the Gothic or Moesogothic of 360, is the oldest specimen in existence of the German language. Besides the Greek and Latin, which appear to prevail so much in the language, it exhibits a considerable mixture of Slavonian and Finnish; the translation is far more literal than it could be made in any of the more modern dialects of the German; and sometimes appears to follow the text with somewhat too much servility.

The modern German, founded on the higher dialects of Saxony, was fixed and made general by Martin Luther. There are many shades of dialect and pronunciation in the different parts of this diversified country, but none of them of any particular interest, or established by any literary authority. There are still some German colonies, in the territories of Vicenza and Verona, called the Sette Comuni, which retain their language. The German Jews have a peculiar jargon, borrowed in some measure from their brethren in Poland, which they write in Hebrew characters; and another similar mixture of discordant dialects is spoken by the Rothwelsch, a vagabond people in the south of Germany, who have sometimes been confounded with the Gipsies.

The Low Saxon, or Platt Deutsch, is spoken about Halberstadt, and further north, in the countries between the Elbe and the Weser; it seems to be intimately connected with the Frieslandish and Danish, as well as with the English. The Frieslanders originally extended from the Rhine to the Ems, and the Cauchi, thence to the Elbe; these countries still retain a dialect materially varying from those of their neighbours. The Brokmic laws of the thirteenth century exhibit some remarkable differences from the German of the same date: thus we find in them Redieva a judge, or Reeve, instead of Richter; Kenne, kin; and sida, side, as in Swedish, instead of seite. The Batavian Frieslandish approaches very much to the English; it has several subdialects, as those of Molkwer, and Hindelop. Some of the Cauchish Frieslanders remain in the territory of Bremen; the North Frieslanders occupy Heligoland, Husum, and Amröm.

The Dutch language is a mixture of Frieslandish, Low Saxon, and German, with a little French. It appears, from Kolyn's Chronicle, to have been distinctly formed as early as 1156.

The Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family is characterized by the want both of gutturals and of aspirates, which renders its pronunciation softer and less harsh; and by some peculiarities of construction, for instance, by the place of the article, which follows its noun, both in Danish and Swedish, instead of preceding it, as in most other languages. The name of Denmark is first found in the ninth century; until the sixth, the people were called Jutes. Norway, in the ninth century, was termed Nordmanland. A corrupt Norwegian is still, or was lately, spoken in some of the Orkneys, which were long subject to Norway and Denmark. In the eastern parts of Iceland, the language is much like the Norwegian; but, on the coast, it is mixed with Danish. The oldest specimen of Icelandic is the Jus Ecclesiasticum of 1123. The term Runic relates to the rectilinear

characters cut in wood, which were sometimes used by the Scandinavian nations. The Swedes are derived from a mixture of Scandinavians with Goths from Upper Germany; but their language does not exhibit any dialectic differences corresponding to this difference of extraction. Mr Townsend has given us a list, from Peringskiold, of 670 Swedish words, resembling the Greek; but it must be confessed that the resemblance is in many cases extremely slight.

Languages. The Saxons are mentioned by Ptolemy as a small nation in Holstein; whence, in conjunction with the Frieslanders, and the Angles of South Jutland, they came over to England, about the year 450. The Saxons settled principally south of the Thames, the Angles north. At the union of the Heptarchy, the Saxon dialect prevailed, and the English, which nearly resembled the Danish of that time, was less in use; but new swarms of Danes having inundated the north of England, in 787, the Danish dialect was introduced by Canute and his followers; and it is about this period that our earliest specimens of the Anglosaxon are dated. The Saxon dialect again obtained the ascendancy under Edward the Confessor; and although some French was introduced by this prince, and still more by William the Conqueror, into the higher circles of society, the courts of law, and the schools, yet the use of the French language never became general among the lower classes, and the Saxon recovered much of its currency in the thirteenth century, when the cities and corporate towns rose into importance, under Edward the First; in the fourteenth century, it was permanently established, with the modifications which it had received from the French; and it may be considered as truly English from this period, or even somewhat earlier, at least if Pope Adrian's rhymes are the genuine production of 1156. It is still much more German than French; in the Lord's Prayer, the only words of Latin origin are Trespas, Temptation, and Deliver. Professor Adelung's remarks, on the simplicity of the English language, appear to be so judicious as to deserve transcribing. "The language," he observes "only received its final cultivation at the time of the Reformation, and of the civil disturbances which followed that event; nor did it acquire its last polish till after the Revolution, when the authors who employed it elevated it to that high degree of excellence, of which, from its great copiousness, and the remarkable simplicity of its construction, it was peculiarly capable. It is the most simple of all the European languages; the terminations of its substantives being only changed in the genitive and in the plural, and the alterations of the roots of the verbs not exceeding six or seven. This simplicity depends in some measure on a philosophical accuracy, which is carried systematically through the whole language, so that the adjectives, participles, and article, are indeclinable, being in their nature destitute of any idea of gender, case, or number; and the form of generic distinction is [almost entirely] confined to objects which are naturally entitled to it. The pronunciation, on the other hand, is extremely intricate, and foreign proper names, in particular, are much mutilated, whenever they are adopted by the English."

12. The CELTIC family forms a very extensive and

Languages, very interesting subdivision of the Indoeuropean class. It has been asserted, by some writers, "that the six original European languages, the Iberian, Celtic, Germanic, Thracian, Sclavonian, and Finnish, were just as distinct as the beginning of their history as they now are;" but this assertion must be subjected to considerable modification; the thing is in itself so improbable, as to require far more evidence than we possess to establish it, even if that evidence were of a more decisive nature; and, in fact, it will actually be found, upon a comparison of the Gothic of Ulphila with the more modern dialects, that the Germanic of that day did approach more nearly, both to the Celtic and to the Thracian or Greek, than any of its more modern descendants do. The change of TUNTHU into TOOTH, for which the Germans have ZAHN, has already been noticed; the ATTA and HIMINA of Ulphila seem to be more like the Irish at and neamh, than the modern Vater and Himmel are; and the Moesogothic VAIR, which answers to the Cimbrian PEAR, a man, is not at present found in German, though its traces may still be observed in the Firibarno of the Franks, in 1020; the antiquity of the root is shown by the Celtic names in Cæsar beginning so often with VER, and still more strongly by the testimony of Herodotus, that the Scythian called a man ΑΙΟΡ. At the same time, therefore, that we admit the propriety of considering the Celtic and Germanic as families clearly distinct, with respect to any period with which we are historically acquainted, we must not forget that they exhibit undeniable traces of having been more intimately connected with each other, and with their neighbours, in the earlier stages of their existence. The resemblances of the Celtic to the Latin are too numerous to require particular notice, the immediate and extensive connexion between these languages being universally admitted; but if any evidence were desired on this subject, it might be obtained in abundance, by a reference to Court de Gebelin's Monde Primitif. With respect to the Greek, the terms Hael, sun; Dur, water; Deru, oak; Garan, crane; Crunn, ice, are among the Celtic words of the most indisputable originality, and their resemblance to Helios, Hüdor, Drüs, Geranos, and Criüoen, is equally undeniable. We find, also, in the Cimbrian, Bas, low, connected with Bathüs, Bara, bread, perhaps with Bora, food; Deyrnas, kingdom, with Türannis; Dyro, give, with Doreue; and Gogorian, glory, perhaps with Gau-riaon, exulting. With the German it is easy to find a number of very near approaches to identity, even in that Celtic, which can be proved, principally from the etymologies of proper names, to be prior to the date of any known or supposed secondary intercourse or mixture of the natives concerned; thus we have, either accurately or very nearly in the same signification, Ap, Affe, or Ape; Barra, Barre; Bleun, Blume; Bolgan, Balge; Brig, Berg; Brogil, Brühl; Carra, Karre; Doga, Teich; Galb, Kalb; Garan, Kranich; Gnabat, Knabe; Lancea, Lanze; Marc, Mähre; Marga, Märgel; Redya, Reiten; Rit, or Rat, Rad; and Ur, Auer; and it is impossible to suppose that so numerous a series of coincidences can have been derived from accidental causes only.

The Celts may be imagined to have emigrated

from Asia after the Iberians, or Cantabrians, and before the Thracians, or Pelasgians, settling principally in Gaul, and spreading partly into Italy, under the name of Ausonians and Umbrians. In 570 B. C., they undertook expeditions, for the purposes of conquest, but they were subdued by the Romans. Their language was current in Gaul till the sixth or seventh century, when it was superseded by the rustic Roman, which by degrees became French: in Ireland and Scotland, it has remained with few alterations; in Wales and Brittany, it has been more mixed. The Gauls must have peopled Britain at least as early as 500 B. C. The true ancient Britons are the Highlanders of Scotland only, having been driven northwards by the Cimbri; they still call their language Gaelic. The Irish are probably derived from these Highlanders; they were originally termed Scots or Scuits, that is, fugitives, from the circumstance of their expulsion from Britain; so that, where the Scots are mentioned before the tenth century, as by Porphyry, in the third, we are to understand the Irish. Gildas, in 564, sometimes calls them Scotch, and sometimes Irish. After the retreat of the Romans from Britain, a part of them re-entered Scotland, about the year 503, and changed its name from Caledonia to Scotia Minor. In 432, St Patrick laid the foundation of the civilisation of Ireland; and, in the seventh century, several Irish priests undertook missions to the continent. At the beginning of this century, some Scandinavian freebooters had begun to visit Ireland; and, in the year 835, they formed large colonies of emigrants, who established themselves firmly in that country, and in the Scottish Islands, bringing with them many Gothic words, which became afterwards mixed with the Celtic, and which seem to constitute about one fifth part of the modern Irish and Gaelic, 140 Gothic words being found under the first six letters of the alphabet only. Some of these Normen remained distinct from the Irish till the year 1102. The oldest specimens of the Irish language, admitted by the continental critics to be authentic, are of the ninth century; though some of our antiquaries have imagined they have discovered records of a much earlier date. The Gaelic of the Isle of Man is mixed with Norwegian, English, and Welsh. A Gaelic colony, formerly established at Walden, in Essex, has been placed by Chamberlayne in Italy, as a nation of Waldenses.

The Cimbrian or Celtogermanic language was remarked by Cæsar as differing from the Gallic, although the distinction has not always been sufficiently observed. The Cimbrians seem to have existed as a nation 500 or 600 years B. C.; the Gauls called them Belgæ; they invaded Britain a little before Cæsar's time, and drove the ancient inhabitants into the Highlands and into Ireland. Having called the Saxons to their assistance against the Scots and Picts in the fifth century, they were driven by their new allies into Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. Their language is remarkable for the frequent changes of the initial letters of its radical words, in the formation of cases and numbers; thus from Den, a man, in Britannish, is derived the plural Tud; from Vreg, a woman, Groages. Almost half of the

Languages. Welsh language seems to be German, and half of the remainder is perhaps Latin or Celtic; of the Brittonic about half resembles the Latin or French. Brittany was originally inhabited by the Armoricans; whether they were properly Belgae or Gauls is uncertain; the country was named Britannia Minor from the emigration of the British in 449; these new comers mixed with the original inhabitants, all speaking the same language, and in a few years became so numerous, as to be able to send an army of 12,000 men to the assistance of the Emperor Anthemius.

Professor Adelung is disposed to consider the German portion of the different branches of the Celtic, which varies from one fifth to one half of the whole language, as an accidental mixture, and derived through different channels. But we cannot in all cases find any historical evidence of the existence of these channels; it is difficult, for example, to suppose that the Scandinavian incursions were able at any early period to influence the language of the Highlands of Scotland; and wherever it happens, as it frequently does, that no term is to be found, in the Irish, the Gaelic, or the Welsh, for expressing the same idea, besides the word that they all have in common with the German, it is scarcely possible to believe that there ever was any other Celtic word, which has been so uniformly superseded by independent causes. We find, for instance, under the two first letters of the alphabet only, the words Ap, or Apa in Irish, Ap in Welsh, Affe or Ape in Gothic; again Abal, Afal, Apfel; Angar, Aneang, Enge; Bacail, Bach, Backen; Barrad, Barr, Bare; Beoir, Bir, Bier; Biall, Breall, Beil; Bocan, Bach, Bock, Brathair, Brawd, Bruder; Bul, Bula, Bulle; and the same agreement is found in almost all other instances of German words that are detected in the Irish language.

The much disputed question, respecting the antiquity of the poems attributed to Ossian, has an immediate reference to the history of the Celtic languages. It has been observed with apparent justice, by Professor Adelung, who is not in general sceptical on such occasions, that if these poems were really very ancient, their language could not but exhibit marks of antiquity; there is an Irish Leavre Lecan, at Paris, written in the thirteenth century, and scarcely intelligible to the best Irish scholars of the present day; the oldest Gaelic manuscripts have also peculiar expressions no longer in use; while the works, supposed to be the productions of a period so much more remote, are found to be in "excellent modern Gaelic, impressed with all the marks of the language of Christianity, and of that of the Norwegian invaders, whether these conquerors may be supposed to have influenced the Gaelic language immediately in Scotland, or by the intervention of Ireland." It must not, however, be forgotten that these marks of Scandinavian intercourse are somewhat more ambiguous than Professor Adelung is disposed to admit; and that a book written in the thirteenth century is more likely to have preserved the language in an antiquated form, than poems so marvellously committed to memory from continual recitation only, by people supposed to understand

them, and of course imperceptibly modifying the expressions without intending to alter them. But since an invasion from Lochlin, that is, Denmark or Norway, is actually mentioned in "Fingal," the author of the poem could certainly not have been older than the seventh or eighth century, if we are to credit the historical accounts of these invasions; and since in the poems discovered by Dr. Matthew Young, St. Patrick is introduced discoursing with Ossian respecting the Christian religion, we have an additional argument for denying that he was contemporary with Caracalla or Carausius; these Emperors having both lived in the third century, and St. Patrick in the fifth.

14. The ETRUSCAN is only known as the immediate parent of the Latin, but it was written in a character totally different, and was read from right to left. Notwithstanding the industry and ingenuity of Lanzi, the evidence of the accuracy of his interpretations is somewhat imperfect. We should naturally have expected to find more words of a Celtic or Gothic origin, and not merely Greek or Latin words, with the terminations a little varied, as Ustite for Ustura, Tribo for Tribus, and Urte or Urta for Heorte; still less should we have expected that the same sense should be expressed sometimes by a Greek, and sometimes by a Latin word, as Urtu and Puni for Bread, Capros and Feres for a Boar. The Etrurians and Umbrians were originally a branch of the Celts, from Rætia, as is shown by the similarity of the names of places in those countries, as well as by the remains of Etruscan art found in that part of the Tyrol; they are supposed to have entered Italy through Trent, about the year 1000 B. C., and to have afterwards improved their taste and workmanship under the auspices of Demaratus of Corinth, who settled in Etruria about 660 B. C.

15. The LATIN language is placed at the head of a family, rather with regard to the number of its descendants, than to the independence of its origin, being too evidently derived from the Celtic, mixed with Greek, to require particular comparison. The first inhabitants of Italy appear to have been Illyrians or Thracians, Cantabrians, Celts, Pelasgians, and Etrurians. Rome, from its situation, would naturally acquire much of the languages of these various nations, and at the same time much of the Greek from the colonies in the south of Italy. In the time of Cicero, the Italian songs, supposed to be about 500 years old, were no longer intelligible, even to those who sang them. We find, in an inscription still more ancient, and approaching to the time of Romulus, Lases for Lares; and for Flores, Pleores, which is somewhat nearer to the Celtic Blean; in the time of Numa, for Hominem liberum, we have Hemonem lebesom; we find, also, a p added to the oblique cases, as Capiled for Capite, which, as well as the termination ai, in the genitive aulai, pennai, is taken immediately from the Celtic, and is even found in modern Gaelic.

The Latin remained in perfection but a few centuries; in the middle ages, a number of barbarous words were added to it, principally of Celtic origin, which are found in the glossaries of Dufresne and Charpentier. At the end of the seventh century, it

Languages began to acquire the character of Italian, as Campo divisum est; and, in the eighth century, in Spain, we find, as an example of its incipient conversion into Spanish, Vendant sine pecho, de nostras terras. The formation of the Italian language may be said to have been completed by Dante, in the beginning of the fourteenth century; and it was still further polished by the classical authors who immediately succeeded him. It contains many German words, derived from the different nations who occupied in succession the northern parts of Italy, and some Arabic, Norman, and Spanish, left by occasional visitors in the south. It is spoken by the common people in very different degrees of purity. Among the northern dialects, that of Friuli is mixed with French, and with some Sclavonian. The Sicilians, having been conquered in succession by the Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Germans, French, and Spaniards, have retained something of the language of each. Sardinia has given shelter to Iberians, Libyans, Tyrrhenes, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Goths, Lombards, Franks, Arabs, Pisans, and Arragonians; and the proper Sardinian language is a mixture of Latin with Greek, French, German, and Castilian. Corsica has also been occupied by a similar diversity of nations; its peculiar idiom is little known; but the dialect of the upper classes is said to approach nearly to the Tuscan.

Spain, after its complete subjugation by the Romans, enjoyed some centuries of tranquillity. The Vandals and Alans retained their power in Spain but for a short time; the Suevi, on the north coast, somewhat longer; and, from these nations, the rustic Roman, which had become general in Spain, received some words of German origin; it derived, however, much more from the Arabic, during the domination of the Moors, which lasted from the beginning of the eighth century to the end of the fifteenth; and, at one time, the Arabic was almost universally employed throughout the country, except in the churches. The Spanish language advanced the most rapidly toward perfection during the height of the national prosperity, which immediately followed the conquest of America; it was afterwards neglected, and again more particularly cultivated by the Academy of Madrid, in the eighteenth century; as far, at least, as an Academy can be supposed to have any influence in the modifications of a language.

The Portuguese is supposed to have received a mixture of French from the followers of Count Henry of Burgundy, under whom Portugal first formed a separate state, in 1109; but the language is very different from that of the confines of France and Spain; and the nasal vowels, which are remarkable in the Portuguese, differ materially from those of the French, or of any other nation. Many Latin words are retained in the Portuguese, which are not found in any other modern language; and it is remarkable that almost all the words of the language are contracted, by the omission of some of the radical letters of the originals.

The Rhætians, in the country of the Grisons, were subdued by the Romans in the time of Augustus.

They became part of the Alemannish kingdom, under Theodobert, in 539; their union with Switzerland took place in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Half of the Grisons speak the Romanish language, immediately derived from the Latin, though mixed with some German, which has been particularly made known by Mr Planta's account of it, in the Philosophical Transactions. One third speak German, with some mixture of Romanish words, and the rest a bad Italian.

France, in the time of the Romans, was occupied by the Gauls, together with the Aquitanians, who were probably Cantabrians, and the Cimbrians or Belgians. From the rustic Roman, mixed with the languages of these nations, the Romance was gradually formed. In the fifth century, the Franks took possession of the north-eastern part of the country; they retained their language for some centuries, but by degrees it became mixed with the Romance, and formed French, of which at least one fifth is supposed to be of German origin; though many of the German words seem to have been admitted through the medium of the Italian. In the south of France, the language remained more exempt from the influence of the German, under the name of the Provençal; and the troubadours contributed, especially from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, to give it refinement and currency; but, in later times, the Langue d'oui has prevailed over the Langue d'oc, which is now spoken by a few of the lowest class only.

The last and least genuine of the descendants of the Latin is the Wallachian, about one half of which is borrowed from the German, Sclavonian, and Turkish. The original Thracians of the country must have been in a great measure superseded by the successive settlements of various nations; in the third century, some of the Goths and Vandals; in the fourth, the Jazyges, after Attila's death; in the fifth, some Huns and Alans; about the end of the seventh, the Bulgarians, and afterwards the Petschenegs and Hungarians established themselves in it; and, in the thirteenth century, Wallachia became an independent state. The Latin part of this language has much of the Italian form, and had even assumed it as early as the fifth century. It must have been derived from Roman colonies, and more lately, perhaps, from the missionaries sent into the country by Pope Gregory XI. The Dacian or Hungarian dialect prevails on the north of the Danube; the Thracian, or Cutzowallachian, on the south; the latter is more mixed with Greek and Albanian. There is also a small Wallachian colony in Transylvania.

The Cantabrian or Biscayan has many words in common with the Latin, whether originally or by adoption, and was probably in some measure connected with the Celtic dialects, which were the immediate predecessors of the Latin, though still sufficiently distinct from them. The Cantabrian Aita, Father, has some resemblance to the Irish A'tair, and the Moesogothic Atta; Seru is not wholly unlike Coelum; Ereenjaa, Regnum; and Borondatia, Voluntas; the coincidence of Gun, Day, with the Tartarian, is perhaps more accidental. But the word Lurre, Earth, which seems at first sight so unlike any

Languages. other language, is in all probability the derivative of Tellure; and this form of the word affords, also, a connecting link with the Irish Talu, and may have been contracted into the more common Latin word Terra; a supposition which seems to lessen the probability of the original connection of this form of the word with the Greek Era, and the Sanscrit Stira. The Biscayan is still spoken in the angles of France and Spain, adjoining to the northern extremity of the Pyrenees. The same people were called Cantabrians in the north, and Iberians in the south, and extended between the Pyrenees and the Rhine, as Ligurians, or inhabitants of the coast. They have adopted a few German words, perhaps from the empire of the west Goths; and they have furnished the modern Spanish with more than a hundred original words of their own. The construction of the language is extremely intricate; its verbs have eleven moods, among which are a consuetudinary, a voluntary, a compulsory, and a penitentiary. Larramendi's Grammar, published at Salamanca in 1729, is called El Imposible Vencido. A valuable abstract of the most interesting particulars relating to the language is found in the Additions to the Mithridates, by the Baron William von Humboldt, late Prussian Ambassador to the Court of Great Britain, printed at Berlin, 1816. Dr Young has lately remarked, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1819, that at least six of the words contained in Humboldt's vocabulary coincide very accurately with the Coptic, or ancient Egyptian, though they are not found in any of the languages of the neighbouring countries; and he infers that the chances are "more than a thousand to one, that, at some very remote period, an Egyptian colony established itself in Spain." It may be observed, that one of these words, guchi, little, appears to be also Turkish or Tartarian; so that it becomes a second instance of a coincidence between this language and the Cantabrian.

16. The connexion of the Sclavonian and Lithuanian, and of the other branches constituting the SCLAVIC family, with the languages of the Indoeuropean class in general, is sufficiently established, without exceeding the limits of the Lord's Prayer, by the resemblance of Nebi or Nebesi to the Cimbrian Nefoedd, and the Greek Nephos, and of Wolja and Chleb to the Gothic Wilja and Hlaif. The Sclavonians are the descendants of the ancient Sarmatians, who were situated north of the Black Sea and of the Danube. They were conquered by the Goths, and then driven by the Tartars and Huns into the north-east of Germany, and the neighbouring countries. Procopius calls them Spori, and divides them into the Sclavi and the Antes, the latter, perhaps, the same as the Wends. They formed, at an early period, two principal states, Great Russia, about Novogorod, and Little Russia, on the Dnieper, its capital being Kiew. The Russi were a Scandinavian branch, under Rurik, to whom the Sclavonians of the former state submitted in 862, whence they were called Russians; and Rurik's successor, Oleg, conquered Kiew. After several vicissitudes, the Russians were liberated by Iwan Wasiliewitch, at the end of the fifteenth century; and this period was the

beginning of their greatness. Their language has some mixture of Greek, Finnish, Swedish, Tartarian, and Mongol. The ecclesiastical dialect was uniformly retained in all literary works, in the former part of the last century, but now the language of conversation is generally adopted in writing. This language is more immediately derived from that of Great Russia; that of the church, which is called the Slawenish, rather from Little Russia, and especially from the dialect of Servia. The Malorussian dialect is somewhat mixed with the Polish, and is spoken in Ukrain and Little Russia; the Susdalian is mixed with Greek and other languages, and is spoken in Thrace.

In 640, the Sclavonians took possession of Illyria, which before that time had been overrun by a variety of other nations, and they still retain it, under the names of Servians, Croatians, and Southern Wends. The Servians are supposed to have come from Great Servia, now East Galicia, on the Upper Vistula; the Croatians from Great Chrobatica, probably situated on the Carpathian mountains. Cyril first adapted the Greek alphabet to the Sclavonian language in Pannonia; his letters were afterwards a little altered, and attributed to St Jerom, in order to reconcile the people to their use, and in this form they are termed Glagolitic characters. The Servian dialect is intermediate between the Russian and the Croatian. The Bulgarians speak a corrupt Sclavonian, which Boscovich, from Ragusa, could scarcely understand. The Uskoks are a wild race of the Bulgarians extending into Carniola, and speaking a mixed language. The dialect of Slavonia and Dalmatia is nearly the same as that of Servia and Bosnia; the churches use the ecclesiastical language of Russia. In Ragusa, the orthography approaches, in some measure, to the Italian. The Servian is also imperfectly spoken by a small colony in Transylvania. The southern Wends were first distinguished in 630, and were probably so named, like the Veneti, from being settled on the shores of the Adriatic, the word Wend or Wand meaning Sea. They are now mixed with Germans in Carniola, Carinthia, and Lower Styria. In Hungary, there is a small colony, who call themselves Slowens, and speak the Wendish dialect of the Sclavonian. The western Sclavonians, or the proper Sclavi, write their language in the Roman characters; but the specimens, copied from Adelung, are accommodated in their orthography to the German mode of pronunciation.

The Poles probably came with the Russians from the Danube into the countries abandoned by the Goths; the name Pole implies an inhabitant of plains. Their language was partly superseded by the Latin in the tenth century, when they received the rites of the Latin church; but it has in later times been more cultivated. The Cassubians, or Kashubians, in Pomerania, speak a Polish mixed with a little German. In Silesia, the names of places in the plains are Sclavonian; in the hills, more lately occupied, German; but German has been the language of Breslau ever since the year 1300.

The Bohemians emigrated, with the Moravians and Slowaks, into their present habitations, about the middle of the sixth century, after the destruc-

Languages. tion of the kingdom of Thuringia by the Franks and Saxons. There is a Bohemian hymn of the date 990, and a chronicle in rhyme, of 1310. One third of the Bohemians are of German origin, and speak a corrupt German.

The Serbs, or Wends, came about the same time into the countries between the Saal and the Oder, from the neighbourhood of the Volga or the Crimea; a few of them are still left in Lusatia, under the name of Wends or Sclavonians, and some in Misnia. In Pomerania the Wendish became extinct about 1400; but the Polabes in Lüneburg, on the Leyne, kept up till lately a language consisting of a mixture of Wendish and German. The Sorabic of the Russian vocabulary seems to be the same with this Serbian.

Of the Lithuanian or Lettish language, two thirds are Sclavonian, the rest is principally German. When the Goths had removed from the Baltic towards the Black Sea, their neighbours the Aestii remained for some hundred years independent, till in the sixth century the Sclavonians incorporated themselves with them, and formed the Lettish people and language. The Old Prussian was spoken, at the time of the Reformation, in Samland and its neighbourhood, but it is now lost; it contained more German than the other Lithuanian dialects. The Prussian Lithuanian is spoken from the Inster to Memel, especially in Insterburg. The Polish Lithuanian, in Samogitia, has a little mixture of Polish. The proper Lettish is current in Lettland and Courland; it is purest about Mittau and Riga; the old Courlanders having been Fins, this dialect has received a little Finnish from them. The Crievian is another dialect, spoken by the Krewins in Courland.

17. The Tshudish or Finnish, the Hungarian, and the Albanian languages, have some traits of resemblance to each other; they are placed as forming the Sporadic or scattered order of the great Tartaric or Asiatic class, being in some measure geographically detached from the rest, and scattered through different parts of Europe: they immediately follow the Indoeuropean class, as exhibiting an occasional resemblance to some of the languages contained in it, though not enough to make it certain that the connexion is essential or original; thus the Finnish is said to have some coincidences with the Greek, the Laplandish with the Hebrew, the Hungarian with the Finnish, and the Albanian with all its neighbours.

The term Tshudish is employed as comprehending the Fins, Laplanders, Estonians, and Livonians; a race of people of unknown origin; but in all probability unconnected with the Huns or Mongols. Their languages are remarkable for the great complexity of their structure; their nouns, for example, having from ten to fifteen cases, among which are reckoned, in the Finnish, a nuncupative, a conditional accusative, a factitive, a mediative, a descriptive, a penetrative, a locative, a privative, and a negative. The Estonian has less direct variety of termination, but several intricate combinations. There is also a great multiplicity of dialects, partly from a mixture of Scandinavian, and partly from other causes; in

Languages. Lapland almost every church has a peculiar version of the service kept for its use. The Finnish is intermediate between the Laplandish and the Esthonian. The Esthonians are the Aestii of the Romans, the name implying Easterly, and being appropriate to the country, and not to the people. The principal dialects of their language are those of Revall and of Dorpat; some authors also consider the dialect of the Krewins in Courland as belonging to it. The Livonian is much mixed with other languages, and has been almost superseded by the Lettish. Among the Laplandish words, which Rudbeck has derived from the Hebrew, we find Adhame, Earth, like the Hebrew Adamah; Hadas, New, H. Khadesh; Hadshe, the Moon, H. Hhadesh; Jed, the Hand, H. Id; Ise, Man, H. Ish; Pothi, persuaded, H. Patheh; Saedke, law, H. Tzedek; and Safothi, rested, H. Sabbath. In the Finnish, Kana is something like the English and German Hen.

18. The Hungarians inhabited in the fourth century the country of the Bashkirs, between the Tobol, the Volga, and the Jaik, perhaps as colonists, since their name signifies strangers; their language was spoken in this neighbourhood as late as the thirteenth century; in the sixth they were conquered by some of their Turkish neighbours; in the end of the ninth they were forced by the Petschenegers, a Tartarian nation, to remove nearer to the Carpathian mountains. They were then engaged in the German wars, and their country having been occupied during their absence by the Bulgarians, they took possession of the Bulgarian kingdom on the Theiss, as well as of Pannonia. Their language is somewhat like the Finnish, but the people are very different from the Fins in appearance; which might indeed be the effect of a difference of climate; but in fact the language appears to be still more like the Sclavonian, with a mixture of a multitude of others; it has some words from various Tartarian dialects, German, French, Latin, Armenian, Hebrew, Persian, and Arabic; but it has no traces of the Mongol, nor is it possible that the people can be descendants of the Huns, whose character and cast of features can never be eradicated. The word Coach, so general in Europe, is originally Hungarian, having been derived from the town of Kots, where coaches are said to have been invented. The Szecklers, in Transylvania, speak a language like the Hungarian; it is uncertain whether they are a Hungarian colony, or remains of the Petschenegers; but, however this may be, there is little doubt that the Hungarians are principally of Tartarian extraction, though much mixed with other nations.

19. The Albanians speak a language, of which a considerable portion is Greek, Latin, German, Sclavonian, or Turkish; but the rest seems to be perfectly distinct from any other language with which we are acquainted. They are probably connected with the Albanians between Mount Caucasus and the river Cyrus, who are supposed to be derived from the Alani; some of them seem to have entered Bulgaria as late as 1308. In 1461, many of them fled from the Turks to Italy and Sicily, where they still exist near Reggio and Messina. The Clemen-

Languages. tines are an Albanian colony, who followed the Austrian army in 1737; such of them as escaped from the pursuit of the Turks established themselves in Syria.

20. The languages referred to the Caucasian order have little to distinguish them from the rest of the class, except their geographical situation, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Caucasian mountains. They have a general resemblance to some others of the languages of Northern Asia, and particularly to the Samojedic dialects, spoken on the mountains between Siberia and the Mongols. Except the Armenian and Georgian, they are scarcely ever employed in writing; and principally, perhaps, from this cause, they exhibit as great a diversity in the space of a few square miles, as those of many other nations do in as many thousands. It is only conjectured that most of the inhabitants of these countries are derived from the miscellaneous fragments of expeditions of various nations, left behind in their passage through them at different periods.

The connexion of the Armenian with the Sanskrit and the Persian is just enough to make it equally possible, that the coincidences may have been derived from a common parent, or that one language may have simply borrowed detached words from the other. We find, in different parts of Mr Townsend's work, about ten Armenian words resembling some other language; these are, Air, a man, Air, Irish; Atamn, a tooth, Odonta, Greek; Chuerk, four, Chatur, Sanscrit; Dor, a door; E, is, Est, Latin; Es, I, Iaze, Russian; Gas, a goose, Gans, German; House, a house; Lakeil, to lick, Leichein, Greek; and Sirt, the heart. Nothing is known of the history of the Armenian before the time of Miesrob, who translated the Bible into it, in 405; the historian Moses, of Chorene, was his pupil. The language flourished till the year 800, and is still preserved in tolerable purity, in the cloisters. The common people speak a dialect more corrupt and mixed. The Fathers of the Armenian convent at Venice have been very laudably employed in the improvement of the literature of their nation, by the publication of several very elegant editions of Armenian books, which have been executed at their press; in particular, of an Armenian translation of Eusebius, containing some passages which are not extant in Greek, and said to have been copied from a manuscript of great antiquity at Constantinople; it is, however, very remarkable, that, as they candidly confess, the copy, when first received by them, contained the corrections and additions of Scaliger, in conformity with the text of the printed Greek edition, and the copyist, when questioned, asserted that he had merely translated and inserted passages of his own accord, and in silence, in order to make the work more perfect. Still the Armenian Eusebius is a very handsome book, and every way calculated to do credit to the Venetian editors and their patrons; a Latin translation of it only has been published by Angelo Mai at Milan.

21. The Georgians are supposed to have derived their name from the river Cyrus or Gur, and to have extended formerly to Colchis, under the denomination of Iberians. Moses of Chorene, in the fifth century,

mentions the Georgian translation of the Bible. The Languages. old language is still preserved in the churches, and the common dialect of the country is derived from it, together with the Kartuelish, Imirettish, Mingrelish, and Suanetish, which are varieties of that dialect; the Tushetish is mixed with some Kistic. The Georgians have no fewer than thirty seven letters, and among them a variety of aspirates and sibilants, of no very agreeable sounds.

22. The ABASSIC nations seem to be the oldest inhabitants of the Caucasian country; (23.) the CIRCASSIANS are situated to the east of them, on the promontory of North Caucasus; (24.) the OSSETES, on the left of the Terek, north of the mountain; the dialect of the Dugors is scarcely distinguishable from this: (25.) the KISTIC, spoken by the Ingushans, and their neighbours, at the head of the Terek, is connected with the Tushetic Georgian. 26. The LESGIANS, east of Caucasus, on the Caspian Sea, have a number of distinct dialects, or rather languages; thus, the Chunsag, and Avaric, the Dido, the Kasi Kumuk, the Andi, and the Akushan, have little connexion with each other, except that the Dido somewhat resembles the Chunsag, of which the Avaric, the Autzug, and the Dzhar, seem to be subordinate dialects. The Kasi Kumuk appears to have adopted some words of the Armenian, and the Andi and Akushan of the Georgian. The dialect of Kubesh resembles that of Akusha, and retains no traces of a supposed European origin.

27. The languages of the central and elevated parts of Asia are comprehended in the order Tartarian; they extend from the Caspian Sea to the mouth of the Amur, through countries which have been, in former ages, the constant scenes of emigration and barbarism. The Turcotartarians are supposed to correspond to the descendants of the Magog of the Scriptures, and to some of the Scythians of the Greeks. The Turks of Turkestan seem to have been the Massagetæ and Chorasmii of the ancients; their country extended North of Persia and Tibet, from the Caspian to the Altaic mountains. In the twelfth century, they were brilliant and victorious; at present, a few of their descendants only are left in the neighbourhood of the Mongols, and their language is no longer spoken; the Turcomans, scattered in Persia and Arabia, are derived from the same race. The Osmans, now commonly called Turks, left Turkestan in 545, and succeeded in the conquest of Persia. They were denominated Osmans, from one of their leaders, in the fourteenth century; their language has been much mixed with Arabic and Persian. This language, with the neighbouring dialects, has been considered in the table as belonging to a family called Caspian, the word Tartarian having been previously applied to the whole order; several of these dialects exhibit a mixture of words from the language of the Mongols, which, as well as the Calmuk, has a sufficient connexion with them to be arranged as belonging to the same Turcotartarian family: it would, perhaps, be equally correct to consider some of them rather as distinct languages than as dialects of a single one; but it is not easy to discriminate those which are entitled to this rank; and, on the other hand, some specimens have been admitted, from the Comparative Voca-

Language. bularies, which scarcely deserved to be noticed as separate dialects. The Bucharians are situated between the Oxus and Jaxartes, on the river Koly; they still retain some traces of a superior degree of civilization, by which they were once distinguished; their language is little known, but it seems to be at least as much connected with the Median and Arabian families as with the Caspian. The Tartars were described by the terms Scythians, Bulgarians, Avari, and other appellations, before they were conquered and united by Genghizkhan the Mongol; in the year 1552, they became subject to the Russians. The most westerly are, the Nogaic or Nagaic, and Crimean Tartars; their language is much like the Turkish, but mixed with some Mongol. Those of Cumania in Hungary have now forgotten their original language, and speak the Hungarian; the last person who understood the Cumanian having died in 1770; they entered Hungary in 1086, and became Christians in 1410. The Tartarian, or rather Caspian, is spoken in great purity about Kasan; a dialect somewhat different in Orenburg; and another by the Kirgishes, who occupy part of the ancient Turkestan. "Among the Siberian Tartars, the remains of the kingdom of Turan, some are Mahometans; others, as the Turalinzie villagers, have been made Christians; at least, the Archbishop Philophei performed the ceremony of baptizing them, by ordering his dragoons to drive them in a body into the river." The inhabitants of the banks of the Tara, a branch of the Irtish, are said to be derived from the Bucharians. The Tshulimic Tartars enjoy the same advantage as the Turalinzie, and are considered as Christians by the Russians. The Teleutes, in Sonjor, are heathens, nearly like the Shamanites of India. The Jakuts extend along the Lena to the sea; their language contains some Mantshuric and some Tungusic; that of the Tshuwashes, on the Volga, is said to have been once completely distinct from the Tartarian or Caspian, and even at present, though more mixed with it, may require to be classed as forming a separate species.

The Mongols are marked by their features as a race very different from the other Tartars; the character of their countenance seems to be easily propagated from father to son, and never to be completely effaced; their original habitation appears to have been in the neighbourhood of the Altaic mountains. The description of the Huns, found in Ammian, Procopius, and others, agrees exactly with the present Mongols, whom the Chinese still call Kiong nu; and more particularly with the Calmucks: the proper names of the Huns are also found to be explicable from the Mongol language. In the first century they were driven westwards by the Chinese: under Attila they penetrated into the middle of Europe; and they were little less successful at subsequent periods, under Genghizkhan and Timur Leng. When they were expelled from China, after having held it in subjection for more than a century, they carried back no civilization with them; nor was either of the languages permanently affected by this temporary mixture of the nations, although the physiognomy of the Chinese bears ample testimony of its having once existed. The construction of their

language seems to be very indirect and figurative. Language. Mr Townsend has copied from General Vallancey a long list of words, in Strahlenberg's Mongol Vocabulary, which agree very remarkably with the Irish; among these we find Are and Ere, man, Irish Ar, Air, Fear; Arul, a spindle, Irish Oirle; Alemamodo, an apple tree, Irish Ankhaluhaide; Asoc, to ask, Irish Ascadh; Baichu, I live long, Irish Baoth, long life; Bugu, a buck, Irish Boc, a he goat; Choy a ewe, Irish Choi; and Choraga a lamb, Irish Caorog; without going any further in the alphabet. The last two instances are very striking, and seem to point very strongly at the part of the east from which the Celts may be supposed to have originally emigrated. The Calmuck dialect is somewhat mixed with the neighbouring Tartarian. The Tagurians, or Daurians, between the lake Baikal and the Mongol hills, are said to be of Mantshuric origin; but their language evidently resembles the Calmuck. The Burattish is from the Russian vocabularies.

28. The Mantshurians are sometimes improperly called Eastern Mongols; they are subjects of the empire of China. Their language is rude, and not much like the Chinese, though evidently derived from the monosyllabic class; it has some few words in common with the European languages, as Kiri, patient; Kirre, German, Cicur, Latin, tame; Euru, Euror; Lapta, rags, Lappen, German; Sengui, blood, Sanguis; Ania, a year, Annus; but considering the remoteness of their situation, we can scarcely form any conclusion from the occurrence of these resemblances. Mr Rémusat has lately been appointed Professor of this language at Paris; but it will probably be difficult for him to render its study very popular in the midst of so busy a metropolis. Whether the language of the island of Sagalien, opposite to the mouth of the Amur, is a dialect of the Mantshuric, or totally distinct, and requiring to be classed with the insular languages, appears to be not yet sufficiently ascertained. The Corean has been supposed to be a mixture of Mantshuric and Chinese: the Coreans do not understand either of those languages when they are spoken; but this fact is perfectly compatible with the supposition.

29. The Tungusians, in the east of Siberia, subject to the Chinese, speak a peculiar language, mixed with some Mongol; the Russian vocabularies contain specimens of a variety of their dialects, besides those of the Tshapogirs on the Jenisei, and the Lamuti on the sea of Ochotsk, none of them particularly interesting or remarkable.

30. The languages belonging to the Siberian order occupy the principal part of the north of Asia between the mountainous Tartarian territory and the Frozen Sea. At the commencement of this order, we find a variety of inconsiderable nations in the neighbourhood of the confines of Europe and Asia, which have their distinct languages, probably formed in times comparatively modern, out of the fragments of others. They have almost all of them some Finnish words, but none a sufficient number to justify us in considering them as dialects of the Finnish language, although the people were very probably connected with the Fins, as neighbours, in the middle ages, on the banks of the Dwina and

Languages. elsewhere. The Sirjanes, in the government of Archangel, speak nearly the same language with the Permians, who are partly in the same government, and partly in that of Kasan. The Wotiaks, on the Wiatka, also in Kasan, have a dialect which seems to be intermediate between the Permian and the Tsheremissic. 31. The Woguls, situated on the Kama and the Irish, afford specimens of several dialects in the Russian collection; they seem to have borrowed a few words from the Hungarian, and much more from the language of the Ostiaks (32), who are also divided into several races. 33. The Tsheremisses, situated on the Volga, in Kasan, have a little mixture of Turcotartarian. 34. The Morduins, on the Oka and Volga, have about one eighth of their language Finnish, and also some Turcotartarian words: the Moktanic is a dialect differing but slightly from the Morduic. 35. The Teptjerai are people paying no taxes, who originated from the relics of the Tartarokasanic kingdom in the sixteenth century, and who are said to speak a language peculiar to themselves. The arrangement of all these dialects must remain very imperfect; for want of a greater number of specimens of their peculiarities.

36. The Samojedic nations are situated north of the Tartars, by whom they may possibly have been driven into their present habitations. Their languages seem to have some affinity with the Caucasian and Lesgian dialects, and some of them with the Wogulic and Ostiak families; the specimens in the Comparative Vocabularies seem to have been multiplied somewhat too liberally. 37. The Camashes are situated on the right of the Jenisei; they are Shamanites or Buddhists; their language seems to be a mixture of several others, and is divided into several very distinct dialects. The Koibals have been baptized; they have borrowed some words from the Turcotartarian family. The Motors are situated on the Tuba. 38. The Ostiaks on the river Jenisei afford us five specimens of languages totally different from those of the Ostiaks already mentioned, but nearly connected with each other, so that they may properly be called Jeniseiostiaks. 39. The Jukagirs or Jukadshirs are few in number; they are situated between the Jakuti and the Tshutshi; they have some Jakutish words mixed with their language, and some Tsheremissic. 40. The Koriaks and the Tshutshi occupy the north-easternmost point of Siberia; the proper Koriak is spoken on the bay of Penzhin; the Kolymic on the river Kolyma, the Tigilic on the Tigil in Kamtshatka, and the Karaginic on the island Karaga; the Tshutshic has been considered as a dialect of the Koriak. 41. The Kamtshatkans are a little further south; the Tigilic Kamtshatcan is found, however, on the north of the Tigil; the Srednisch to the west, on the Bolshaia, and the Jozhnyshic on the river Kamtshatka, and towards the South Cape. The languages of the neighbouring parts of America, according to Professor Vater, greatly resemble the Tshutshic.

The Insular order of the Tataric or Atactic class of languages must be understood as comprehending all the Asiatic islands east of Borneo. 42. The language of the Curilees is spoken not only in the principal of these islands, but also in Kamtshatka,

about Cape Lopatka; but in some of the islands the Japanese is spoken. The Japanese derive themselves from the Chinese; but their language contradicts this opinion; they have evident traces of Mongol extraction or relationship. The amiable islanders of Leu cheu will long be remembered by the British public for the hospitality they showed to the Alceste and the Lyra; their language appears to be related to the Japanese, as might be expected from their situation. Formosa was conquered by the Dutch in 1620, but in 1661 it was taken from them by a Chinese pirate: the next year some books were printed in the Formosan language in Holland; the recapture of the island not being yet known there; in 1682, it was finally given up to the Chinese government. 47. The Moluccan is considered by Dr Leyden as an original language; that of Magindanao contains some Malayan, Moluccan, Tagalish, and Bugis. The Tagalish or Gala is the principal language of the Philippines, and almost as generally understood in that neighbourhood as the Malay and Hindustanee in other parts; it is allied to the Malayan and to the Javanese, and was probably derived in great measure from these languages; it also resembles in some measure the Bugis. The Bisayish is a ruder dialect of the Tagalish. The Sulu differs but little from these dialects, being derived from the same sources. The Bugis is the language of Celebes; it is supposed to be more ancient than the Javanese; it seems to contain no Sanscrit, but much Malay, Tagalish, and Javanese, and some of the old Ternate or Moluccan; it is written in a peculiar character, and some good poetry is found in it; there is a dialect called the Mungharar. The Bima somewhat resembles this dialect; it is spoken in the eastern parts of Sumbawa, and the western of Endé or Flores; it is written either in the Bugis or the Malay character; it seems to have a distant resemblance to the language of Orissa: the dialect of Sumbawa exhibits some slight variations. A few single words, as Matta, the eye, and Matte, death, are found to coincide in almost all the islands of the Pacific Ocean; the languages of which, notwithstanding their immense distances, seem to differ less than those of the inhabitants of some very small continental tracts; and they might probably be divided into a few well defined families, if our knowledge of them were more complete. The resemblance of Matte to the Arabian Mot, and the Latin Mactare, is probably accidental.

The number of the AFRICAN languages is supposed to amount to 100 or 150, and as many as 70 or 80 of them have been distinguished with tolerable accuracy. The population of Africa seems to have been derived from Arabia, and, as some critics think, rather from the southern than from the northern parts; a great number of its present inhabitants are negroes, but these cannot be distinguished from the rest by any infallible criterion. The account given by Ptolemy of the interior part of the country appears to be wonderfully accurate and extensive; although some of his measures seem to be erroneous, and not sufficiently reconcilable with the truth, even by adopting Major Rennell's hypothesis respecting them. It is however remarkable that Pto-

Languages. lemy followed Hipparchus in extending the eastern coast of Africa to the Ganges, although more correct ideas of its form had been entertained at Alexandria before his time.

The Egyptians demand the priority, in treating of the inhabitants of Africa, from their early connexion with ancient history, both sacred and profane. It is observable that the representations of the old Egyptians have countenances more or less approaching to the negro physiognomy, though the dry bones of the skeleton have that character somewhat less decidedly than they must have had when clothed with the thick lips and flattish noses of the generality of the representations; at the same time there are sculptures of great antiquity, which exhibit features not unlike those of correct Grecian or Roman beauty; and others have a considerable resemblance to the Arabian nation; at present the people of middle Africa, in general, are more or less like negroes, but they are somewhat less dark, and their noses and lips are less peculiar; the women sometimes screamed if Burekhardt made his appearance on a sudden, and called him the Devil, because he was white. The Egyptians are supposed by some writers to have received their civilization from Ethiopia; but there are at present no traces of the remains of high civilization further south than Nubia, except a few scattered monuments about Axum, of no great antiquity. The Egyptians were first called Copts by the Saracens, and their language has been commonly distinguished by the appellation Coptic, that is, as written in characters which are principally Greek, and frequently intermixed with a number of pure Greek words; but not a single fragment of Coptic has yet been discovered in this form that is earlier than the establishment of Christianity in Egypt; and it seems probable that the character was introduced by the early Christians at the time of the translation of the Scriptures into Coptic, which is certainly of very high antiquity. The Greek authors frequently mention an Egyptian alphabet of twenty five letters; but no traces of any such alphabet is found in the multitudinous inscriptions or manuscripts that have been preserved by the exertions of the numerous and adventurous travellers who have lately visited the country. (See the article EGYPT, of this Supplement.) The Greek words mixed with the Coptic are not considered by the grammarians as incorporated with the language, nor are they admitted into the dictionaries. The genuine language bears very evident marks of great antiquity; its construction is simple and often awkward; and a great number of its words are monosyllables. We have positive evidence of its having remained unaltered, from the time of Herodotus, Plutarch, and other Greek authors, and it affords us the etymology of the name of Moses, and of some other words mentioned in the Scriptures. It exhibits a few coincidences with other ancient languages, but not enough to enable us to consider it either as the offspring or the parent of any of them, except that it gives us something like an explanation of the meaning of some of the Greek particles. Out of 114 original Egyptian words, which are enumerated by the Quarterly Reviewer, in his account of Mr Townsend's work, there are fifty two that re-

semble the Greek, twenty seven the German and Languages. English, eighteen the Hebrew, three the Syriac, two the Arabic, two the Sanscrit, one the Slavonian, and one the Cantabrian. It is, however, probable, that a person more intimately acquainted with the languages of the Arabian family would have been able to find a much greater number of coincidences, since nations, which had so much intercourse as the Jews and the Egyptians, could scarcely fail to have many words in common, even if their languages had been at first completely different; and probably many of the Arabic roots, which are not Hebrew, may be found in the Egyptian. To the Cantabrian word inserted in this enumeration, Dr Young has added five others, in his late essay, already quoted, the whole six being Beria, new; Ora, a dog; Guchi, little; Oguia, bread; "Otsoa," a wolf, whence the Spanish Onza; and Shashpi, seven: in Coptic, Beri, new; Uhor, a dog; Kudshi, little; Oik, bread; Uonsh, a wolf; and Shashf, seven; whence he infers that "if we consider these words as sufficiently identical to admit of our calculating upon them, the chances will be more than a thousand to one that, at some very remote period, an Egyptian colony established itself in Spain; for none of the languages of the neighbouring nations retain any traces of having been the medium through which these words have been conveyed. On the other hand," he continues, "if we adopted the opinions of a late learned antiquary," General Vallancey, "the probability would be still incomparably greater, that Ireland was originally peopled from the same mother country; since he has collected more than one hundred words, which are certainly Egyptian, and which he considers as bearing the same sense in Irish; but the relation, which he has magnified into identity, appears in general to be that of a very faint resemblance; and this is precisely an instance of a case in which it would be deceiving ourselves to attempt to reduce the matter to a calculation." It may, indeed, be imagined that the Egyptian dominions may formerly have extended to the Straits of Gibraltar, and that Spain may have derived a part of its population from this part of Africa, which approaches so near to it; but it could scarcely have happened that no traces of Egyptian monuments should ever have been found at any distance from the Nile, if that active people had really occupied any considerable portion of the neighbouring continent. The word Chemistry, in Greek Chemia, is well known to be derived from the Egyptian; it has successively been compared, by the Quarterly Reviewer, to Chim or Chem, heat; and to Chem, secret; the latter is the more probable origin of the two; and a third etymon might be found, if it were required, in the word Dshem, or Ghem, to find, or Invention. The Coptic language has been nearly extinct for about two centuries; but the service has been read in Coptic much more lately in some of the churches; though it has now been almost entirely superseded by the Arabic. The proper Coptic, or Memphitic, which was the dialect of Lower Egypt, is supposed, from a word quoted by Herodotus, to be the most ancient; the Sahidic or Thebaic of Upper Egypt was probably preserved for a longer time, especially in some of the monasteries;

Languages. there is a separate version of the principal part of the Bible in this dialect, fragments of which have been published by Mingarelli and Woide; a third dialect, much resembling the Thebaic, is commonly called the Bashmuric, and a fourth, the Oasitic, has been partially made known by Mr Quatremere de Quincy. The Egyptians have left no traces of their language among the people who at present occupy the countries that they inhabited; the Nubian vocabularies collected by Burchhardt contain no Coptic words; the people are of different Arab races, but have acquired peculiar dialects, probably mixed with those of the neighbouring negro nations, of several of which we find specimens in Mr Salt's Voyage to Abyssinia. But one of the most learned, as well as the most adventurous and industrious of modern travellers, has remarked some coincidences between the old Egyptian language and that of the Barabras, who are neighbours of the Nubians, and extend to the confluence of the Tacazze and the Nile. The Geez and Amharic have already been mentioned as descendants of the Arabian family; they seem to have introduced some traces of this extraction into several of the neighbouring dialects, probably by the translations of the Scriptures, or by the use of the Koran. Professor Vater has taken some pains to prove that the language of Amhara, the Camara of Agatharchides, is wholly independent of the Ethiopic and Arabian; but in this he appears to be mistaken. It exhibits some slight resemblance to the Sanscrit, in a few instances; thus, Tshegure is hair, in Sanscrit, Tshicura. Macrizi tells us, that there are, in the whole, fifty Abyssinian dialects; but he has probably exaggerated their number. We have obtained more authentic information respecting them from the collections of Bruce, and of his editor, Murray, and still more lately from Dr Seetzen and Mr Salt. Of the Mek of Dungola, the representative of a long race of the Christian Kings of Nubia, little is now known, except that he is in a great measure dependent on the King of Senaar on the one hand, and has been expelled from a part of his territories by the Mamelukes, on the other. Of the Agows and the Gafats, neighbours of the Abyssinians, and situated on the Bahr el Azrek, as well as the Jewish Falashas, who are scattered over the country, especially in Dembea, we have read much in the historical romances of Mr Bruce, which certainly give a faithful picture of the countries to which they relate, notwithstanding some unaccountable inaccuracies with respect to the personal adventures of the author.

The north of Africa is occupied by inhabitants not much differing in appearance from the Arabs; its three principal divisions are the coast, the country of wild beasts, and the desert. The later Arabs have expelled the earlier Africans from the first division, and partly from the second; the Berbers occupy the third, inhabiting principally the Oases, or cultivable islands, scattered through the desert, from Mount Atlas to Egypt, and speaking, as Horneman first ascertained, the same language throughout this vast extent. They were first well described by Leo Africanus; they are probably the remains of the Mauritanians, Numidians, Gætulians, and Garamantians; there is no foundation whatever for the opinion

of some modern authors of celebrity, that their language is derived from the Punic; we even find, from Sallust, that the Numidian language differed from the Carthaginian, and from Valerius Maximus, that it was written in a peculiar character, perhaps the same with that which is found in the inscriptions from Lebeda, now in the court of the British Museum. The language of the Canaries considerably resembles the Berber; thus, Milk is Acho in Berber, and Aho in the Canaries. These islands were discovered in 1330, and afterwards conquered, with some difficulty, by the Spaniards; the inhabitants were a fine race of men, and lived in comfort and tranquillity; and they still present some traces of their original character and condition.

The country between the desert Zaara and the Niger is inhabited by a race of people who have a great resemblance to negroes, but are somewhat different from them. In the east are those of Sudan or Afnu, and Begirma; in the west the Fulaha; the Phellatas are a branch of these, extending considerably to the north east, with a mixture of negroes.

Of the languages of the negroes, strictly so called, many interesting specimens have been collected by the zeal of the evangelical missionaries in the Caribee Islands, and published by Oldendorp, in his Account of the mission; but they do not afford us sufficient materials to enable us to trace any extensive connexions or dependencies among their multifarious dialects.

There are some points of coincidence between the language of Madagascar and those of the Malays, the Philippine islanders, the Beeljuana Caffres, and the Corana Hottentots; there are also a few words, in many of the African dialects, borrowed from the modern Arabic, not, as Court de Gebelin would persuade us, from the Phœnician: nor can any other of the affinities be very distinctly established.

The Caffres have little of the negro character, except the black colour, and less of this as they become more remote from the equator; they are supposed to extend across the whole of Africa, immediately north of the Hottentots, as far as Benguela and Quiloa. The Hottentots, with their neighbours the Bosjemen, speak different dialects of the same singular language, in different parts of their country. Of that of the Dammaras, little or nothing is known. Lichtenstein has classed them as Hottentots; but Barrow, who was better acquainted with them, considers them as Caffres.

(Gesner, Mithridates, de Differentiis Linguarum, 8. Zurich, 1555.—Megiser, Specimen XL. Linguarum, 1592.—Duret, Thésor de l'Histoire des Langues, 4.—Lüdeken (Muller), Specimina Linguarum, Berl. 1680.—Chamberlayne, Oratio Dominica, Amst. 1715.—Schultz, Orientalischer und Occidentalischer Sprachmeister, Leipz. 1748.—Hervas, Saggio. Hervas, Idea dell' Universo, 4. Cesenn. 1778–87, Vol. XVII.—XXI. Vocabularia Comparativa, 2 Vols. 4to, Petersburg, 1787, 4 Vols. 1790.—Bergmann, Specimina, Ruien, 1789.—Marsden's Catalogue of Dictionaries and Grammars, 1796.—Marcel, Oratio Dominica, Paris, 1805.—Adelung und Vater, Mithridates, oder allgemeine Sprachkunde, 4 Vols. 8vo, Berlin, 1806–17.—Le Pileur, Tableaux Synoptiques de mots simi-