or Hebrew language, that spoken by the ancient Jews, and wherein the Old Testament is wrote.

This appears to be the most ancient of all the languages in the world, at least we know of none older; and some learned men are of opinion, that this is the language in which God spoke to Adam in Paradise.

The books of the Old Testament are the only pieces to be found, in all antiquity, written in pure Hebrew; and the language of many of these is extremely sublime; it appears perfectly regular, and particularly so in its conjugations; indeed, properly speaking, it has but one conjugation, but this is varied in each seven or eight different ways, which has the effect of so many different conjugations, and affords a great variety of expressions to represent by a single word the different modifications of a verb, and many ideas which in the modern and in many of the ancient and learned languages cannot be expressed without a periphrasis.

The primitive words, which are called roots, have seldom more than three letters or two syllables.

In this language there are twenty-two letters, only five of which are usually reckoned vowels, which are the same with ours, viz., a, e, i, o, u; but then each vowel is divided into two, a long and a short, the sound of the former being somewhat grave and long, and that of the latter short and acute: it must however be remarked, that the two last vowels have sounds that differ in other respects besides quantity, and a greater or less elevation. To these ten or twelve vowels may be added others called semi-vowels, which serve to connect the consonants, and to make the easier transitions from from one another. The number of accents to this language are, indeed, prodigious; of these there are near forty, the use of some of which, notwithstanding all the inquiries of the learned, are not yet perfectly known. We know, in general, that they serve to distinguish the sentences like the points called commas, semicolons, &c. in our language; to determine the quantity of the syllables, and to mark the tone with which they are to be spoken or sung. It is no wonder then, that there are more accents in the Hebrew than in other languages, since they perform the office of three different things, which in other languages are called by different names.