works connected with the Shemitish languages. In the composition of both, he made use of many manuscripts, and also enjoyed the oral instruction of Abba Gregorius, a learned Abyssinian priest.* The present spoken language of Abyssinia, the Amharic,74 is poor in words and in grammatical forms; and is more interesting for the Hebrew scholar in a grammatical, than in a lexical respect. At least I am aware of almost no coincidences with the Hebrew, which do not already exist in the Ethiopic.75 4. Finally, it is proper briefly to mention here those languages out of which, though not indeed kindred with the Hebrew, single words have yet been adopted into the Hebrew, and, with slight changes, naturalized there.76 Such are the following. (a) The ancient Egyptian language; which is known to us through some ancient original monuments, the partial deciphering of which seems to have been reserved for very recent times;77 mental acquaintance with the Ethiopic. Very recently, however, Hupfield, Dorn, and Drechsler, have treated of particular departments of it in a distinguished manner; though their remarks do not comprehend the whole subject. Several illustrations drawn from the Ethiopic may be found in מַלְתָּעוֹת מַחֲלַת מָקַלוּמֶד, נֶכֶד the author's lexicon, under the articles 74 See Ersch and Gruber's Encycl. II. p. 355, where at the same time the connexion of this dialect with the Shemitish stock is vindicated against Adelung and Vater. 75 Ludolfi Grammatica Amharica et Lexicon Amharicum, 1698, fol. 76 Gesch. der Heb. Sprache, p. 59 sq. The endeavour to give foreign words a meaning by means of a slight change, so that they may seem to have an etymology in one's own mother tongue, is found among all nations, and particularly among the Greeks and Germans. [Among the English too in some instances; e. g. the word asparagus is usually pronounced and understood by the common people as sparrow-grass.-Ed. 77 What concerns the palaeography and in part the philology also of these ancient hieroglyphic monuments, may be best and most concisely seen in Kosegarten de prisca Aegyptiorum Literatura, Comment. I. Weim. 1828, 4to. In this work the investigations of Young, Champollion, and others, are presented, with the grounds of them, and the whole enriched with new observations. [See also Greppo's Essay on the Hieroglyphic System, Boston, 1830. The results of Champollion's researches in Egypt are announced as being in a state of preparation for publication in a splendid form; and the progress of the work will through single glosses in Greek writers; and through its daughter, the Coptic language.78 The words adopted from it into the Hebrew relate chiefly to Egyptian objects, and were probably introduced during the sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt.79 (b) The Persian language; from the earlier dialects of which many proper names and appellatives were adopted during the time of the Persian dominion. It is true that these ancient dialects, Zend, Pehlvi, and Parsi,80 in which the Zend-Avesta is written, are only imperfectly known; but still they are not so remote from the present Persian language, that illustrations of what occurs in the Bible may not also be drawn from the latter.81 The same is the case with many Assyrian and Babylonian probably not be interrupted by the recent death of that accomplished scholar.-ED. 78 See La Croze's Lexicon Aegyptico-Latinum, Oxon. 1775. [Also Ch. Scholz. Grammatica Aegypt. etc. ed. Woide, ibid. 1778. Kircher Prodromus Coptus sive Aegyptiacus, Rom. 1636.-Ed. 79 See in the author's lexicon the articles,,. Also Ign. de Rossi Etymol. Aegypt. p. 24. Jablonsky Opusc. ed. Te Water, I. p. 45, 374. II. p. 160. [Bibl. Repos. Vol. I. p. 581.] 80 See the lists of words in the Zend-Avesta by Anquetil du Perron, Tom. III. p. 433; or Th. III. p. 141 of Kleuker's translation. Also Rask über das Alter und die Aechtheit der Zend Sprache, Berl. 1826; and scattered notices in the works quoted in note 81. The publication of the originals of the Zend-Avesta is greatly to be desired, from a collation of all the manuscripts now at Paris, Oxford, and especially at Copenhagen, and with a grammar and glossary. Who would not wish and hope, that the scholar [Rask] who procured them at the expense of such personal sacrifices, would appropriate to himself the still greater merit of thus preparing them for the public! [The publication of the Zend-Avesta in the original has been commenced by Prof. Olshausen of Kiel; see a fuller notice of this undertaking in the Bibl. Repos. I. p. 407.-ED. 81 Original Persian lexicons are the 'Borhani Kati', Calcutta 1815; and the Seven Seas' by the Prince of Oude, printed at Lucknow in 7 vols. folio, of which the seventh contains a grammar. The Persian part of Castell's Heptaglott is neither complete, nor entirely to be depended on. [Other Persian lexicons are Meninski's, (see p. 30 above,) and Richardson's Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English, as edited by Wilkins 1806, and by Johnson 1829, 4to. The best Persian grammars are that of Sir William Jones, last published as revised by Prof. Lee; that of Dombay, Vienna 1804; and that of F. Wilken, Leipz. 1804. -ED. names, as Nebuchadnezzar (1), Salmanasar (b), which belong without doubt to the same stock. (c) Of less importance are the words which stand in connexion with the Indian languages, viz. some objects in natural history found in eastern Asia, the names of which came to the Hebrews along with the things themselves, from the East Indies.82 (d) Greek words are not found at all in the biblical Hebrew; but frequently in the Chaldee sections of Daniel and Ezra; especially names for musical instruments, which the orientals would seem to have adopted from the Greeks. 83 After these historical notices of the kindred dialects, some remarks upon the proper use of them may here appropriately follow. 1. First of all, it must never be forgotten, that the Hebrew, with all its affinity for its sister tongues, has nevertheless its own settled and independent idiom, which indeed very seldom coincides entirely and exactly with that of the kindred languages; but for the most part only so, that at one time the form, and at another the signification and usus loquendi, have received different modifications in different dialects. The well known relation between the German and Sclavonic languages, and that which exists among all those languages which have sprung from the Latin, afford a sufficient illustration of this principle; and it is a very obvious, though frequent error, when an interpreter, instead of carefully observing the peculiarities of each dialect in a family of languages, has forced upon one of them the usus loquendi of תַּכְרִים קוֹף אֲהָלִים See in the lexicon the articles 82 .and others סוּמְפּנְיָה פְּסַנְתֵּרִין See the articles 83 84 Compare Eng. journey and Fr.journée, day; Lat. sentire, to feel, and Ital. to hear; Lat. mirari, to wonder, and Span. mirare, to behold, whence mirage, miroir; Lat. mittere, to send, and Fr. mettre, to place; Eng. meat and Fr. mets, dish, mess; Eng. dish and Germ. Tisch, table; Eng. stove and Germ. stube, room, etc. So, bread, and 511 , flesh; ip, flesh, and,, skin.—An ancient anecdote respecting the settled nature of the idiom even in the different dialects of Arabia, as a warning against a false intermixture of dialects, see in Pococke's Spec. Hist. Arabum, p. 151. another.85 It is very frequently the case, that a word which in one dialect is common and predominant, is in a kindred one at least rare and poetical;86 what in the one is good and elegant, is in another low and vulgar. The Hebrew also, like every branch of a widely extended stock of languages, has its own idioms, provincialisms as it were,-which are found in no kindred language at all, or only in a very remote degree of affinity.87 2. That to the Arabic language, the most copious of all the kindred tongues, and for the knowledge of which we also have the best and surest helps, belongs the first place among all this class of philological auxiliaries, has already been mentioned above. But on the other hand it is not to be denied, that the Aramaean idiom is often much nearer the Hebrew, especially in the writers of the silver age; and while interpreters have often neglected to apply this principle, they have been led astray by the very comparison of the Arabic, into several by-paths. Not unfrequently in a particular passage, instead of an established Hebrew idiom, by mere arbitrary caprice the Arabic usus has been applied 89 often the wholly remote Arabic signification has been with violence placed in connexion with the Hebrew one; 88 85 The Dutch school have erred most frequently in ascribing an Arabic signification to Hebrew words; and also here and there in assigning to an Arabic word a Hebrew signification, contrary to the usage. 86 On the similarity of Hebrew poetical usage with the common usage of the Syriac, see below in note 97. 87 Among these peculiar words, are often found in Hebrew, as in all languages, just the most common ones; as,,, etc. 88 Thus signifies to collect, as in Chaldee, and not as it is often explained to call, from the Arabic; is lightning, flame, as in Aramaean, not bird of prey, from the Arabic. In the interpretation of the book of Job especially, the Aramaean usage is to be applied rather than the Arabic. 89 Compare note 85. So the very frequent word D, also, according to Michaelis, (Supplem. p. 330,) because he forgot a rule of grammar, (Lehrgeb. p. 728,) must be made to mean in Gen. 10: 21, a multitude, from to be many, etc. Even Schultens declared himself against this misuse, Opp. Min. p. 274; but still more fully, as to this and similar ones, the yet living Dutch philologian Willmet, in the Preface to his Lexicon Arabicum, p. xiii. A and the former brought forward as the primitive signification of the root; and often have these interpreters thus lost themselves in the most far-fetched etymological hypotheses.90 3. Since the differences among the kindred languages often rest on a change of the radical letters, it must necessarily be one of the first objects of the student to make himself familiar with these; for which purpose the first articles respectively under each of the letters in the author's lexicon, are particularly designed. Changes of this sort are sometimes regular and predominant, as the transition of the Hebrew ,, 7, into the Chaldaic n,,; of into y, etc. or they are sometimes less frequent; and then the greater or less number of instances, can in doubtful cases determine the degree of probability. Transpositions of the consonants, also, occur very frequently in a comparison of the kindred dialects; especially in respect to the sibilants and Resh.91 4. A particularly rich and fruitful branch of the comparison with the kindred dialects, and one as yet too little pursued, is the analogy of significations; inasmuch as in words of kindred meaning in the dialects, the significations, for the most part, are modified and derived from one another, in the same manner as in Hebrew, a comparison so much the more instructive, the more remote the ideas associated in the mind of an oriental sometimes lie from one another. The student must therefore search not merely for words corresponding as to form, (which often indeed are not at all to be drawn into comparison,) but also for those which correspond in signification, and which often afford the most striking illustrations. The Hebrew, like the Arab, uses the expression little man or boy in the eye, for apple of the eye'; overcome or vanquished by wine, for drunken'; to boil over, for haughty, arrogant'; to shine, glitter, for 'to flourish, become green'; to cover, clothe, for to act secretly, deceive'; to make fruit, for 'to yield, bear'; to know a woman, for to have intercourse', etc.92-although each expresses these ideas with different words, viz. with those by which these ideas 90 So especially many later Hollanders, as Lette, Kuypers, Venema; A. Schultens only in his later writings, as his Commentary on the Proverbs. 91 See the examples in the Lehrgebäude, p. 142, 143. 92 See in the author's lexicon the articles ; and |