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employed as vowel signs, but they are inserted in quite a 

 different manner, the yod and waw much more frequently, 

 and the haleph, though not very often, yet oftener than in 

 the Hebrew; whence it is clearly evident, that they were 

 introduced into this text at a later period, and when the use 

 of such signs had become better understood. It is further 

 to be observed, that the same vocalization also pervades all 

 the other kinds of Shemitic writing used in Asia, but is 

 fuller, and, consequently, of later insertion in each of them 

 than in the Hebrew. And as it is inconceivable that so very 

 peculiar a system of vowel signs should have been adopted 

 by different people independently of each other, the proba- 

 bility is, that the Jews alone derived it immediately from 

 their acquaintance with Greek writing, and that the other 

 Asiatic tribes of the Shemitic class took it from them. 



On the other hand, the vocalization of the Abyssinian 

 syllabary is wholly different from that which is common to 

 every other species of Shemitic writing, and must have been 

 derived from immediate observation of the Greek Scriptures ; 

 as the Ethiopic translation of the Bible affords very decisive 

 evidence that it was made, not from the Hebrew original, 

 but from the Septuagint version. Two of the letters, with 

 their powers, are here subjoined as a specimen : 



Taw. t 1^ t :^ ^ ^ 1^ 



ia tw ti ia te te to 



Kaf. n [Th n, n n Yi r> 



k^ ku ki' ka ke ke ko 



The period when the first column of this syllabary was de- 

 rived from some Shemitic alphabet cannot now be ascer- 

 tained ; but a limit to the age of the system, in its present 

 improved form, can be deduced from ecclesiastical history ; 

 for the Abyssinians first received the Scriptures when they 

 were converted to Christianity by Frumentius, who was 

 consecrated bishop of Axum in the year of our Lord 336 ; 



