used by different Nations, Btt 



letters and numerals, even in the period of their ripe civiliza- 

 tion. On the other hand we find, in the new continent, at 

 least two nations, the Aztekes and the Muyscas, who used 

 numerical figures without having letters. Among the Egyp- 

 tians, the numerical hieroglyphics commonly used to express 

 units, tenths, hundreds, and thousands, seem likewise to have 

 had no relation to the phonetic hieroglyphics. Quite different 

 from the alphabet are likewise the ancient Persian figures of 

 the Pehhvi, for the first nine unities, as those of the ancient 

 Tuscans, the Romans, and even the Greeks in the most ancient 

 times. Anquetil has already observed*, that the alphab'et of 

 the Zend language, which, being composed of 48 elements, 

 could have facilitated the expressing of numbers, by alphabet- 

 ical letters, never uses them as numerical figures, and that in 

 the books written in the Zend language, numbers are always 

 expressed by the figures of the Pehlwi, and at the same time 

 with the numerals of the Zend language. Should, by further 

 researches, this want of numerical figures in the Zend language 

 be confirmed, it must induce us to suppose that the Zend 

 nation, which, in its language, discovers a very intimate affinity 

 to the Sanscrit, must have been separated from the Hindoos, 

 before the last had arrived at expressing value by position. 

 But, the nine unities excepted, the figures of the groups of 

 ten, hundred, and thousand are derived from letters in the 

 Pehlwi language. Dal is 10 ; re and za, connected together, 

 100; re and ghain, connected together, 1000. When we 

 take together, in one view, all that is known to us of the 

 numerical figures used by the different nations, little as it 

 is, it seems sufficient to oblige us to confess, that the 

 distinction of alphabetical numerals and of numerical figures, 

 independent of the alphabet, is as uncertain and useless 

 as that of the languages in such as are composed of mono- 

 syllables, and in those using polysyllabic words, a distinction 

 long ago abandoned by truly philosophical investigators of 

 languages. The numerical figures used by the inhabitants of 

 some southern districts of India within the Ganges, who speak 

 the Tamul language, do not express value by position, and 



* Mem. dtt I'Acad. des Belles Lettres, t. ;axLj p. 357. 



