80 Tlie Rev. Dr. Wall on the Nature, Age, and Origin of the 



cisely analogous in its use to the Hebrew one ; in which the vowel parts of the 

 syllables expressed are left to be determined by the reader through the means of 

 his familiarity with the spoken denomination of the Jewish sovereign in question. 

 The first letter, indeed, of the Ethiopia group is destitute of any mark, as it 

 belongs to the first column of the alphabet, which is now limited to syllables 

 ending in a ; but before the addition of the other columns this one evidently 

 could have had no such limitation ; and then the Ethiopic method of denotation 

 was exactly of the same nature with the original Hebrew one, not only in refe- 

 rence to the name which I have here happened to pitch upon as an example, but 

 also with regard to every part of the two kinds of writing. 



To show the close affinity which subsists between the two languages, I here 

 subjoin the first sentence of the Lord's Prayer, Matthew, vi. 9» from the Ethiopic 

 version ; with the equivalent Hebrew expression immediately under each group, 

 just as in the preceding examples. 



I\^h (HaBwNa) WW^p'-V (ZoBaSSaMaYoT) 



13^n« (HaBINU) a^n^l® (SHeBBoSHSHaMflY/M) 



Our Father who — in the very heavens, 



S}\^Rf\ (YeTQaDDaS) h^lfl (SeMKa) 



tonpn^ (YiTHQaDDeSH) -jati? (SHeMeKa) 



hallow itself (i. e. hallowed be) thy name. 



The corresponding groups in the two ways of writing the sentence will be found 

 to agree in their roots ; in their inflexions (excepting the formation of the plural 

 number of the noun) ; in the reflective form of the verb, and the peculiarity of 

 substituting that form for the passive one ; in their prepositions ; in their pronouns ;* 

 and in the manner in which those pronouns enter into combination with the 

 principal terms ; whence it is probable that they may, in some degree at least, 

 agree also in the collective sounds denoted by them. If this inference be ad- 



* I admit that the syllable prefixed to the Ethiopic expression for in the very heavens, and used 

 with the signification of the pronoun who, is not derived from the relative HtTM but from the de- 

 monstrative TVt. This latter pronoun, however, is sometimes used in the Hebrew, as it is here in 

 the Ethiopic, with a relative sense. 



