APPENDIX.] WEST INDIES. 121 



arrangement of letters; much more frequently would this 

 happen, should the writers be of different countries, and con- 

 sequently habituated to various modes of pronunciation and 

 orthography ; but although I am of opinion therefore, that 

 vocabularies preserved by voyagers, seldom afford much cer- 

 tainty of information on a comparison with each other; there 

 are, nevertheless, in every language, many words of which 

 the sound is too simple to be easily misunderstood or grossly 

 misrepresented. 



Thus, on comparing the Charaibe vocabulary, preserved by 

 Rochefort, with the ancient oriental dialects, f it is scarce 

 possible to doubt that the following words used by the Cha- 

 raibes, had their origin ia the Old hemisphere, and we may 

 readily believe that many instances of a similar nature might 

 be adduced, but for the cause I have assigned, namely, the 

 different modes which different persons would necessarily 

 adopt, each according to his own perception of the sound, 

 of reducing the same words to writing; thus creating a per- 

 plexity which it is now too -late to disentangle. 



f For this illustration, and other assistance in the -course of this in- 

 quiry, I am indebted to a learned friend, by whom I am informed (being 

 myself unacquainted with the oriental languages) that the Samaritan, 

 and old Phenician, the Syriac, Chaldee a.nd Hebrew, are all dialects of 

 one language; differing but little from each other, except in their letters. 

 The Hebrew agrees less with -the other dialects than the rest, but is 

 now printed in the same character with the Chaldee. They ail form 3 

 noun in the same manner except the Hebrew, which prefixes 12J (S) tc 

 form the genitive case, and HN (at) to form the accusative; all the orhn 

 jse n (D) and V (it.) 



Vol. I Q 



