OF THE UEKBBUS. 44,3 



has perceived in it, independent of the Arabic words that it 

 contains, some strong aftinity to the oriental languages which 

 the German philologists call S/iemitic, and hence he con- 

 eludes it to be the ancient Carthaginian. But Mr. Marsden 

 does not tell us in what that alUnity consists, and has exhibited 

 no specimens to satisfy us on this point. Of the grammati- 

 cal forms of this idiom we know too little, to be able to form 

 a satisfactory comi)arison. We must wait until Mr. Shaler 

 shall have pursued his inquiries fortiier on this interesting 

 subject. His present communication offers but few speci- 

 mens of grammatical forms. There is one, however, wiiich 

 appears to deserve particular attention, as it bears a strong 

 affinity to those curious discriminating forms whicli prevail 

 in the languages of our American Indians. It seems that 

 Tamtolz in the Showiah is the word commonly used to sig- 

 nify " a woman," but if the speaker is addressing several 

 women being in the same place, he makes use of the word 

 Khuleth. A form analogous to tliis exists in the language of 

 the Cherokees, in which the dual number of the verbs varies 

 its inflections, according as those to ur of whotu one is speak- 

 ing are present or absent. My learned friend Mr. Pickering 

 has now in the press a grammarof this language; I shall not 

 tl)ereforc anticipate upon the interesting information we may 

 expect to derive from it. 



If Mr. Shaler's communication contained but this simple 

 fact, he might be said to have made a valuable add tion to 

 the Philological Science. IJut his vocabularies are impor- 

 tant, inasmuch as they confirm the opinion before entertain- 

 ed, that tiiree at least of the Bcrl)er idioms, the Sliillia, Sho- 

 wiah, and Siwah, are dialects of the same general language. 

 The Sliiiha and Siwali had been compared by Mr. Marsden, 

 and the vocal)ularies that wc possessed of the Sliowiah, 

 though not very extensive, showed a strong similarity between 

 it and the two others. Mr. Shaler has carried the pioof far- 

 ther as will appear from the following words, found only in 

 his vocal>ularies, and which bear an inconlestal)le affinity u^ 



