18S9.] O ■•-•-> [Briiitnn. 



class. We also have the numerals, and a multitude of propei' 

 names, personal and geographic. 



. If with this apparatus at command I venture to disregard 

 Pauli's warning, and to institute a comparison between the 

 Etruscan and Libyan languages, it is because I think the mate- 

 rial is sufficient at least to be worth the attention of students. So 

 far as I know, no one has attempted any such comparison before ; 

 nor do I find that this possible origin of the Etruscans has as 3'et 

 been advanced, obvious as it seems to be. 



One reason of this has doubtless been the extremely little 

 availal)le knowledge of the Libyan tongues, ancient or modt-rn. 

 What we do definitely know may be briefly rehearsed. 



The modern Libyan, or Berber, is spoken by hordes scattered 

 from Timbuctoo to the Mediterranean, and from the slioresof the 

 Atlantic to the borders of Egypt. It is divided into a number 

 of dialects which are phonetically grouped into two classes, the 

 " strong " and the " weak," characterized by the regular transfor- 

 mation of certain consonantal sounds, principally k to I, t and 

 to d or r, s to eh, etc. When the action of these phonetic laws 

 is understood pnd allowed for, the fundamental unit}^ of all the 

 dialects becomes apparent, both in their vocabulary and 

 grammar.* 



Tiie themes are both nominal and verbal, but the latter are 

 ranch the more numerous and form the grammatical characte"r- 

 istic of the group. They are nearly all consonantal, and may^ be 

 of one, tw^o, three, or four letters, subject to internal vowel 

 change, and modification of the idea by prefixes and suffixes. 



The modern Kabyle, which has adopted many Arabic words, is 

 written with the Arabic alphabet, which, however, does not render 

 correctly some of its sounds. The Touareg, the dialect of the des- 

 ert, has preserved an alphabet of its own, no doubt a form of the 

 ancient Numidian, which in turn was derived from the Semitic 

 Carthaginian. The Tamachek, as this venerable A B C is called, 

 does not express the vowel sounds nor separate the words. It is 

 said to have been retained principally through the efforts of the 

 women, who are the literat^e of the tribe, f 



* Ren6 Basset, Manuel de Langue Kabyle, p. 3 (Paris, 1887). 



tThis statement is made by Bibasco, in the article above quoted, 1-ievue des deux 

 Mondes, Dec., 1865. The Tamachek alphabet is given by Hanoteau in his Grammnive Ka- 

 byle (Paris, 1S60). This writer adds that the Touareg is one of the purest dialects of the 

 Berber tongue (id., Introd., p. xiii). 



