a A eh Me OU & 295 
in confequence of the Irifh language abounding, like ma 
ny others, im afpirates. One probable caufe Ae of Hs 
miftakes they commit in {peaking Englith, m may be deriv~ 
ed from the fubftantive being placed in the Irith dcfore the 
adjective, not effer, as in the more artificial language of 
the Englith. 
Much has been written by many fages and learned men 
concerning the origin of language, which has generally 
been attributed to divinity, and the variety of tongues has 
been contidered as the effect of the confufion at Babel. I 
will not pretend to defcant on the fubje&, nor to deny fuch 
authority, but will humbly premife a few obfervations 
which will be fufficient to authorize a conjecture refpecting 
the formation, and alfo the alterations, without the aid 
which is to be derived from the great lawgiver of the Jews. 
We know that men in different countries {peak different 
languages.—< but who does not know at the fame time 
that the Englifh languave a few centuries azo, would not 
be underftood now? and that if a {mall colony of Englith 
had been feparated from the nation in general, they would 
have been taken for a different people? the manufa@urers 
of England, who never go two miles from the place, for 
generations, cannot be underftood by a Cockney. Langua- 
ges differ fo much in a few years, by the particular cir- 
cumftances of the people, that there is no occafion for mi- 
racles to explain the varieties; and one half of our Jan- 
guage is calculated to give ideas of arts and fciences, which 
have been invented during the memory of man. We have 
many inftances of the invention of terms for new objects 
in the great South Sea---the Otaheiteans called a gua, tik- 
tik-bou! imitating thereby the cocking and report of the 
objet; and we find among Savage nations, many things 
fimilar. The languages acquired by imitation are certainly 
the moft natural and expreflive, and I am confident that 
the 
