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employed as vowel signs, but they are inserted in quite a 
different manner, the yod and waw much more frequently, 
and the haleph, though not very often, yet oftener than in 
the Hebrew; whence it is clearly evident, that they were 
introduced into this text at a later period, and when the use 
of such signs kad become better understood. It is further 
to be observed, that the same vocalization also pervades all 
the other kinds of Shemitic writing used in Asia, but is 
fuller, and, consequently, of later insertion in each of them 
than in the Hebrew. Andas it is inconceivable that so very 
peculiar a system of vowel signs should have been adopted 
by different people independently of each other, the proba- 
bility is, that the Jews alone derived it immediately from 
their acquaintance with Greek writing, and that the other 
Asiatic tribes of the Shemitic class took it from them. 
On the other hand, the vocalization of the Abyssinian 
syllabary is wholly different from that which is common to 
every other species of Shemitic writing, and must have been 
derived from immediate observation of the Greek Scriptures ; 
as the Ethiopic translation of the Bible affords very decisive 
evidence that it was made, not from the Hebrew original, 
but from the Septuagint version. Two of the letters, with 
their powers, are here subjoined as a specimen : 
| Pe No: A aR: as ea Saihes Re G 
ti tu ti ta te te to 
C) Pe) ae ee Cee Oa 
ki ku ki- ka k@ ke ko 
The period when the first column of this syllabary was de- 
rived from some Shemitic alphabet cannot now be ascer- 
tained; but a limit to the age of the system, in its present 
improved form, can be deduced from ecclesiastical history ; 
for the Abyssinians first received the Scriptures when they 
were converted to Christianity by Frumentius, who was 
consecrated bishop of Axum in the year of our Lord 335; 
