182 Rev. Epwarp Hincxs on the Number, Names, and Powers 
the power of K, is it certain that there was no letter in the old Egyptian alpha- 
bet which had the power of SH, or of the combination SKH, which might 
easily be softened into SH? And if there was such a letter, is it not likely 
that its equivalents would be represented in Coptic words by the gj, as well as 
those of the sieve ? Similar questions might be raised respecting other letters. 
Egyptian words which contain the basin and its known homophones have in its 
place at least four Coptic letters, K, 5¢, X, and G, the two last being apparently 
the values of our J and CH. The corruption of the sound of k into this last 
sound is a well-known one, of which there are abundant instances in our own 
language, as well as in Italian. Thus, “ church” is from kuptaky 3 “chin” from the 
Gothic kinn-us, &c. &c. But the question arises as before,—Were all the 
Egyptian phonoglyphs which passed into the Coptic @ equivalent to the basin ? 
May not some of them have themselves had the power of our CH, or may not 
others of them have had the power of the Hebrew p, as distinguished from 3 ? 
These are points on which no comparisons of Egpytian and Coptic words can 
give us any information. And these comparisons will alike fail us, if we seek to 
ascertain whether the old Egyptians had any letters in their alphabet corre- 
sponding to the Hebrew (the hamzeh, as distinguished from the vowel that 
may accompany it), the y, in either of its two powers, or that modification of the 
dental mute which the Arabs represent by a b, as the Hebrews probably did by 
at. The Copts had no equivalent to any of these letters ; but though this may 
be considered as presumptive evidence that in the second and third century after 
Christ the Egyptians had no such letters, we have no right to presume that they 
had them not in the old times, before the country was conquered by foreigners. 
The chief use, then, of the Coptic equivalents of Egyptian words, in reference to our 
present object, is to determine which of the two values of an ambiguous Hebrew 
letter corresponded to the phonoglyphs by which it was transcribed ; for the dis- 
tinctions which the Masoretes make by dagesh and the diacritical pots are made 
without adequate grounds, and often erroneously; and I may say it is chiefly m 
respect to the one letter w that they are of any use to us, for, with respect to 
the dageshed letters, we possess Greek transcriptions distinguishing the two 
sounds, made three or four hundred years before the Coptic letters came into 
use, and which, of course, are much more to be depended on than any thing 
written in these letters can be. The Greeks had, however, but one character 
