On the Affinity of the Hiberno- Celtic and Phenician Languages. 77 
selves ; some living in forests, and others just formed into civil societies. ‘The name 
Pelasgi was never assumed by them, but was given them by the Greeks. The name 
was more antiently written MeAapyoi, and was applied to them in familiar language by 
the Greeks, from the resemblance they bore to storks and other birds of passage, 
when they first became known to the Greeks; for it seems before they fixed them- 
selves permanently in Greece they would appear and disappear from the coasts at 
almost stated and regular intervals.’ How exactly, I may say, this notion agrees 
with the habits of mariners in their trading voyages. And it may be asked, who were 
the commercial mariners of antiquity? The Phenicians alone. 
Again, Mannert says, ‘ All the Pelasgic colonies which established themselves 
among the early Greeks, brought with them the elements of civilization and the arts. 
IF hence did they obtain them 2’? Certainly not among the ignorant barbarians of 
the Caspian and Euxine. 
Again, ‘“‘ The Pelasgi are acknowledged, by the concurrent voice of antiquity, to 
have brought with them into Greece a peculiar and distinct system of religion. They 
are acknowledged, moreover, to have been the founders of Grecian theology. They 
established an oracle at Dodona, instituted the mysteries of the Cabiri, and there is 
reason to believe that those of Eleusis were of similar origin.” 
Few will venture, I think, to question the truth of these observations. Now if we 
can discover an antient language, in which all the names of the Greek divinities and 
heroes are significant of their peculiar attributes, we may justly conclude it to be a 
cognate language with that of the Pelasgi; and if that language also be proved to 
be the same as the Phenicians and Etrurians, it follows that they were a branch of the 
same people as the Phenicians and Etrurians. 
“ Profound night (says Mamnert) rests on this portion of history ; a single gleam 
of light pierces the darkness which involves it. On the one side of the Pelasgi many 
tribes of Illyrians practised navigation ; as, for example, the Phoeacians of the island 
of Scheria, afterwards Corcyra. At the head of the Adriatic existed long established 
commercial cities, and artificial canals were seen at an early period. Every thing 
seems to indicate that at an early period the shores of the Adriatic were inhabited by 
civilized communities.” Thus far Mannert. We may add that the name of the city 
of Venice itself would indicate a Phenician origin ; and their position, and the charac- 
ter of the people, strongly corroborates the same idea. Phenice and Venice are very 
similar in sound, and both suggest a common origin or meaning ; that is, of a ma- 
riner or plougher of the seas. Mannert, indeed, supposes the name to be derived 
from the Sclavonic wenden, to rove about, and that they were a northern race ; but 
he was not acquainted with the Celtic language, or he would not have made so impro- 
bable a conjecture. 
Herodotus states that letters were introduced into Greece by Cadmus, but Dio- 
dorus claims a previous possession of written characters; and Pausanius mentions an 
