0/ Alphahetkal Chara5fers. 299 



fame texture : and that alphabetical compojitionf 

 attended by thefe circumftances of rcfemblance, 

 muft flow from one fource : cfpecially, if the 

 difference in the alphabetical marks of thefc two 

 languages (hould be no objeflion, but may be 

 accounted for upon reafonable principles. 



It will be readily allowed then, I prefume, 

 that no modern European nation, exclufive of 

 the TurkiJIj empire indebted to the Greeks and 

 Arabians, feparately invented alphabetical writing: 

 we all derived, without any doubt, this art from 

 the Romans. The Romans never laid claim to 

 the difcovery : they afcribed all their literary 

 advantages to the Greeks. This accomplifned 

 , people acknowledge, with one voice, to have 

 received the art from the Phcenicians ; who, as 

 well as their colonics the Carthagimans, arc 

 known by the learned to have fpoken the Hebrew 

 language, or a dialed fcarcely varying from the 

 original. The Coptic, or ^.g^ptian, wears the 

 exacl-eft; refemblance in the majority of its cha- 

 ra61:ers to the Greek; they, therefore, muft be 

 referred in all reafon to the fame origin. The 

 Chaldee, Syriac, and later Samaritan, are dialcfls 

 of the Hebrew, without any confiderable devia- 

 tion, or many additional words, The jEthiopic 

 differs more from the Hebrew, but ftill Icfs than 

 the Arabic. Thefe languages, however, notwith- 

 ftanding fuch deviations, have ifiued from the 

 fame ftock ; as the fimilarity of their formation, 



and 



