3/K ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



are added, It is no wonder that the refemblance of different lan- 

 guages to one another, and fpoken by people at fuch a diftance from 

 one another, as the people of Europe are from thofe of Afia and 

 America, fhould be fo difficult to be difcovered. The Chinefe lan- 

 o-uat'e is fo different from all other languages we know, that one 

 ihould think it was impoffible to find any refemblance betwixt it 

 and thofe other languages. But M. Gebelin has found out a re- 

 femblance that is really wonderful betwixt their monofyllables, and 

 the languages of Europe and Afia *. And it is the more wonder- 

 ful, that their monofyllables are very different from the fyllables in 

 thofe other languages : For they never terminate their fyllables with 

 any confonants except the nafal confonants M and N ; and fome 

 confonants they have no ufe of at all ; — So that I think the example 

 of the Chinefe language ferves to fupport our author's fyftem more 

 than that of any other language. And there is an obfervation made 

 by M. de Guignes, in the treatife he has written, to prove that the 

 Chinefe were originally a colony from Egypt, which is not taken 

 notice of by our author, but which tends very much to fupport my 

 fyflem of the Egyptian language being the original primitive Ian- 

 language, more than the examples from any other language ; and it 

 is this, that the language of the Copts, which is the only remains to 

 be found in Egypt of the antient language of that country, there are 

 a great many Chinefe monofyllables to be found. 



And thus, T think, our author has proved by fads, what from 

 theory I have been of a great while difpofed to believe, that origi- 

 nally there was but one language upon earth. But my knowledge 

 of different languages was not fo great as to enable me to prove it 

 by fafts ; and accordingly I have concluded the firfl volume of the 

 Origin of Language, with giving my opinion, that all languages 



were 



• Vol. 3. p. 367. 



