l6o ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



lablcs; nor do I wonder that there are no more of them, as it is 

 faid, than 330. But by varioufly accenting them, that is, by giv- 

 ing them different mufical tones, they make the fame monofyllable 

 fignify nine or ten different things: For, mufic being more natural to 

 man than articulation, (as he has naturally in his voice the difference 

 of acute and grave, which are the materials of which mufic is com- 

 pofedj, it was very natural that, inftead of inventing a new word 

 for any thing, he fliould exprefs it by accenting differently the fame 

 word ; and there are fome barbarous nations, particularly the Hu- 

 rons in North America, who in that way fupply the want of tenfes, 

 perfons, and numbers in their verbs. 



The difference, as to the length of words, betwixt the Chinefe 

 language and the languages of the barbarous nations, is very re- 

 markable : We have in Carver's Travels, in North America, a cata- 

 logue of words in the Chippaway language, (p. 420.) in which there 

 is not a monofyllable to be found, but many words of fix or leven 

 fyllables; and I have, in Vol. 1. of the Origin of Language *, given 

 a fpecimen of fome words of a barbarous langu ige ot Hill greater 

 length. The way I account for this fo remarkable difference be- 

 twixt the Chinefe language and tliefe barbarous languages, is, that 

 the Chinefe language, which is undoubtedly of the greatelt antiqui- 

 ty, appears to have come from Egypt to China by the way of 'ndia, 

 (as well as a great deal of the Egyptian written language), when the 

 language was firft formed in Egypt: Whereas the articulation in the 

 barbarous languages appears to have been colleded by the barbarians 

 from fome people that had learned the ufe of language from the 

 Egyptians, or from fome other nation that had learned it from them; 

 and thefe articulate founds the barbarians mixed, as was very natural, 

 with their animal cries, and in that v^ay produced words of fuch 

 enormous length. 



Not 



* Page 543- 



