50 GLOSSOLOGY. 



word, were grouped together; and often, especially in the case of 

 proper names, they were enclosed in an oval line, called, by the 

 French, a cartouche ; to separate them from other characters. The 

 order of the characters, in the cartouche, was denoted by the direc- 

 tion of the animals' heads : but the general order of hieroglyphic 

 writing was in columns ; commencing at the top, and reading the 

 right hand column first, as in the Chinese. (This is exemplified in 

 the names Ptolemy and Cleopatra; Plate II. Nos. 2, and 3). The 

 phonetic characters were sometimes mingled with the figurative or 

 the symbolical hieroglyphics ; but in such cases they were recog- 

 nised by some distinguishing mark. 



The hieratic or sacred characters, used for purposes of religion 

 and science, appear to have been partly phonetic, and partly imitative. 

 The demotic, enchorial, or common characters, were of later origin ; 

 of simpler form, being more abbreviated ; and they were applied to 

 a somewhat different dialect, though essentially of the same language. 

 A still later Coptic alphabet was derived from the Greek letters, and 

 used about A. D. 120, in a translation of the Bible ; from which 

 most of our knowledge of the ancient Coptic or Egyptian language 

 is derived. The knowledge of the hieroglyphic writing was for ages 

 lost to the world : and its modern discovery is among the most won- 

 derful achievements of the human intellect. The key to this disco- 

 very was the celebrated Rosetta stone, dug up at Rosetta, by the 

 French troops under Bonaparte ; and now deposited in the British 

 Museum. It contained an inscription, in praise of Ptolemy Epi- 

 phanes ; triply sculptured in Sacred, Common, and Grecian charac- 

 ters. The mutilated Greek, was translated by Porson and Heyne ; 

 De Sacy detected in it the word Alexandria; Akerblad, of Sweden, 

 deciphered most of the demotic characters ; Quatremere identified 

 the language as the Coptic ; and Dr. Young discovered some of the 

 sacred characters : but to Champollion, we owe the full develope- 

 ment of the discovery, and its application to many of the inscrip- 

 tions still extant, on the ruins, and remains, of Upper Egypt. 



2. The Semitic family of Languages includes the Hebrew, 

 Chaldee, Syriac, Phoenician, Arabic, and Ethiopic languages ; with 

 others of minor importance. The name is derived from Shem, the 

 eldest son of Noah ; by whose descendants, these languages were 

 spoken. They are all written from the right hand to the left ; but 

 each of them in its own peculiar characters. The term Aremaic, 

 or Aramean, has also been applied to the Chaldee, Syriac, and some 

 minor tongues; spoken by the descendants of Aram, the fifth son of 

 Shem. The Chaldee, or Chaldaic, was the language of the ancient 

 Babylonian and Assyrian empires ; and is supposed to have been 

 derived from the Hebrew ; which it closely resembles. 



The Hebrew Language, possesses great interest ; as being that 

 in which the Old Testament was originally written ; except a few 

 chapters in Ezra, and a few verses in Jeremiah and Daniel, which 

 were in Chaldee. It is supposed, by many, to have been the original 

 language, spoken before the confusion of Babel ; though of this we 

 have no positive proof. The characters of the present Hebrew 

 alphabet, are not the most ancient in which this language was written ; 



