EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. 59 



and zz also like tz. The letters gl, and gn, have often a liquid 

 sound in Italian; like the Hi in our word billion, or the ni in pinion ; 

 as in egli, he, pronounced ail-ye ; and ogni, every or all, pronounced 

 own-ye. This language is remarkable for the manner in which the 

 prepositions are united with the articles ; and the pronouns with the 

 verbs, when they come together ; forming as it were a single word. 

 Thus the prepositions di, of; da, from ; a, to ; and per, through or 

 by ; united with the article lo, the ; form the compounds de'llo, ddllo, 

 dllo, and pe.Uo; as in deW amore, of the love. Again, instead of 

 io ti favello, I speak to thee, the Italians may sayfavelloli: and as 

 the word gli signifies to him, they may say dicevagli, instead of ei 

 gli diceva, he said to him. 



The following is the Lord's Prayer in Italian ; which will doubt- 

 less be understood from what has already been said ; at least by com- 

 paring it with the Latin. 



Padre nostro, che sei nel cielo, sia sanctificato il tuo nome : il tuo 

 rcgno venga, la tua volonta sia fatta siccome in cielo cosi anche in 

 terra; dacci oggi il nostro pane cotidiano: e rimettici i nostra debiti, 

 siccome noi ancora rimettiamo a nostri debitori : e non inducici in ten- 

 tazione, ma liberaci dal male ; percioche tuo e il regno, e la potenza, 

 e la gloria, in sempiterno. Jimen. 



The Wallachian language is a mere corruption of the Latin : and 

 an impure Latin is still spoken in some parts of Hungary. The 

 Sicilian, Sardinian, and Corsican dialects are very slight modifications 

 of the Italian. 



The Spanish language, is called by the Spaniards, La Lengua 

 Castellana ; because it was matured, and spoken in its greatest 

 purity, in the kingdom of Castile. It is derived from the Phoenician 

 of the early colonists, and of the Carthaginian conquerors, mingled 

 with the Latin of the Romans ; from which and the language of the 

 Visigoths, a Romance language was formed, in Spain, as early as 

 A. D. 623. This Romance tongue, with some Arabic words from 

 the Moors, forms the basis of the Castilian tongue, which, according 

 to Sismondi, dates back to 1050 ; under Ferdinand the Great. The 

 laws, and documents of Spain, were written in Latin, till 1252 ; when 

 Alphonso X. published Las Partidas, a code of laws, in Spanish. 

 This language abounds in full sounding vowels ; though mingled 

 with Arabic and Gothic palatals and gutturals: and, from its solemnity 

 and dignity, it has been termed " the language of the gods." The 

 Spanish alphabet, is the same as ours ; only wanting the letter w. 

 The Spaniards pronounce the vowels, as we have mentioned for the 

 Latin: but c before e, i, and y, they pronounce like our th ; ch, as in 

 English, in charrn ; gu, when without a diaresis, like g hard ; g be- 

 fore e, i, and y, like h ; and j always like our h; while h itself is 

 always silent. They pronounce // like our Hi in billion ; and n, with 

 a tilde over it, like ni in pinion : these sounds being called liquid ; 

 and also found in the Italian. They pronounce x, where it comes 

 before a vowel with no circumflex accent, like h ; and z they always 

 sound like our th. 



The Lord's Prayer in Spanish, is here annexed, to show the close 

 connexion between this language and the Italian and Latin. 



