ORIENTAL LANGUAGES. 333 



They now diftinguifh only five vowels in Heb- 

 rew, which are the lame as ours, a, e, i, o, u. 

 But they divide each vowel into two or three; 

 as long, fhort, fhorteft. The articles, pronouns, 

 &c. are placed after the lubftantive , and the 

 fame word is ibmetimes fubftantive, adjective 

 and verb. The punctuation and accent are the 

 objects that require the greateft attention in the 

 Hebrew language ; they count near forty ac- 

 cents, and there are many whofe ufe is ftill un- 

 known ; they ferve in general to diftinguifh, i. 

 the period and its members, as the points do 

 in other languages ; 2. to determine the quan- 

 tity of lyllables, and 3. to mark the tone that 

 is to be obferved in chanting them. Nineteen 

 of thefe accents are alib called, by grammarians,, 

 diflinfti'vi or acccntus rcgn, and the others conjunfti- 

 "jijfervi or miniftri. There is, properly fpeaking, 

 only one conjugation in this language, which is 

 of itfelf fimple, but is varied in each verb by 

 feven or eight different manners, that form in 

 fact fo many different conjugations, and give a 

 great number of expreffions, to reprefent by one 

 word the various modifications of a verb. Thefe 

 arc the principal characteriftics of the Hebrew, 

 as we find it in the Holy Scriptures ; and which, 

 taken all together, forms a very regular and 

 analogous language. 



VII. The Chaldean is that which was fpoken in 

 Chaldea. Some fay that it is a dialed Ji 

 from the Hebrew, and others that the Hebrew 



is 



