50 



NA TURE 



[May 19, 1 88 1 



if such averments will commend themselves either to 

 Egyptologists or Hebraists ; they are so transcendental 

 that they do not belong to the domain of pure or com- 

 parative philology, but appertain rather to the province 

 of comparative mythology, and the interpretations so 

 liberally accorded of the myths of one nation by the 

 philology of another. They resemble the labours of the 

 school of Bryant, which expended so much learning, 

 obtained such few results, and established no important 

 fact. So with an immense amount of Egyptian reading 

 and learning the real amount of new facts acquired by 

 ingenious comparisons is small, not to say of the most 

 doubtful character. Amongst one of the most startling 

 ideas is that the Arsu, who ruled during the anarchy 

 which preceded the reign of Setnethk or Nekhtset, is no 

 other than Moses. The search for Moses amongst Egypt- 

 ologists has been most exhaustive, and Prof Lanth, who 

 also belongs to the imaginative rather than the critical 

 school, has long ago thought that he identified not only 

 the Jewish lawgiver, but all the members of his family, on 

 an Egyptian sepulchral tablet. It is needless to remark 

 that no other Egyptologist recognises in the polytheistic 

 worshipper of Apis the monotheistic leader of Israel. 



No doubt many identical verbal roots occur in Egyptian, 

 Assyrian, and Accadian ; those of Hebrew and Coptic have 

 already been pointed out and alluded to ; still the lan- 

 guages are essentially distinct in their constructions, and 

 belong to different families. The Assyrian maybe classed 

 as the oldest form of the Semitic family, at all events the 

 Babylonian must be considered so. Greater difficulty 

 indeed exists about the Accadian, which has been re- 

 ferred with probability by some to the Ugrian family of 

 languages, and with doubtful success by others to the 

 oldest Chinese, as the theory is based on the comparison 

 of few words, some of which are of uncertain meaning, 

 and they cannot be historically traced as the descendants 

 of one another. Some of the Accadian nouns, indeed, 

 resemble the Finnish, but the verbs are totally dis- 

 similar. Many Egyptian words, however, it would appear 

 from the comparative table of Mr. Massey, resemble 

 Accadian, and this may be considered a new departure, 

 and one perfectly legitimate, as the two languages may 

 have started from a common origin ; indeed by some 

 linguists the origin of the Semitic has been referred to 

 Africa ; but as already clearly pointed out, although cer- 

 tain phases of construction ally the Egyptian with the 

 Semitic languages, there is not the most remote similarity 

 •with the Accadian, which is not only of a totally different 

 family from the Semitic, but also the Egyptian or 

 Hamitic tongues. When however Mr. Massey claims to 

 trace Egyptian words in the Maori, he has no doubt been 

 more fascinated by the theory of the Egyptians belonging 

 to a primitive continent subsequently broken into the 

 islands of the Polynesian group than the actual coinci- 

 dences of the two tongues or the similar words in the 

 two languages. It must always be remembered that, like 

 the Chinese, the Egyptian is a very poor language, and 

 expresses a great variety of ideas by a single mono- 

 syllable : no wonder, then, if coincidences occur. The 

 African origin of the Maoris of course demands further 

 consideration. Ethnologically and philologically they 

 were formerly classed as a probable offset of the Malay 

 race, but how Egyptian words passed to them is another 



question. Some words certainly look like Egyptian ; but 

 that is not sufficient, as some Egyptian words resemble 

 those in all other languages. 



More in accordance with probability is the hypothesis 

 that Egyptian words may be found in all the African 

 languages, although their structures differ. This has 

 been long recognised as a fact in the Berber, and also in 

 some of the other African stems, but again the great 

 difference of structure and the doubt how and when the 

 Egyptian words were introduced cloud the inquiry in in- 

 vestigating languages that have had no inscriptions or 

 written literature. Yet the old Egyptian must have been 

 a development of one of the old African languages which 

 subsequently became extinct. 



Notwithstanding the difference of opinion about the 

 results and the methods by which they have been ob- 

 tained, great credit is due to Mr. Massey for the ingenuity 

 with which he has endeavoured to build up his theory 

 and, to his mind, discoveries. He has read through all 

 the principal works on the subjects he treats, and his 

 collection of words, legends, and data is enormous. He 

 has produced a work which will be read with pleasure by 

 some, with amazement by others, and incredulity by 

 specialists. He has taken all reasonable care to insure a 

 fair and correct list of words and facts : yet for all that 

 the embroidery of his particoloured threads has pro- 

 duced a weird and grotesque pattern of strange and 

 fantastic conceptions such as might have been planned 

 by elves or fairies to dazzle and bewilder mortal imagina- 

 tion as much as to amuse and delight themselves. It is 

 too warm and rosy for the chill glance of science. 



THE scorns// CELT/C REV/EW 



The Scottish Celtic Review. No. i, March, 1881; pp. 



80, Svo. (Glasgow: James Maclehose.) 



THIS is a quarterly review of which the first number 

 has just appeared, published by Mr. Maclehose of 

 Glasgow ; but the name of the editor is not given, nor of 

 the writers of the articles. The work however is done in 

 a way which shows that there are at least a few persons 

 in the North who feel a deep interest in Celtic philology 

 and the language and literature of the Scotch Highlands. 

 The programme is an excellent one, and embraces among 

 other things the application to the study of Gaelic of those 

 methods of investigation which have been so fruitful in 

 the fields of English and German philology. It is 

 intended also to help, by means of translations, to make 

 English readers better acquainted with Gaelic literature, 

 and to collect for publication all fragments of unwritten 

 literature which still may happen to linger in the High- 

 lands, as well as to afford room for the discussion of 

 questions relating to Gaelic grammar and orthography. 

 This last, it seems to us, is a subject with which the 

 Ciaelic scholars of the Highlands trouble themselves a 

 great deal too much. Modern Gaelic orthography, 

 whether in Ireland or in Alban, is simply incorrigible, 

 and had better be left alone for the rest of the natural 

 lives of the surviving dialects. This involves no great 

 inconvenience ; for no scholar who wants to understand 

 the history of a Gaelic word ever thinks of being guided 

 by any of the modern spellings which may be in use, but 

 goes back to the Irish of the Middle Ages, or farther still, 



