286 THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 



tively to wliicli family certain races respectively belonged. Although^ 

 for example, the Hamite language of Babylon, in the use of post- 

 positions and particles and pronominal suflS.xes, approaches to the 

 character of a Scythic or Turanian rather than a Semitic tongue, 

 yet a large portion of its vocabulary is absolutely identical with that 

 which was afterwards continued in Assyrian, Hebrew, Arabic, and 

 the cognate dialects; and the verbal formations, moreover, in Hamite 

 Babylonian and in Semitic Assyrian exhibit in many respects the 

 closest resemblances." "One of the most remarkable results arising 

 from an analysis of the Hamite cuneiform alphabet, is the evidence 

 of an Aryan element in the vocabulary of the very earliest period, 

 thus showing, either that in that remote age there must have been 

 an Aryan race dwelling on the Euphrates among the Hamite tribes, 

 or that (as I myself think moi'e probable) the distinction between 

 Aryan, Semitic and Turanian tongues had not been developed when 

 picture-writing was first used in Chaldea; but that the words then 

 in use passed indifferently at a subsequent period, and under certain 

 modifications, into the three great families among which the languages 

 of the world were divided."^ If we confine ourselves to the vocabulary, 

 disregarding grammatical forms, it will not be difficult to prove the 

 kinship of the whole race. Professor Miiller quotes the statement of 

 Dr. J. Rae, to the effect that all the Indo-European languages have 

 their root and origin in that of Polynesia, a statement in which Dr. 

 Eae is in part justified by the presence in many of the Malay dialects 

 of roots identical in form and meaning with those of the Aryan lan- 

 guages.^ Dr. Bleek thinks that the Kaffir and Hottentot languages, 

 the latter of which is supposed to have old Coptic connections, are 

 fitted to shed great light ixpon the most important problems of lan- 

 guage in general;® and the Revs. H. M. "Waddell, and Alex. Robb, 

 missionaries in Old Calabar, find in the Efik, one of the Nigro-Hamitic 

 tongues, a grammatical construction of Semitic form, and a vocabulary 

 possessing radical affinities with the Nilo-Hamitic, Semitic and Indo- 

 European families of speech.^" I observe that Dr. Edkins, of Pekin, 



* Eawliuson's Herodotus, App. Book i ; essay vi ; section 18. 



8 Lectures on Science of Languige ; series ii, lecture i. Dr. Leyden long ago f Asiatic Re- 

 gearchcs, vol. x,) set forth the same truth, which modern theorists in language have rejected as 

 nterfering with their a priori conclusions. 



» Lectures on Science of Language ; series ii ; lecture i. 



1" Twenty-nine years in the West Indies and Central Africa, by Rev. Hope Masterton Wad- 

 deli ; appendix vi. Notes, on the Elik language. 



