GREEK LANGUAGE. 



There examples are fufficient to (hew how the Greek has 

 been derived from Hebrew roots. Some thoufands of 

 Greek primitives owe their origin to the fame fource ; and 

 it is not too much to fay that, if the Hebrew language had 

 been preforved in the full extent in which it once flourifhed, 

 rot a Greek, term could be named, which might not be 

 traced to fome one of its roots. But as its records are 

 comparatively fo fcanty, many of the parent terms of Greece 

 may more immediately be found in the kindred tongues 

 of Syria, Chaldea, Arabia, and even Perfia, which laft, 

 though different in flrufture from the Greek, contains a 

 multitude of its radical terms. The conclnfion that Greek 

 originally flowed from the Hebrew tongue, ferves to explain 

 many of the properties which dillinguiflies this celebrated 

 language, and to corredl many errors into which learned men 

 have fallen in treating this fubjedl. 



"Thceaftern tongues, faysDr. Gi'lics, (Hiftocy of Greece, 

 vol. i. p. 15.) are in general extremely deficient in vowels. 

 It is, or rather was,> much difputed, whether the ancient 

 orientals ufed any chardSers to exprefs them. Their lan- 

 guages, therefore, miifl liave had an inflexible thicknefs of 

 found, extremely different from the vocal harmony of the 

 Greek, which abounds not only in vowels, but in diphthongs. 

 This circumilance denotes, in the Greeks, organs of percep- 

 tion more acute, elegant, and difcerning. They felt fuch 

 faint variations of liquid founds as efcaped the dulnefs of 

 Afiatic ears, and invented marks to exprefs them. They 

 dillinguillted in this manner, not only their articulation, 

 but their quantity, and afterwards their mufical intona- 

 tion." We do not think this obfervation altogether jull, 

 but think it 1-athcr founded in a mifconception of the ori- 

 et>tal languages. In thefe every confonairt included in 

 itfelf the vOwel neceffary to its enunciation ; and while 

 they thus prefented a feries of confonants to the eye, each 

 , in pronunciation is accompanied with its appropriate vocal 

 found, which rendered every word juft as many fyllables as 

 ^t had of confonants, and gave to the language an exaft 

 mixture of vowels and confonants. When the Hebrew 

 tongue ceafed to be a living language, its true pronunciation 

 was of courfe loft ; and with it was loil the found and 

 cv<;n the exillence of the included vowel ; and to fup- 

 ply this lofs were invented the vowel points in Hebrew, 

 Arabic, and the accents in Greek, which appear to be of 

 kindred or rather of the fame invention with the diacritical 

 marks in the Afiatic tongues. The early Greeks, being 

 fcnfible of the included vowel in the parent tongue, gave it 

 a feparate exiftence, by annexing it to the confonant : and as 

 this vowel, though originally the fame and always fhort, was 

 liable to fluctuation, and to perceptible difference of found, 

 it naturally gave birth to the feveral ihort vowels. In Homer 

 the digamma, which was a labial confonant, interpofed be- 

 tween two vowels, which otherwife won d have formed a 

 diphthong. And this circumilance might lead us to con- 

 clude that the early Greeks conformed to the Afiatic 

 tongues in rejefting the ufe of diphthongs, and that ihe 

 ufe of diphthongs prevailed only as the digamma was laid 

 afidCf In the more ancient languages of Afia, all the 

 included vowels' were fliort, and every vowel that had an 

 indepegdent form was probably long: but fliort as well as 

 long vowels came in time to have a feparate exilteuce ; 

 and the Shanfcrit, fo far from being deficient in vowels, 

 can boafl oi fixteen, a number more than the double of 

 tliofe in Grick. 



We remark, in the fecond place, th.at the derivation of 

 the Greek primitives from the oriental tongues will, in 

 general, fet alide as nugatory and erroneous the deriva- 

 tions of the ancient fcholiqjh, and o£ thofe modern lexi- 



cographers who have adopted their explanations. TIicTe 

 fcholiafls and grammarians are valuable as expounders of 

 the Greek text ; but as they were apparently ignorant of the 

 oriental tongues, the account which they give of the words 

 thence derived are often frivolous in the extreme. It is 

 neceffary to juftify this affertion by a few examples. Ai,<Ka-i2, 

 a hedge or fence, occurs in Theocritus, Idyl. i. 47, and the 

 fcholialt derives it from a.iu-y, blood ; becaufe thofe who 

 pafs through fuch a fence are made to bleed. This deriva- 

 tion, nugatory as it appears, is adopted by Hederic in his 

 lexicon : whereas its origin is the Hebrew '^f •;;;N', amez, to 

 Jlrengthen, to feciire, and tlience applied to a hedge, which by 

 furrounding defends a place. On the fame pnnciple y.yzo;, 

 a garden, the origin of which neither Hederic nor any of 

 the ancient fcholiafts, we believe, have attempted to unfold, 

 is borrowed from r|ip, hcph, to furround : hence the term 

 denoted a place iurrouaded or fecured as a garden is. 

 Lennep indeed derives it from xsciroc, breath, a word quite 

 foreign to the purpofe. The word /Swjsik, which occurs in 

 Theocritus Idyl. vii. 10, is thus explained by the fchohall j 

 7r/;'>'K £v Ki', aTo Toy /Sou ft-o^icv, Ji.c-i. icj ^ix r] oTi ^ooi j;ivi 1:0.00.- 

 •n-X>io-;o:-, /. e. a fountain in Cos, from the particle pqo (large), 

 and f!!', to flow, or becaufe it reiembles the nolUils of an 

 ox; whereas /Soi/j;iK is evidently the Hebrew ~lj>f2> t^<^r-> 

 or m^, bur, a fountain. The Greek fcholia, annexed to 

 every author, abound with fuch puerilities as the above ; nor 

 is the " Etymologlcuni Magnum" to be excepted, though 

 the Greek lexicographers have fought for no better or more 

 rational guides in their enquiries after the origin of the words 

 which they explain. 



Hemflerufe, Valckenaer, Ruhnken, Villoifon, Lennep, 

 Scheid, are indeed julUy celebrated among modern critics 

 for their refearches into the origin and meaning of the Greek 

 tongue. Their theories contain many valuable obiervations 

 on the analogy by which that language gi-ew from compa- 

 ratively few radicals to its prefent cumplicated form ; but 

 their fyllem of etymologies appear to us, for the m.oil; part, 

 fanciful and erroneous ; becaufe in no inilance, or at leall in 

 very few inflances, have they fought the Greek terms in the 

 languages of the Eaft, whence aliuredly they had been de- 

 rived. Hemflerufe derives '^lo:, l")eus, from the verb S-!i, to 

 run, to difpofe ; while its real origin, in our opinion, is the 

 Hebrew and Arabic nX3>' "'"'' pronounced in the latter 

 language dhao, to Ihine. The Chaldeans reprefented the 

 Supreme Good under the figure of light ; and to this repre- 

 fentation the facred writer feems to allude, when he fays 

 that God is light. The fame writer deduces c,?jiuc , Jlrong, 

 from /JjiSu,-; while its fource is "l^^f, abur, to be Itrong. 

 From the fame origin he fuppofes irji; or •iroi, before, to have 

 flowed, though it leems to point to the Hebrew y"^^, phra, 

 which in Arabic means the head or root of a family, and 

 hence it came to fignify origin or priority in the form of rrj* : 

 hence^n'or or pnus in Latin. 



Scheid derives -'.^y.c, an omen, from tiiv, tero, to wear, 

 becaufe omens, fays he, obterant, quaii, five flupore percel- 

 lant, enecent que mortales. But the word is the Hebrew 

 "1*^, teer, a bird, divination, which was taken from birds. 

 The fame writer wiU have Tr.oi, or rfjfli', to eat, to have 

 come from tivu.-, or -rfi 1, to ftretch, though far more natu- 

 rally it points to the Perfian ~IJ^, dead, dens, a tooth ; ml 

 hence T!:L' primarily meant, to cut with the teeth. The 

 Hebrew nTiVj zer, '.o flnne, to fcorch, gave birth to |r;(;;, 

 aridus ; but Villoifon fodlilhly derives it from J;i, radere. 

 The fame critic as wifely traces fiAo» to the fame root, 

 becaufe, fays he, li.gnum fit ad radendum aptum. But its 

 origin is evidently '^iJ\V. a grove, hence aJ^^o•, wood, and 

 by diopping the lirft vov.cl fi,?.o>, and by tranfpofition kX^o;, 



nemus. 



