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ON NATURAL OR INARTICULATE, AND 



And I may fearlessly venture to affirm that there is scarcely a language of 

 dialect in the world, polished or barbarous, continental or insular, employed 

 by blacks or whites, in which the same idea is not expressed by the radical 

 of the one or the other of these terms ; both of which have been employed 

 from the beginning- of time in the same quarter of the globe, and naturally 

 direct us to one common spot, where man must first have existed, and 

 whence alone he could have branched out. The term father is still to be 

 found in the Sanscrit, and has descended to ourselves, as well as to almost 

 every other nation in Europe, through the medium of the Greek, Gothic, and 

 Latin. Papa is still more obviously a genuine Hebrew term ; and while it 

 maintains a range almost as extensive as the former throughout Europe, it 

 has an incalculably wider spread over Asia, Africa, and the most barbarous 

 islands of the Pacific, and extends from Egypt to Guinea, and from Bengal to 

 Sumatra and New-Zealand. The etymons for son are somewhat more nu- 

 merous than those (or father^ but the one or tlie other of them may be traced 

 almost as extensively, as may the words, brother, sister, and even daughter; 

 which last, branching out like the term father, from the Sanscrit, extends 

 northward as far as Scandinavia. 



The generic terms for the Deity are chiefly the three following, or ^Z/aA, 

 Theus or Deus, and God. The first is Hebrew, the second Sanscrit, the third 

 Persian, and was probably Palavi or ancient Persian. And besides these 

 there is scarcely a term of any kind by which the Deity is designated in any 

 part of the world, whether among civilized or savage man. And yet these 

 also proceed from the same common quarter of the globe, and distinctly point 

 out to us the same original cradle for the human race as the preceding terms. 

 Among the barbarians of the Philippine Islands the word is Allatallah, obvi- 

 ously " tiie God of gods," or Supreme God ; and it is the very same term, 

 with the very same duplicate, in Sumatra. In the former islands, I will just 

 observe, also, as we proceed, that we meet with the terms, ma/a/ie^, for a spirit, 

 which is both direct Hebrew and Arabic ; is and dua, one, two, which are San- 

 scrit and Greek ; tambor, a drum, which is also Sanscrit : and inferno, hell, a 

 Latin compound, of Pelasgic or other oriental origin. In the Friendly and other 

 clusters of the Polynesian Islands, the term for God is Tooa, and in New- 

 Guinea, or Papuan, Dewa, both obviously from the Sanscrit ; whence Eatooaa, 

 among the former, is God the Spirit, or the Divine Spirit; Ea, meaning a 

 spirit in these islands. And having thus appropriated the Sanscrit radical to 

 signify the Deity, they apply the Hebrew El, as the Pelasgians and the Greeks 

 did, to denote the sun, or the most glorious image of the Deity ; whence 

 el-langee means the sky, ox sun's residence, tind papa ellangee, ov papa langee, 

 fathers of the sky, or " spirits.''^ 



Allow me to offer you another instance or two. The more common 

 etymon for death, among all nations is mor, mort, or mut ; sometimes the r, 

 and sometimes the t, being dropped in the carelessness of speech. It is mut 

 in Hebrew and PhoBnician ; it is mor, or mort, in Sanscrit, Persian, Greek, 

 and Latin ; it is the same in almost all the languages of Europe ; and it was 

 with no small astonishment the learned lately found out tb.at it is the same 

 also in Otaheite, and some other of the Polynesian Islands, in which mor-ai, 

 is well known to signify -d. sepulchre; literally, the place or region of the 

 dead ; ai meaning a place or region in Otaheitan, precisely as it does in 

 Greek. An elegant and expressive compound, and which is perhaps only to 

 be equalled by the Hebrew zalmut (nin h'i)'> literally, death-shade, but which 

 is uniformly rendered in the established copy of our Bibles, shadow of death. 



Sir, in our own language, is the common title of respect ; and the same 

 term is employed in the same sense throughout every quarter of the globe. 

 In Hebrew its radical import is " a ruler or governor;" sir, s-her, or sher, ac- 

 cording as the h is suppressed, or slightly or strongly aspirated ; in Sanscrit 

 and Persian it means the organ of the head itself; in Greek it is used in a 

 sense somewhat more dignified, and is synonymous with lord; in Arabia, 

 Turkey, and among the Peruvians in South America, it is employed as in the 

 Greek ; and not essentially different in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France ; 



