271 



forget, that a people celebrated in the remotest 

 antiquity, from whom the Greeks themselves 

 borrowed knowledge, had perhaps a language, 

 the construction of which recals involuntarily 

 that of the languages of America. What a 

 scaffolding of little monosyllabic and dissyllabic 

 forms is added to the verb, and to the substan- 

 tive, in the Coptic language ! The Chayma 

 and the Tamanack, half barbarous, have toler- 

 ably short abstract words to express grandeur, 

 envy, and lightness, cheictivate, uoite, and uonde; 

 but in Coptic the word malice # , metrepherpe- 

 tou, is composed of five elements, easy to be 

 distinguished. It signifies the quality (met J of 

 a subject (reph), which makes (er) the thing 

 which is (pet J, evil (ou). Nevertheless the 

 Coptic language has had it's literature, like the 

 Chinese, the roots of which, far from being 

 aggregated, scarcely approach each other with- 

 out immediate contract. We must admit, that 

 nations once awakened from their lethargy, 

 and tending toward civilization, find in the 

 most uncouth languages the secret of expressing 

 with clearness the conceptions of the mind, and 

 of painting the emotions of the soul. A re- 



* See on the incontestible identity of the ancient Egyp- 

 tian and Coptic, and on the particular system of synthesis of 

 the latter language, the ingenious reflexions of Mr. Silvestre 

 de Sacy, in the " Notice des Recherches de M. Etienne Quatre- 

 ytfere sur la Littirature de VEgypte, p. 18 and 23. 



