LANGUAGE. 
I6i 
tors and poets. Maimonides Is their mod judicious theo¬ 
logian. 
The Chaldean, Phoenician, Ethiopian, or Abyflinian, 
and Egyptian, languages, are all cognates of the original 
Hebrew, and have a very ftrift connection and dialectical 
analogy among each other; fo that what is obferved re¬ 
lating to one of them may, without the lead draining, be 
extended to them all. 
The Chaldeans, or Chafidim, as they are called in 
Scripture, were the defcendants of Chefed the fon of Na- 
hor, the brother of Abraham. The defcendants of this 
patriarch drove the Cufliim or Arabians out of Babylonia, 
and poffeffed themfelves of that country at a very early 
period. As thefe Chafidim or Chaldeans were the pofte- 
rity of Nahor, the defcendant of Heber, they undoubtedly 
fpoke the original Hebrew tongue as well as the other 
branches of that family. But, being an ingenious inven¬ 
tive people, they feem to have polilhed their language 
with much care and delicacy of tafte. 
The only genuine remains of the ancient Chaldaic lan¬ 
guage are to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures ; and 
thofe are contained in z 6 8 verfes : of which we have zoo 
in Daniel, reaching from verfe 4th chapter ad to chapter 
8th, exclufive ; in Ezra 67, in chapter 4th, 17 verfes; 
chapter 5th, the fairte number; chapter 6th, 18 verfes; 
and in chapter 7th, 15 ; in Jeremiah, chapter 10th, there is 
extant only one verfe. And from thefe fragments, com¬ 
pared with the Hebrew-, it plainly appears, that the dif¬ 
ference between that language and the Chaldaic is fcarcely 
equal to that between the Doric and Ionic dialefts of the 
Greek. 
The Chaldean declenfions and conjugations differ fo 
little from the Hebrew modifications, that it would be al- 
mod Superfluous to dwell upon them. The mod effec¬ 
tual way to acquire an idea of the ancient Chaldaic, is to 
decompound the names confeffedly of that dialed, which 
occur in many places of Scripture. By this method of 
proceeding, its beautiful drufture and exprefiive energy 
will be readily comprehended even by the mod illiterate 
ciaffes of our readers. At the fame time, we mult obferve, 
that the Chaldaic and ancient Syriac bear fo near a re- 
femblance to each other, that they have generally been 
claffed under one head. 
The fir If Chaldaic word that occurs in the Old Tefta- 
ment is bara, he created. This word has all along been 
adigned to the language under confideration ; for what 
realon, we confefs we are nqf able to difcover. The great- 
elf part of the Hebrew tongue is now lod. The words 
bar , a (on, and bara, he created, may probably be of that 
number. Another Scripture-word which is often quoted, 
and always afcribed either to the Syriac or Chaldaic, is 
jcgar fahadutha, which fignifies “ a mountain of witneffes.” 
Every body knows, that, when Jacob and Laban made 
their compact, the latter denominated the heap of dones 
reared upon that occaCon in this manner; while the for- 
-mer called it Gaittd, as we now write and pronounce it. 
This word is probably compounded of gal, a heap, and 
xhad, eternity, fo that galchad, or galaad as it came to be 
.written afterwards, flgnined “an everlafting heap.” La- 
•ban then had refpect to the' end for which the monument 
was erefted ; but Jacob alluded to its duration. 
The Chaldaic names of gods, men, places, See, which 
occur in Scripture, appear to be no other titan Hebrew 
polilhed and improved. Thus Ur of the Chaldeans is ac¬ 
tually *Vl^ light, that city being facred to the fun; Sip- 
fora is plainly the Hebrew word Zipporak ; Carchemi/h, a 
city on the Euphrates, is evidently compounded of Kir 
or Kar, a city, and Chemojk, a name of the lun. In Ihort, 
every Chaldean or old Syrian word now extant, without 
any difficulty, betrays an Hebrew original. 
This language was anciently ufed throughout all Af- 
iyria, Babylonia, Mefopotamia, Syria, and Paleitine ; and 
js Hill the language of the Neltorian and Maronite Chrif- 
iians in thofe ealtern parts, in the fame manner as the La- 
n is the language of the popijh Ciiriftians ill the welt. 
-yoL. xii. No'. 819. 
The Phoenician language is known to have been that 
of the ancient Canaanites. That this was one of the ori¬ 
ginal dialefts, and confequently a cognate of the Hebrew, 
is univerfally acknowledged. Bochart has in a manner 
demonftrated this point, by deriving almolt all the names 
of the Phoenician colonies from the Hebrew, upon the 
fuppofition that the dialeift of thofe people was clofely 
connected with that tongue. St. Auguftine has obferved, 
that even in his time many of the vulgar in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Carthage and Hippo fpoke a dialefi of the 
old Punic which nearly refembled the Hebrew. Proco¬ 
pius informs us, that there exifted even in his days in 
Africa a pillar with this inscription in Hebrew : “ We flee 
from the face of Jofhua the robber, the fon of Nun.” The 
names of all the ancient cities built by the Carthaginians 
on the coal! of Africa are ealily reducible to a Hebrew 
original. The Carthaginian names of perfons mentioned 
in the Greek and Latin hiftory, fuch as Himilco, Haniil- 
car, Afdrubal, Hannibal, Hanno, Dido, Anna or Hannah, 
Sophonilba, Gifgo, Maharbal, Adherbal, &c. all evince a 
Hebrew extraction. 
The ifiand of Malta was inhabited by a colon}' of Phoe¬ 
nicians many ages before the Moors took poffeffion of it. 
Among the vulgar of that ifland many Punic vocable* 
are current to this day, all of which may be readily traced 
up to the Hebrew fountain. To thefe we may add many 
inscriptions on (tones, coins, medals, See. which are cer¬ 
tainly Phoenician, and as certainly of Hebrew extraction. 
The Etruscan language muff have been the fame, or 
nearly fo, with the Hebrew and Phoenician. The firlt 
Pelafgic Settlements in Etruria mult have taken place not 
many centuries after the deluge, and very few after the 
difpeiflon ; and at that time the languages, or rather dia- 
lefts, of the Egyptians, Affyrians, Babylonians, Celtes, 
Syrians, and Arabs, mult have approached extremely near 
to the Hebrew and Phoenician, which the learned allow' 
to have been almolt the fame. In fliort, both facred and 
profane hiltory concur in fhowing the Hebrew, Phoeni¬ 
cian, and Etrufcan, tongues to have been, in the earlier 
ages, nearly the fame. This alfo appears from the letters 
and manner of writing anciently ufed in Etruria. The 
letters are almolt the fame with thofe of the earlieft 
Greeks, brought by Cadmus out of Phoenicia. The man¬ 
ner of writing is purely oriental, the letters being drawn 
from the right hand to the left, agreeably to the practice 
of the ealtern nations. The former point is rendered in- 
difputable by the Eugubian tables, in conjunction witli 
the Sigtean infeription ; and the latter by merely perufing 
the Etrufcan inscriptions. The very remote antiquity of 
the firlt colonies that fettled in Etruria, as well as of the 
Etrufcan language and alphabet, may be eafily inferred 
from thefe inscriptions ; for, as the Pelafgic alphabet, that 
prevailed in Greece before the age of Deucalion, conlilted 
of fixteen letters, the Etrufcan or Pelalgic alphabet, firlt 
brought into Italy, compofed only of thirteen letters, mult 
have preceded the reign of that prince. The high, and 
indeed the almolt incredible, antiquity of the Etrufcan 
language and alphabet, lias been clearly evinced in tws 
diifertations, printed at Oxford, in the year 1746. For 
other particulars relating to this fubject, we refer to 
Dempfter’s Etruria regalis, Gori in his Mufeum Etruf- 
cum, publifhed at Florence in 1737; M. Bourguet’s Dif- 
fertation publilhed in 1733, and Buonarota’s of Florence 
in 1726 ; and Svvinton’s Etrufcan alphabet, publilhed 'at 
Oxford. 
The ancient language of the Ethiopians was the Chal¬ 
dee. The language of the Babylonian Cufliim was Chal¬ 
daic, and of confequence that of the Ethiopian Cufliim 
was the fame. We may therefore reft affured, that, what¬ 
ever changes the Ethiopian dialect may have undergone 
in the courfe of three thouland years, it was originally 
Chaldaic. Scaiiger informs us, that the -Ethiopians call 
themfelves Chaldeans ; and that, fays he, not without rea- 
lon, becaufe,of thofe many facred and profane books which 
are extant among them, the molt elegant.and tnofr beau- 
T % ti'fjiJ 
