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feeing it comes from one who by his great Skill in Languages, both ancient and modern, was very well qualified to judge of this Que

ftion.

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And now, Sir, I fhall venture to lay down my Propofition at Length. It is this: That there was but one Language in the World, when the Progeny of Noah went down into the Valley of Shinaar to build the City and Tower of Babel and that then, as Mofes literally informs us, there was a Confufion of Tongues inflicted upon the Workmen by the immediate Hand of God, so that they could not understand one anothers Speech; and that upon that Confufion there were new Languages inftantly framed, which Languages have been the Roots and Originals from which the feveral Dialects that are, or have been, or will be spoken, as long as this Earth shall last, have arifen, and to which they may with Eafe be reduced.

Here I beg Leave to enlarge upon what I just hinted at already, which is, that these general Marks, which run through all these Tongues, and which truly feparate the Eaftern from the Western Languages, have none of them disappeared, or been shifted from one to the other, for near three Thousand Years. They appear in every Book of the Old Teftament, from Mofes down to Malachi; in the Chaldee Paraphrafts, in the Syriac Verfions of the Bible, and Liturgies; in the Mina, and the Gemara; and in every other Rabbinical

Book

Book (as far at least as I can judge by Citations) from the Mifna, which I take to be the most ancient Book next the Bible in the Hebrew Language, down to thofe Jewish Writers, who to this Day fwarm in Holland, and Germany, and Poland, and Turkey. All the Marks of the Arabic Language before fpecified, are obfervable in the Alcoran, which is about eleven Hundred Years old, and may undoubtedly be found in every other Arabic Book that has been written fince.

On the other Side confider Homer's Poems (which are the oldest Monuments that we have of the Greek Language;) take Theocritus for the Doric Dialect, Euripides or Thucydides for the Attic, Herodotus or Hippocrates for the Ionic, Sappho for the Eolic; and come downwards to the modern Greek now spoken in those once flourishing Regions, and you will fee the general Marks of thefe Japhetic Languages run through them all. Thefe Idioms fhew themfelves at firft Sight to be nothing more than Dialects manifeftly fpringing from the fame common Root, which never did, nor ever will (as far as we may judge by the Practice of above two Thousand Years fucceffively) conjugate Verbs, decline Nouns, or compare Adjectives like the Hebrew or the Arabic. Thefe Languages will always compound Verbs and Nouns with Prepofitions, which effentially alter the Senfe: Thefe Languages never had any poffeffive Pronouns affixed to their Nouns,

to

to determine the Perfon or Perfons to whom they do of Right belong: They prefix no fingle Letters to their Words which may be equivalent to Conjunctions, thereby to connect the Senfe of what goes before, with what follows. Any Man that is but tolerably initiated in any one of the Eastern Tongues, and that compares it with any of ours, must own that what I fay is so far right. And I fhall readily own, that, were it not for thefe diftinguishing Marks by which original Languages may be diftinguished from one another, I fhould have concurred with Stiernbielmius in affirming, that all Tongues feem to arife from one Language at first, to which they may be all reduced.

But then again, when I reflect, that by the lowest Computation the Earth was MDCCLVII Years old, when this Confufion happened; and that by that Account it is not fix Thousand Years old now; that, if we take the highest Account, the Matter is not much mended; that we know what the Hebrew Tongue was above three Thousand Years ago when Mofes wrote; that he gives a Specimen of fome Chaldaean Words ufed in Jacob's Time, which correfpond to what else we have of that Language at this Day; and of fome Egyptian Words, which are different from Hebrew; that the Time when those two Languages were formed

Videri omnes Linguas, quae in orbe cognito exftiterunt, & hodie exftant, ex una ortas, & ad unam poffe reduci. Id. ibid.

was

was above two Hundred Years earlier than the Time when Mofes wrote; when again I reflect that the Arabic Language from Mahomet's Time to this Day correfponds with itself in that operofe and philofophical Way of forming its Verbs, which was then in Ufe, and that too with fo few Anomalies that the Mafters fay its Grammar, is one of the fimpleft in the World: When, I fay, I put all those Things, and many more of the fame Sort together, I cannot conceive that the common Changes which occur in the Dialects with which we are acquainted, are in any Measure fufficient to account for this Matter!

* Had the Egyptian and the Canaanitish Language been the fame, Jofeph needed not to have spoken with his Brethren by an Interpreter; nor would they have talked fo freely before him as they did, but because they firmly believed that he could not understand them, fince the Egyptian Tongue was fo different from their own. Gen. xlii. 23.

'Lingua Arabica eft omnium quotquot exftant longe copiofiffima; infinita fere funt ejus Vocabula, quae quoque multiplices obtinent fignificationes: Tredecim habet con jugationes quae diverfam plerumque fignificationem habent: Ejus Anomaliae funt pauciffimae; nam in Grammatica Arabica plurimi Canones occurrunt, quibus nulla eft exceptio. Idcirco licet a nonnullis propter immenfam verborum copiam omnium Linguarum habeatur difficillima, nihilominus quod Grammaticas Regulas attinet, omnium (excepta forfan Perfica) facillima eft & fimpliciffima. Ockleii Introduct. ad Lingg. Orient. pag.

129, 130.

For

For I must befeech you, Sir, to take this along with you, that Dialects will much fooner' alter now, than they would, or indeed than they could, naturally speaking, in that infant State of Mankind have done. The World was then thin, and the Difperfion would make it thinner, by scattering the People that were collected then into one Body very far afunder; fo that for want of Commerce, which it was the Work of Ages to fettle, and the mutual Affiftance which that gives, Men would be obliged to converse each one with his own Colony; and confequently by not bringing in fo reign Customs, they would keep their Dialects far more entire than they do now, or are ever like to do hereafter in a peopled World. And for the fame Reason, they would for fome few Ages at least, be free from Foreign Conquefts of People that fpoke different Tongues, and, confidering the Time that is elapfed fince the Confufion at Babel, thofe few Ages will go a great Way in the Reckoning.

T

I have already obferved that the Chaldean was a Language already formed in Laban's Time, and the Egyptian in Jofeph's. Small and infenfible Alterations, which perhaps will not be difcernible in an Age or two, will undoubtedly happen; but then believe me, Sir, they will be very fmall and infenfible, unlefs a People converfe much with Strangers. It is Commerce, and Conqueft, and Colonies planted in Regions already peopled with Nations that

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