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dern Hebrew, or common language of the Jews, which is sometimes called the German Hebrew.

The prevailing LANGUAGES of ASIA are the Turkish and Tartarian, with their different dialects; the Persian, the Georgian, the Circassian, and Armenian.

The language of the Jews in Persia, and in the districts anciently called Media and Babylon.

The modern Indian, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the modern Arabic, besides many others of less note.

All the above languages have separate and distinct alphabets.

The principal languages of AFRICA are the modern Egyptian, and the Moroccan. The people on the coast of Barbary speak a kind of Turkish,

To these may be added the language of Abyssinia, Nigritia, and that of the Hottentots, together with the jargons of those savage nations who inhabit the interior.

The LANGUAGES of the AMERICAN NATIONS are but little known in Europe. Each of these, though distant but a few days' journey from each other, has its particular dialect.

Those of the Mexicans and Peruvians are the most regular and polished. After these may be ranked the languages of Paraguay, Brazil, and Guiana.

There are many other languages, or dialects, both in North and South America; but these, for the most part, are unknown.

The greatest difficulty in all living languages consists in the pronunciation. To attain a proper pronunciation is scarcely possible, unless the learner be born in the country where the language is spoken.

It is for this only that a master is necessary, as it cannot be learned but by teaching or conversation; all the rest may be acquired by a good grammar, and other books.

Ail living languages are pronounced rapidly, and without dwelling on the long syllables; and, for the most part, the substantives have articles prefixed to distinguish the genders: the English is an exception.

All the EUROPEAN LANGUAGES are written from the left to the right, and almost all the ASIATIC from the right to the left.

THE DEAD SEA.

THE wind blows chill across those gloomy waves ;—

Oh! how unlike the green and dancing main !

The surge is foul as if it rolled o'er graves;

Stranger, here lie the cities of the plain.

Yes, on that plain by wild waves covered now,
Rose palace once, and sparkling pinnacle;
On pomp and spectacle beamed morning's glow,
On pomp and festival the twilight fell.

Lovely and splendid all,--but Sodom's soul

Was stained with blood, and pride, and perjury;
Long warned, long spared, till her whole heart was foul,
And fiery vengeance on its clouds came nigh.

And still she mocked and danced, and taunting, spoke
Her sportive blasphemies against the Throne:-

It came the thunder on her slumber broke :

God spake the word of wrath! Her dream was done.

Yet, in her final night, amid her stood

Immortal messenger, and pausing Heaven
Pleaded with man, but she was quite imbued,

Her last hour waned, she scorned to be forgiven!

'Twas done!-down pour'd at once the sulph'rous shower,
Down stoop'd in flame the heaven's red canopy.

Oh! for the arm of God in that fierce hour!—
'Twas vain, nor help of God or man was nigh.

They rush, they bound, they howl, the men of sin-
Still stoop'd the cloud, still burst the thicker blaze;
The earthquake heaved !-then sank the hideous din !—
Yon wave of darkness o'er their ashes strays.-CROLY.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

LANGUAGE is the means designed by our "Benevolent Creator" for conveying our ideas or notions to each other. Language, moreover, is evidently intended, not only to communicate "knowledge," but to afford pleasure. To answer this desirable end, we must render it not only precise in its expression, but pleasing in its construction, so that the ear may not be offended by vulgar terms or badly worded sentences.

Dr. Blair has smartly defined good language to consist in the use of such words, and such constructions, as belong to the idiom of the language, in opposition to words and phrases that are imported from other languages, or that are obsolete, or used without proper and competent authority.

A language is said to be rich when it has an extensive variety of words, which convey nearly the same meaning; each bearing, however, a slight shade of difference. This copiousness is admirably conducive to precision, if managed with skill and judgment.

It is allowed, without doubt or hesitation, that our language is composed of contributions from the Greek, Latin,

French, Saxon, Gothic, or Teutonic, and a variety of other tongues, so that it is almost, if not altogether impossible to say in what its native idiom consists that which was formerly the pure ancient British, or Cambrian (Welsh), is now become a mixture of Saxon, Teutonic, Dutch, Danish, Norman, and French, strongly imbued with the Greek and Latin.

Our scientific words are, for the most part, derived from the Greek; our terms of art from the Latin, Italian, and French; and our domestic words, or such as are used in ordinary parlance, and expressive of objects of daily notice or recurrence, from the Saxon. Of the 40,000 words, which, exclusive of proper names, the English language contains, nearly 14,000 are derived from the Latin, Greek, Italian, French, German, Welsh, Dutch, Spanish, Danish, and Arabic languages; and the remainder, or about 26,000 words, are of Saxon origin. However, the English language in its present state, is universally allowed to be the most copious, energetic, descriptive, and eloquent of the living languages; equally as significant as the Latin, and little inferior in variety of expression to the Greek itself. It is at this time known, and even spoken, in most of the courts of Europe. In Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, it is become almost as common as the French, particularly among the nobility of Denmark, who have made great progress in the English tongue; and it is now publicly taught at Copenhagen, Kiel, and other towns of note, as a necessary part of education.

The English people were one of the first of modern Europe that adapted their language for literature, and of whose early authors some still shine among the patterns of classic beauty. Yet there is, perhaps, no other whose language has undergone so many and great changes, and suffered so much mixture, before it attained its present perfection.*

The original Celtic, or Erse, the language of the ancient Britons, is allowed to be of high antiquity, and is even thought by many writers of eminence to have been the primeval or original language. Pelontier, in his "Histoire des Celtes," asserts, that all the European nations were of Celtic extraction; and particularly nanies the Spaniards, Portuguese, Gauls, Germans, Scandinavians, Britons, Picts, and Scots or Irish, Ligurians, Umbrians, and several other tribes of Italy, as well as others seated in Russia, Hungary, Poland, &c.

* See Lord MONBODDO'S Work on Languages and Literature, and an article on the Teutonic Languages in the Philomathic Review.

The ancient Celtic is said to be still spoken in its purity on the northern coasts of Asia. We will observe here that there is so strong an affinity between the Irish, Welsh, and Scotch that the natives are now intelligible to each other in conversation. The modern Scotch, or Gaelic, as spoken in the Scottish Isles and the Highlands, has also a mixture of the Sclavonic and Teutonic. Though the ancient Britons, or Welsh, were the first masters of England, yet the deduction of the English language requires no mention of them; for we have so few words which can, with any certainty, be referred to British roots, that we justly regard the Saxons and Welsh as nations totally distinct.

It being universally acknowledged that our "parent tongue" is derived from the Goths, it will be expedient to know whence was the origin of the Goths.

The word Goth is not to be found in authors till long after the Christian era. It is pretty generally believed the word Goth is synonymous with Scyth, or Scythian.

This language, without doubt, had its rise in Asiatic Scythia, and probably partook more of the idiom of the north, as the Celtic covered more of the east. Thus the Celtic and the Gothic, so frequently mistaken for each other, are as different as Latin and Arabic. In Europe it made its way rapidly, and is now almost universal. Nothing positively certain is recorded of this language till sometime before the Christian era. Odin, or Wodin, with his followers came from the Asiatic side of the Lake Mostis; having been driven out, as it is held, by the terror of the Roman army, after the conquest of Mithridates by Pompey. He retired, doubtless for the same reason, to the northern parts of Europe not subject to the Roman government, and settled in Scandinavia and the coasts about the Baltic Sea; whence some have considered this migration of the Goths only a return to their parent country. By the addition of fresh partisans, they possessed themselves of the most eastern parts of Europe; by degrees grew troublesome and formidable to the Roman state, and at length overturned it.

In carrying on their conquests, they committed great devastations, for which they are loaded with infamy by some eminent historians; and their name, in the present day, is used as a term of reproach for those who profess an enmity to the arts and sciences. But the Goths were, notwithstanding, the most civilized of all the northern nations of their time.

Odin brought with him many useful arts, and among the rest, that of letters. His colony was therefore received by

the natives with joy and great kindness, and settled peaceably among them; till, for want of room, he was compelled to extend his dominions by force of arms. Besides his undoubted skill in war, he is said to have wrought many marvellous feats in magic; and a thousand-and-one fabulous stories are recorded of him. He was reverenced after his demise as the chief deity of the Goths; his captains also were likewise deified under the name of Asæ or Asiatics, to distinguish them from the Europeans; and their language was called Asa mal, or Asiatic speech.

The Cimbrians, by some styled the Northern Germans, took a different route, and infested the western parts of Europe, where they became known to our historians by the name of Pagans, Pirates, Danes, and Normans : their language was scarcely different from the Saxon.

The English, as has been stated, owe their mother tongue to the Goths; yet the ancient Britons, our "valorous ancestors," who first possessed this great and glorious land, spoke a language widely different, before they were conquered by the Romans, under the command of Julius Cæsar, about fifty years before the Christian era.

England remained subject to the Roman emperors till the year 428, when the Goths, and other nations of the north, notorious for their barbarity, breaking into the Roman empire, rendered it necessary for the former to recal their legions which had been stationed in Britain; when the Emperor Honorius renounced the sovereignty of the country.

The Britons were left, on the deparure of the Roman soldiers, in a feeble, if not a defenceless state, when they were immediately harassed and oppressed by the invasion of their northern enemies, the Picts and Scots, who committed the most dreadful outrages, and the tracks of whose terrible irruptions were marked with blood and devastation. Having been reduced to this dreadful state, the Britons had recourse to the Saxons, a people inhabiting the north of Germany, celebrated for their warlike and generous conduct, for relief and protection, offering to give them the Isle of Thanet for their service. The offer was unhesitatingly accepted, and the Saxons, together with a great number of Angles, a people of Jutland, came over to Britain, and were successful in repelling the incursions of the Picts and Scots; but seeing the weak and defenceless state of the Britons, they resolved, in the hour of danger, to take advantage of it; and at length established themselves in South Britain. The unconquered of the ancient Britons were now reduced to the necessity of flying to the mountains of Wales for shelter, whereby the ancient

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