a

Hebrew dialect differed so much from the Babylonian Aramaic-chiefly however, as it seems in pronunciation that the latter sounded to the ears of the common people of Jerusalem as altogether a foreign language. "Speak, I pray thee," said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah to Rab-shakeh—" speak I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; (for we understand it,) and talk not with us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall," 2 Kings xviii. 26. But after the invasion of Palestine by the Assyrian and Chaldaic rulers of Babylon, things were completely changed. The Jews of Palestine, along with their political independence, lost also the peculiar character of their language, which till then they had preserved. The Babylonian-Aramaic

b

* Michaelis Spicil. geogr. Hebr. exterae. T. II. p. 86. Jews unaccustomed to hear the Aramaic spoken did not understand it: in like manner the peasants of lower Saxony would hardly understand the Bavarian or Swabian dialect.

b This dialect is still frequently called the Chaldaic, but Schlözer observes very properly: Chaldaic language is quite an erroneous expression for the Aramaic or Babylonian tongue. With the language of Babylon we are well acquainted, but the true Chaldaic, which probably was more intimately related to the Persic, [what Persic: Zend, or Pehlevi?] Median, Armenian and Kurdic, nobody knows. See Repert. für Bibl. and Morgenländische Litteratur. Th. 8. Leipz. 1781, page 118.

dialect expelled the Hebrew, and gradually became the predominant language of Palestine.

с

§ 2. The circumstances which necessarily must have concurred to render possible, and actually to accomplish this revolution in the language of Palestine, were as follows: I. The Babylonian-Aramaic was intimately related to the Hebrew; it stood in nearly the same degree of relationship to that language as the old Saxon dialect stood to the Frankish, or as modern low-Saxon to high-German. Both were the daughters of the same Shemitic parent tongue, which formed the chain of union between the nations and tribes inhabiting the vast tract of country, bounded by the river Halys in Cappadocia on the west and the Tigris on the east; in fact the Shemitic tongue extended even beyond that river eastward; again, from the source of the Tigris it extended to Arabia. Thus Cappadocians, Pontians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Arameans, Hebrews, Phoenicians and Arabs, were one great nation. Babylonian-Aramaic and Hebrew, had,

d

[ A more intelligible parallel to the English reader is: as Scotch to English in the time of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.]

d Posidonius of Apamea in Strabo, B. I. p. iii. Siebenkees Edit. Lips. 1796, 8vo. Τὸ τῶν ̓Αρμενίων ἔθνος, καὶ τὸ τῶν Συρῶν, καὶ τῶν ̓Αράβων πολλὴν ὁμοφυλίαν ἐμφαίνει

ατά τε τὴν

like other Shemitic dialects, both the same stock of ancient roots; and the Grammar of both languages was in every respect essentially the same. In the following points they differed. 1. Many words of the ancient parent tongue had been retained in one of these dialects, though in the other they had been lost, ex. gr. the verb Dw existed in the Aramaic, of which the Hebrew only retained the derivative noun voy 2. It sometimes happened that the same word had different significations in each of these dialects, as the one retained the original signification, the other preserved only the derived, as in the words 799, No and many others. 3. The Babylonian dialect had borrowed a few terms from

διάλεκτον, καὶ τοὺς βίους καὶ τοὺς τῶν σωμάτων χαρακτήρας, καὶ μάλιστα καθὃ πλησιόχωροί εἰσι. Δηλοῖ δὲ ἡ Μεσοποταμία ἐκ τῶν τριῶν συνεστῶσα τούτων ἐθνῶν· μάλιστα γὰρ ἐν τούτοις ἡ ὁμοιότης διαφαίνεται. Εἰ δέ τις παρὰ τὰ κλίματα γίνεται διαφορὰ τοῖς προσβορέοις ἐπιπλέον, πρὸς τοὺς μεσημβρινοὺς, καὶ τούτοις πρὸς μέσους τοὺς ὅρους, ἀλλ ̓ ἐπικρατεῖ γε τὸ κοινὸν καὶ οἱ ̓Ασσύριοι δὲ καὶ οἱ ̓Αρμένιοι (Probably 'Αραμαῖοι, which reading actually is found in two Codices) παραπλησίως πως ἔχουσι καὶ πρὸς τούτους, καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους. And Strabo likewise, L. ii. p. 225, makes mention of τῆς διαλέκτου (Sc. Συριακῆς) μέχρι νῦν διαμενούσης τῆς αὐτῆς τοῖς τε ἐκτὸς τοῦ Εὐφράτου καὶ τοῖς ἐντός. Confr. the Extract from the still unprinted Commentary of Prof. Heeren, de Linguarum Asiaticarum in Persarum imperio cognatione et varietate; in Gotting. Gel. Auzeig, 1795. p. 721, sqq.

e

the invading North-Chaldeans, who, like the conquering Mogols and Mandshus in China, appropriated and adopted the civilized habits of their new subjects. These terms were quite foreign to the Shemitic idioms, and belonged to the Japhetic family of languages, which prevailed among the Armenians, (?) Medians, Persians, and probably among the Chaldeans, who were related to them. Vestiges of this Chaldaic language are observable in the names of. certain officers of state, as well as in certain expressions which have reference to the government. 4. The Babylonian pronunciation was easier and more full-toned than the Hebrew. It substituted for the frequent sibilating consonants of the Hebrew, which it was very difficult to pronounce, others which were easier; it rejected the long vowels which were not essential to the form of the words; preferred the more sonorous a [i. e. Italian a] to the long o; it admitted a termination vowel in the end of nouns, by way of facilitating the pronunciation; it took the liberty of shortening and contracting several words in pronunciation, and was thus to indolent orientals a far more suitable language in common life and conver

* Schlözer in his Repertory, viii. p. 161.
f It is commonly called the emphatic a.

sation, than the much harsher Hebrew. Thus it could not fail that a dialect so intimately connected with the Hebrew, which recommended itself by an easy pronunciations could not fail of soon becoming prevalent in Palestine, when the Palestine-Hebrews entered into closer connection with the Babylonian-Ara

means.

II. The numerous Aramaic coloniesh suc.ceeding in the kingdom of Israel in the room of those Israelites, whom Shalmanezer had transported into Assyria, retained their own language, and propagated it far and wide round about their settlements, even before the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah. That the Babylonish-Chaldaic magistrates, and commanders who ruled over Palestine-that the armed force, consisting of Arameans and Chaldeans, which assisted them in maintaining order-that the vast number of foreign officers who surrounded them, and acted under

[Easy pronunciation ? Nations do generally not pay much attention to their own comfort in this particular: The Highlander still speaks Gaelic; the Breton, Armoric; the Bask, Biskayan; and the Chinese, Chinese, although the Tartar emperors would willingly have presented them with their own language, which is preferable on many accounts, and, amongst other things, on account of its easier pronunciation.} h 2 Kings xvii. 24. i 2 Kings xxiv. 2.