However great may be the amount of resem blance between Arabic and Hebrew which a due estimate of all the theoretical grounds for the affinity, and for the diversity, between them would entitle us to assume, it is certain that a comparison of the actual state of both in their purest form evinces a degree of proximity which exceeds ex pectation. Not only may two-thirds of the Hebrew roots (to take the assertion of Aurivillius, in his Dissertationes, p. II, ed. J. D. Michaelis) be found in Arabic under the same letters, and either in the same or a very kindred, sense, provided we know r•V , that the last radical of roots in Hebrew is Haw or 7a in Arabic ; and that those whose first radical is ,hod in Hebrew is Wazo in Arabic ; and that the letters 3/ l y 1 n n correspond to and that either when the latter have a diacritical point or not ; but, if we allow for the changes of into 1 into and and t into into y D and into r into 11., and ei into and we shall be able to discover nearly nine tenths of the Hebrew roots in Arabic. To this great fundamental agreement in the vocabulary (the wonder of which is somewhat diminished by a right estimate of the immense disproportion between the two languages as to the number of roots) are to be added those resemblances which relate to the mode of inflexion and construction. Thus, in the verb, its two wide tenses, the mode by which the persons are denoted at the end in the Perfect, and at the beginning (with the accessory distinctions at the end) in the Imperfect, its capability of ex pressing the gender in the second and third persons, and the system on which the conjugations are formed; and in the noun, the correspondence in formations, in the use of the two genders, and in all the essential characteristics of construction ; the possession of the definite article ; the independent and affixed pronouns ' • and the same system of separable and attached particles—all these form so broad a basis of community and harmony between the two dialects, as could hardly be anticipated, when we consider the many centuries which sepa rate the earliest written extant documents of each.
The diversities between them, which consist almost entirely of fuller developments on the side of the Arabic, may be summed up under the fol lowing heads :—A much more extensive system of conjugations in the verb, the dual in both tenses, and four forms of the Imperfect (three of which, however, exist potentially in the ordinary imperfect, the jussive, and the cohortative of the Hebrew : see Ewald's Heir. Gramm. § 290, 293); the full series of infinitives ; the use of auxiliary verbs ; in the noun, the formations of the plural called broken or internal plurals, and the flexion by means of termi.
nations analogous to three of our cases ; and a perfectly defined system of metre. The most im portant of these differences consists in that final vowel after the last radical, by which some of the forms of the imperfect and the several cases in the noun are indicated ; and it is a matter of some moment to determine whether they are to be ascribed to the genuine natural expansion of the language, or are only an attempt of the gramItarians to introduce Greek inflexions into Arabic. The latter opinion has been seriously propounded by Hasse, in a paper in his .dfagazin fiir Biblisch Orientalische Litteratur, i. 230; and even Gesenius has expressed himself to the same effect (Gesch. d. Hebr. Spr. p. 95). Nevertheless, the notion springs from a forgetfulness of the fact that the date of the early poems, the Hamasa and the Mu'allaqat, is much anterior to the period when any such foreign influence as Hasse alludes to could have had effect; and from an ignorance of the absolute necessity of all those flexional vowels to preserve the metre of the poetry. If any pro
ductions of Arabic genius are old—if any are national in the highest sense, both as to substance and form, it is those poems. And so essential a part of their form is the metre according to which they were conceived, that it is incontestible that their metrical disposition and their existence are coeval. When Hasse, then, ' candidly admits that these terminations of case were in use as early as the second century of the Hig'ra,' he merely admits his ignorance of the fact that the earliest remains of Arabic literature, those which are older by centuries than the are composed in a form which is unintelligible unless read according to the nicest distinctions of this vocalization of the final syllables. This error is, moreover, akin to a not uncommon statement, that Al Chalil, who lived in the second century of the Hig'ra (Freytag's Dar stellung d. Arab. Verskunst, p. i8), invented the art of Prosody; which is as true as that Aristotle invented the art of Poetry, merely because he abstracted the laws of composition from the master piece of Greek genius.
The Arabic alphabet also presents some re markable differences. As a representation of sounds, it contains all the Hebrew letters ; but in consequence of the greater extent of the nation as a source of dialectual varieties of pronunciation, and also in consequence of the more developed and refined state of the language, the value of some of them is not exactly the same, and the characters that correspond to 3) D V 1 11 11 are used in a double capacity, and represent both halves of those sounds which exist unseparated in the Hebrew. The present order of the letters also is different, although there are evidences in their numerical value, when so used, and in the memorial words given in Ewald's Grammatica Critica Ling. Arab. § 67, that the arrangement was once the same in both. In a paleographical point of view, the characters have undergone many changes. The earliest form was that in the Himjarite alphabet. The first specimens of this character (which Arabic writers call al llfzesnad, i. e., stilted, columnar) were given by Seetzen in the Fundgruben des Orients. Since then Professor Rodiger has produced others, and illustrated them in a valuable paper in the Zeitschrzit fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, i. 332. The letters of this alphabet have a striking re semblance to those of the Ethiopic, which were derived from them. In Northern Arabia, on the other hand, and not very long before the time of Muhammad, the Syrian character called Estrangela became the model on which the Arabic alphabet called the .Kufic was formed. This heavy, angular Kufic character was the one in which the early copies of the Qurtin were written ; and it is also found in the ancient Muhammadan coinage as late as the seventh century of the Hig'ra. From this, at length, was derived the light, neat character called Nischt, the one in which the Arabs con tinue to write at the present day, and which we have endeavoured to represent in our printed books. The introduction of this character is ascribed to Ibn Muqla, who died in the year 327 of the Hig'ra. (See the table given in the article ALPHABET.) Lastly, it is worthy of notice that all the letters of the Arabic alphabet are only consonants ; that, in an unpointed text, the long vowels are denoted by the use of Alif, Waw, and Ja, as matres lectionis ; and that the short vowels are not denoted at all, but are left to be supplied according to the sense in which the reader takes the words ; whereas, in a pointed text, three points only suffice to represent the whole vocalization ; the equivalents to which, according to the way in which they are expressed in this work, are a, i, u, pronounced as in Italian.