CHITTAH (l1717), occurs in various passages of Scripture, as enumerated by Celsius : Gen. xxx.
14 ; Exod. ix. 32 ; xxix. 2 ; xxxiv. 22; Dent. viii. 8 ; xxxii. 14 ; Judg. vi. I 1 ; xv. I ; Ruth ii. 23 ; I Sam. vi. 13 ; xii. 17 ; 2 Sam. iv. 6 ; xvii. 28 ; Kings v. 11 ; t Chron. xxi. 20, 23; 2 Chron 15 ; xxvii. 5 ; Job xxxi. 40 ; Ps. lxxxi. 16; cxlvii. 14; Cant. vii. 2 ; Is. xxviii. 25 ; Jer. xii. 13 ; xli. 8 : Ezek. iv. 9 ; xxvii. 17 ; xlv. 13 ; and Joel i. There can be no doubt that chittah, by some writ ten thittlea, chetah, cheteh etc., is correctly trans lated `wheat,' from its close resemblance to the Arabic as well as to the names of wheat in other languages. Celsius says, run, ckittha, occultato in puncto dagesch, pro num chintha dicitur ex usu Ebrorum.' This brings it still nearer to the Arabic name of wheat, which in Roman characters is variously written, hinteh, hinthe, henta, and by Pemplius in his translation of Avi cenna, hhinti`ka ; and under this name it is de scribed by the Arabic authors on Materia Medico..
As the Arabic lea, is in many words converted into • kha, it is evident that the Hebrew and Arabic names of wheat are the same, especially as the Hebrew ri has the guttural sound of Dif ferent derivations have been given of the word chittah : by Celsius it is derived from chanath, protulit, produxit, fructunt, ex. Cant. ii. 13 ;' or the Arabic rubuit, quod triticum rubello sit colore' (ffierobot. ii. 113). The translator of the Biblical Botany of Rosenmiiller justly observes that ' the similarity in sound between the Hebrew word chittah and the English wheat is obvious. Be it remembered that the ch here is identical in sound with the Gaelic guttural, or the Spanish x. It is further remarkable that the Hebrew term is ety mologically cognate with the words for wheat used by every one of the Teutonic and Scandinavian nations (thus we have in Icelandic hveiti, Danish hvede, Swedish hvete, Mwsogoth. hwaite, German weizen); and that, in this instance, there is no re semblance between the Scandinavian and Teutonic terms, and the Greek, Latin, and Slavonic (for the Greek word is oryp6s, the Latin frunzentum or taztzeum, the Russian pienitsa, Polish psze.nica); and
yet the general resemblance between the Slavonic, the Thracian, and the Gothic languages is so strong, that no philologist now doubts their identity of origin '-1. C. p. 75.
Rosenmiiller further remarks that in Egypt and in Barbary —y*3 kamich is the usual name for (— wheat (Desert'''. de l'Egypte, t. xix. p. 45; Host's Account of ilitzroko and Fez, p. 309) ; and also, that in Hebrew, flop kemack denotes the flour of wheat (Gen. xviii. 6; Num. v. 5). This, it is curious to observe, is not very unlike the Indian name of wheat, kztnuk. All these names indicate communication between the nations of antiquity, as well as point to a common origin of wheat. Thus, in his Himalayan Botany, the author of this article has stated : Wheat having been one of the earliest cultivated grains, is most probably of Asiatic origin, as no doubt Asia was the earliest civilized, as well as the first peopled country. It is known to the Arabs under the name of hinteh, to the Per sians as gundoom, Hindu gentian and kunuk. The species of barley cultivated in the plains of India, and known by the Hindoo and Persian name juo, Arabic shaeer, is hound hexaerstichum. As both wheat and barley are cultivated in the plains of India in the winter months, where none of the species of these genera are indigenous, it is probable that both have been introduced into India from the north, that is, from the Persian, and perhaps from the Tartarian region, where these and other species of barley are most successfully and abundantly cul tivated' (p. 419). Different species of wheat were no doubt cultivated by the ancients, as triticztm compositunz in Egypt, T cestivzrnz, 7: Hiberzzunz in Syria, etc. ; but both barley and wheat are too well known to require further illustration in this place. —J. F. R