The second branch of the Semitic family is the Ilebraic,with which is connected the Carthaginian, Phcenician, and Arabic. This third or Arable branch sprang from the Arabian peninsula, where it is still spoken by a compact mass of abongmal inhabitants. Its most ancient documents are the Himyaritic inscriptions. In very early times the Arabic branch was transplanted to Afnca, where, south of Egypt find Nubia, on the coast opposite Yemen, an ancient Semitic dialect Ilan maintained itself to the present day. This is the Ethiopic or Abyssinian, or, as it is called by the people them selves, the Gees language. Though no longer spoken in its purity by the people of Babesli, it is still preserved in their sacred writings, trans lations of the Bible, and similar works, which date from tho 3d and 4th centuries. The modern language of Abyssinia is milled Amharic. These three branches, the Arainaic, the Hebraic, and Arabic are closely related to each other. Besides these, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and the Berber dialects are now considered to have a Semitic character, by Champ°Ilion, Bunsen (Egyptian), Lassen, Eugene Boruouf, Dr. Mucks, Sir II. Rawlinson (Assyrian), and Professor F. Newman (Berber). Their language in 011C form was that of the &Oak portion of Christianity in the Old Testament, the Talmud, and the Syrian fathers. In another form it MIS that of the Koran or Muhannnadanism. It was the language of the earliest alphabet of Phcenicia and the Punic colonies. It fell into the Aranman, the Arabic, and the Ethiopic divisions. The Aramman con tained the FIebrew, the Samaritan, and the Syriac of Edessa, Palmyra, Damascus, and other important cities, and the people who spoke it were enter prising merchants, bold mariners, and monotheist priests.
The Arabic language, as written in the Koran, is the most developed and richest of the Semitic tongues. It is not now spoken in any part of Arabia, as there written. Probably it never was so, any more than the Latin, the English, the German, or Italian have ever been spoken as written in their respective bounds ; and Burton quotes from the Arabic Grammar of Clodius that the clialectus Arabum vulgaris tantum differt ab erudita, quantum Isocrates dictio ab hodierna lingua Grmca. Indeed, the Arabs themselves divide their spoken and even written language iu two orders, the Kalain Wati,' or vulgar tongue, sometimes einployed in epistolary correspondence ; and the Nahwi,' or grammatical or classical language. Every man of education uses the former, and ean use the latter. And the Koran is no more a model of Arabic (as it is often assumed to be) than Paradise Lost is of English. Inimitable, no man itnitates them.
• Terali, the father of Abrahani, served other gods. But in the book of Job, it is God who can number the clouds in wisdom, who can atay the bottles of heaven (xxxviii. 37), who hath divided a ater-course for the overflowing of waters, and a way for the lightning of thunder (25), who bath begotten the drops of dew (28) ; aud in Proverbs (xxx. 4), who hath bound the waters in a garment, I who haat established all the euds of the earth. Abraham, indeed, waa inspired with a knowledge of the one true God, but his family had images, the teraphini which Rachel stole from her father Laban (Genesis xxxi. 17-35) ; and when Jacob fled from Esau into Padan-aram, and dreamed the dream at Bethel, he evidently had belief in many gods, for he endeavoured to make a bargain with thedeity, saying,' If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give use bread to eat, and rniinent to put on, so that I conic) again to my father's house in peace, then shall the I.ord bc my God ' (Genesis xxviii. 20, 21). Such expres sions show a belief that there were other gods, one of whom might bc Jacob's own protector. Thc same principle is invoked in the command ment later proclaimed by Moses to have none other gods but the Lord God ; and even more lately Joshua has to urge the people to put away strange gods (xxiv. 15-23), to put away the gods which their fathers served on the other side of the flood. Choose ye this day,' he says, whom ye will serve ; whether the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, amongst whom ye dwell : but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' Later still, the Psalmist says (Ixxxvi. 8), 'Amongst the gods there is none like unto thee, 0 Lord ; neither are there any works like unto thy works.' The early Arab religion was Sableanism, a worship of the heavenly bodies, mixed with idolatry ; but with Mahomed commenced the Arab conquests, the creed, science, and literature. At present the Arabic alphabet is in use amongst the Turks, Persians, Malays, some of the people of India aud Africa. It was, however, of Syrian origin. The Arab family is Muhammadan, except the Christian Arabs of Malta.—.11fax San skrit Literature ; Lanynes Sen2itigues, par Ernest Ratan, 1858 ; Poples Semitiques, par E. Renal?, 1859 ; Wellsted's Tr.; Walk. through Algiers; Fon Lanier ; Latham; Bunsen's Egypt ; Burton's Mecca, p. 41 ; Pelly; Rawlinson, p. 36 ; Sale's Koran, p. 11; Lubbock's Origin of Civil. ; Muller's Lec tures, p. 263 ; Mignan's Travels ; Die Abstammung der Chalduer, Prof: Eb. Schrader ; Seinitische turentlehung, Dr. A. von Kremer ; Della Sida Primitiva, Prof. Ignazio Guicti.