Nor is it only in regard to sound and form, that va riations ensue in transplanting words; alterations slighter at first, but afterwards remarkable, often take place in their meaning and application. A part of a thing comes to be used for the whole; the genus becomes the species ; proper names become appellatives ; the instrument and cause arc substituted for the effect ; the sign for the thing signified, and the thing containing for the thing contained. :New combinations are often formed from change of cir cumtances, by which one part of the meaning of a word only is retained, but much of the original idea forgotten.
In these, and many other ways, words may change some times their form, and sometimes their application, in pass ing from one people to another ; yet, upon proper atten tion, their radical identity will be perceptible. In the in vestigation of radicals, therefore, it would be proper first to begin by throwing off the prepositive particles and idio matic terminations, retaining only what may be termed the matt ix of the word ; next, to compare together the corres pohding word in different languages, making the distinc tive genius of and thus gradually to proceed front one to another, as along the links of a continued chain, till the remote! relations become apparent. We are at liberty also to consider letters of the same organ as commutable, la bials with labials, gutturals with gutturals, dentals with dentals, and palatines with palatines; all nations have as sumed the liberty of such changes in the comparison of tongues ; therefore these are invariably to be looked for.
K 'eping these general principles in view, it will be ob vious that affinities, and close affinities too, may be found, w het e none could at first have been suspected. That our term journey is from the Latin dies, night at first seem -absurd ; hut by observing that from dies comes diurnus, from that the It.dial giorno, the French four and journey, we are at once led to the source of our journey. Bishop seems little related to cpiscopus ; but when we find that the word was anciently biscop, and that ft and b are consonants of the same organ, the identity becomes evident.
If, then, we wish to attempt the discovery of the radical identity of languages, we must be prepared to meet with, and to make the necessary allowances for, multiplied changes in the modes we have enumerated ; and if these necessary allowances are made, the filiations of language often present a curious and interesting subject of contem plation. The subject, however, is too extensive to be fully taken up in such a work as this ; a few remarks only on some of those languages which are best known to us may be introduced.
Of the ancient languages of which any knowledge re mains, the Hebrew certainly claims the first place, on ac count of its undoubted antiquity, its peculiar structure, and the strong claims it seems to have to be considered as either the same with, or at least the immediate descendant of the primitive tongue. It is a language much admired
by those who understand it, and must ever be of high im portance as the original vehicle of the revelation of the di vine will to man. In it the cases of nouns are denoted by prepositions prefixed ; the tenses of the verbs are three— the past, present, and future, formed by certain additions to the root, and, properly speaking, it has but one conjuga tion. It is regularly formed from roots within itself, and these roots are for the most part monosyllabic, consist ing generally of three letters, sometimes, but rarely, of four.
That this language was in fact the same with the nician, and other languages spoken through Palestine and the neighbouring countries, in the earlier times, as far at least as Syria, Mesopotamia, and Chaldea, scents pretty generally admitted. Of the other early languages, the an cient Persian, the Egyptian, and the Scythian, we know so very little, that it would be hazardous to say more, than that their relation to the Hebrew admits of little doubt. In spreading to the westward through Asia Minor into Greece, this ancient language, transplanted by the Pecenicians, became, through the medium of the old e lasgic, the parent of the Greek.
The Greek language is too well known to require any particular illustration. Its copiousness, elegance, and force, have been the subject of universal panegyric. The Greek language was evidently first brought in a rude state from Pl,cenicia into Greece and the Grecian islands; its most ancient dialect, the /Eolic, the parent of the Doric, exhibits probably the earliest form in which it appeared in its new soil. Transplanted into Ionia, it assumed a softer aspect, suited to the disposition of a poetical and musical people. Carried onwards to Attica, it became the language of business and active life in an enterprising, commercial, and at the same time an intelligent and polished ,nation. There, accordingly, as we find in the Attic dialect, it was subjected to abbreviations and contractions, adapted for dispatch. but, at the same time, regulated on the truest prin ciples of elegance and taste. Though the Greek language is justly regarded as forming its words from roots within itself, and has accordingly been distinctly analyzed into its radical primitives, yet these very primitives exhibit so full a resemblance to corresponding roots in Hebrew, that the identity of origin cannot be doubted. The duration of the Greek language from Homer down to the times of the Lower Empire, exceeds that of most other languages ; and even yet, although much corrupted, it holds its place in the countries where it once was fixed.