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Show 56 ON TIIE DISTRIDUTION AND withstanding, imprisoned within tho narrow bars of an imperfect grammar. 'l'his is the reason, as M. Ernest Renan has remarked, that,- whilst the Indo-European tongues continue still their life in our day, as in past times, upon all points of tho globe- Semitic languages, on tho contrary, have run through the entire circle of their existence. But, in the more circumscribed course of their lifo, they kwo presented the same diversities of development established for all tho prcccdi ng families ; and, at tho same time that the Aramroan which comprises two dialects,-tho pagan Aramroan or Sabian, and tho Christian Aramroan or Syriac-is poor, without harmony, without multiplied forms, ponderous in its constructions, and devoid of aptitude for poetry, tho Arabic, on the contrary, distinguishes itself by an incredible richness. Tho SemHic race, of which tho bhth-place must be sought in that peninsular space shut in, at tho north by the mountains of Armenia, and at tho cast by those which bound the basin of the Tigris, has not gone outside of its primitive father-land. It has only travelled along the borders of the Mediterranean, as is proved to us by the incontestable Semiticism of the Phcenician tongue, whoso inscriptions show it to have been very close to the Ilebrew. Africa has been almost tho only field for its conquests. Phamician colonies bore a Semitic idiom into the country of tho N umidians and tho Mauri; later again, the Saracenic invasion carried Arabic-another tongue of tho same family-into the place of the Punic, which last the Latin had almost dispossessed. In Abyssinia, tho Gheez or Ethiopic does not appear to bo of very ancient introduction, and everything leads to the belief that it was carried across the Red Sea by the J oktanide Arabs, or Himyarites, whose language, now forgotten, has left some monuments of its existence, down to tho time of the :first Khalifates in divers inscriptions. ' Tho Semites found in Africa upon their arrival a strong population, that for a long period opposed itself to their conquests. This population was that ?f th~ Egyptians; _whose language now issues gradually from the do01phermg of the h1eroglyphics, and which left as its last heir, the Ooptic, still living in manuscripts that we collect with avidity. This Egyptian was not, however, an isolated tongue. The Berber -otherwise miscalled tho "Kabyle," which name in Arabic only means "tribe," -studied of late, has caused us to :find many congener words and "tournuros.". And this_Borber (whence Barbary) itself, yet spoken by t~e populatwns Amazn·g, Shillouh, and Tuareg, was expelled or domma~od by tho Arabic. Its domain of yore extend d oven to tho Canary-1sles. Some idioms formerly spoken in the north CLASSIFICATION OF TONGUES. 57 of Aft·ica attached themselves to i.t through bonds of relationship more or loss close. Tho presence, throughout tlto north of Africa, of inscriptions in characters called Tijnag, and which seem to have been conceived in B01·ber language, makes known to us that this tongue must have reigned over all tho toiTitorios of the Barbarosque States; and was most probably that of tho Numidians, Grotulians, and Garamantes. EO'yptian civilization was very profuse in aspirates. Its grammatical forms denote a more advanced period than that of tho Semitic tonO'uos: its verb counts a great number of tenses and moods, formed through the addition of proiixos or of suffixes. But its pronoun and its article have still an entirely Semitic physiognomy, notwithstanding that tho stock of its vocabulary is absolutely foreign to that of those langnaO'os. We have already caused it to bo remarked that, in tho Galla (of Abyssinia) one re-encounters the Semitic pronoun. The influence exerted at tho beginning by tho Semites over tho race to which the Egyptians wore proximate-and whom we will call, with tho Bible, Ilamitic-was, therefore, in all likelihood, very profound. Wbon the S mites entered into relations with tho JiamiLes, the language of tho latter must have been yet in that primitive staO'o in which essential grammatical forms might still be borrowed from foreign tongues. An intermixture sufficiently intimate must have occurred between tho two races; above all in tho countries bordering upon tho two torritorlos. Such is what occurred certainly for tho Phconicians, whoso tongue was Semitic, whflst tho stock of population belonged, noverth less, to tho Hamitic race. For Genesis gives Canaan as the son of Ilam ; and Pha:micia, as every one knows, is "tho laud of Canaan." Tho whole oriental region of Africa as far as tho Mozamb_ iquo coast affords numerous traces of Semitic influence. Alongside of tho Gheoz, that represents to us, as E. RENAN judiciously writes it, the classical form of tho idiom of tho Semites in Abyssinia, sovot·al dialects equally Semitic arranO'O themselves; but all more or loss alter cl, either by the admixture of foreign words, or through the absence of literary cultme. Amid these must be placed tho Amltaric, tho modern language of .Abyssinia. Semitic tongues underwent, in Africa, the influence of tho languages of that part of tho world; and, in particular, of Lhoso of the Hamitic family, spoken in tho countries limitrophic to that inhabited by the Semites. African languages cannot all be rofened to the same family: but they possess among themselves sundry points of resemblance. They constitute, as it wore, a vast group, >yhonco detaches itself a family |