government. For these reasons, I think it is probable, that they firft invented the art of language, as well as the art of noting it by alphabetical characters, and every other art and science of which we are in poffeffion, And accordingly it is recorded in the Egyp tian annals, that Teuth, or Hermes, as he was called by the Greeks, invented the grammatical, as well as the writing art; giving a form to language, and impofing names upon things that had none before*.

But was this language, which I fuppofe may have been invented in Egypt, and carried to fo many different countries, propagated all over the earth? Are we to believe that the Huron †, the Algonkin, the

*Diodor. Sicul. lib. 1. cap. 15. p. 19. His words are: απο γαρ τοτε (Έρμου) πρωτον μεν την τε κοινην διαλεκτοι διαρθρωθήναι, και πολλά των ανωνύμών τυχειν προσηγορίας. From which it appears, that there was a language used in Egypt before Teuth; but he firft diftinguished it properly by articulation, and gave names to things. For, before him, it would feem, that the Egyptians ufed only verba quibus voces jensufque netarent, but had not invented nomina, or names; at least not names for every thing. See alfo, concerning this Teuth, Plato in Philebo, p. 18.; d in Phaedro, p. 274.; Plutarch, tom. 2. p. 738.

The Huron language may, I think, be supposed to have been invented by the people who speak it: For the Hurons appear to be the most antient nation in that

Caribbee, and all the many different languages spoken in North and South America; the language of Otaheite, and the other islands or continents that may be in the great Pacific ocean; the hiffing language of the Troglodytes in Abyffinia; or the muttering jargon of thofe favages, mentioned by Condamin, upon the banks of the river Amazons, spoken, as he says, by drawing in the breath; or the language, if they

in

part of the world; and, tho' they be now almost exterminated by the Iroquois, or five nations, they were once the most powerful and most numerous nation North America. For, at the time when Gabriel Sagard wrote, which was about 1630, they were a fedentary nation, as he calls them, the rest of the nations in that part of the world being for the greater part errant; p128. They had five and twenty towns and villages, the greatest of which confifted of two hundred large cabins, or houses, made of the bark of trees, each containing four and twenty families; p. 116. and 120. And he tells us, that they fubfifted, for the greater part, by agriculture. And indeed it was impoffible that fo many could be maintained in a country where the winter is fo fevere, without that art. So that here we have men living together in towns and villages, and fo many, under one roof, practising the arts of hunting, fishing, and agriculture, and confequently in fuch a clofe intercourse or fociety, as we fuppofe gave birth to the invention of language in Egypt.

have any, of the men with tails in the island of Nicobar, are all dialects of the fame parent-language, which I fuppofe to have been invented in Egypt? This might be credible, if there were any history or tradition of all the world being peopled by colonies from that country, or if there were any fuch conformity of thofe languages laft mentioned, either with one another, or with the language of Egypt, as is to be found in the other languages above mentioned; if, for example, they agreed in religious terms, in words expreffing numbers, or relations of perfons, or any other capital words of neceffary and frequent use. But the fact is, that, as far as we know of thofe languages, they differ totally from one another, particularly in the names of numbers. Of these I have given fpecimens from the Huron, the Algonkin, and the Otaheite languages, all differing extremely from one another; and it is impoffible, I should think, to connect them with the fame names in any of the languages that I suppose to be derived from Egypt. I have given alfo the name of the number three used by those favages upon the banks of the river Ama

zons, which he must be an able etymologist indeed who can derive from any Hebrew root; and I think I may say the fame of the Efquimaux words expreffing much and little.

I cannot therefore carry the propagation of language further than I have done. I think it probable, that all the languages fpoken in Europe, all Afia, if you will, and fome part of Africa, are dialects of one parent-language, which probably was invented in Egypt. But I am not warranted to go further, either by the reason of the thing, by historical facts, or by any thing I can discover in the languages themselves. Some, I know, are very fond of the system of an universal language; but, when they come to prove it by facts, and by the languages themselves, I think they fail very much; as may be feen from that dictionary of univerfal language which Monf. Bullet has fubjoined to his Celtic dictionary. Whatever therefore we may believe of there haing been once but one language upon the face of the earth, we muft, I think, allow that it is now either totally loft in a great part of the earth, or fo depraved and corrupted as no longer to be known.

CHA P. XIV.

Changes to which Language is liable ;-eSpecially in its Paffage from one People to another.-Examples of that Kind.-General Obfervations upon Etymology, and the Derivation of one Language from another.— Canclufion and Recapitulation.

A

Lthough language be of a nature fo fo durable, that I doubt whether there be an example of a language of art being totally loft; yet it is extremely mutable as to its form and fashion; as mutable, I believe, as any thing belonging to man. Words, fays Horace, are as liable to change and decay as the leaves of trees:

Ut fylvae foliis pronos mutantur in annos; Prima cadunt; ita verborum vetus interit actas,

Et juvenum ritu florent modo nata, vigent

que.

Debemur morti nos noftraque.

HOR. Ars Poët.