The Palmyrene dialect is, with small deviations, Syriac; but is written with letters similar to the Hebrew square character, which stands about in the same relation to the Palmyrene, as a square engrossing hand does to a running hand. The inscriptions in this dialect upon the ruins of Tadmor or Palmyra in Syria, which are partly accompanied by Greek translations, and extend from the period just before the birth of Christ into the third century, are not in themselves sufficiently numerous and important, and are not in all cases copied and explained with sufficient accuracy, to furnish any extensive philological booty. The names of the Syrian months (b, nab) which occur in them, and the different epithets of Baal, are probably the most important instances.56

2. To the second, or Canaanitish branch of the Shemitish stock, belong, besides the Hebrew itself, the Phenician and Talmudic dialects.

The Phenician, to judge from the inscriptions and single words which have been read with certainty, corresponds, a few unimportant deviations excepted,* with the Hebrew. But the orthography has this peculiarity, that the vowel letters and, when they quiesce, are usually omitted; a circumstance which may be regarded as a relic of the most ancient orthography.57 The monuments of this dialect, however, which are now extant, are not very ancient. The comparatively more important inscriptions belong in the time immediately before Christ; to judge from the form of the Greek letters in those which are bilingual, and from the mythological allusions; while the coins.

56 Two of these inscriptions have been brought to Oxford, and there accurately copied in Chandler's Marmora Oxoniensia No. X, XI; and thence also in Kopp's Bilder u. Schriften der Vorzeit, II. p. 251, 257. A collection of the whole is found in Robert Wood's Ruins of Palmyra, Lond. 1753. fol. For the reading and explanation of these inscriptions, the path has been broken by Barthelemy, 'Reflexions sur l'alphabet et sur la langue dont on se servoit autrefois à Palmyre,' Paris 1754. 4to. and by Swinton in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. XLVIII. where they are also copied.

*E. g. that the article is often written with & instead of, as in Arabic; and also some Aramaean words.

57 See the author's Lehrgebäude p. 51. Hartmann's O. G. Tychsen oder Wanderungen etc. II. i. p. 277 sq. On the analogy of the Arabic, see Adler's Descript. Codd. Cuficor. Hafniae 1780. p. 28 sq.

belong to the period of the Seleucidae and Romans; e. g. the Tyrian coins, so far as they have dates, between B. C. 166 and A. D. 153.58 It will be readily conceived, that these remains, which present such difficulties in a palaeographical respect, stand beyond all comparison more in need of the aid of the Hebrew usus loquendi for their explanation, than they are adapted to afford any illustration of the biblical idioms; and it might almost seem, as if they deserved here no place. Nevertheless, it is also conceivable, that an obscure word in the Bible may occur in an inscription in some connexion which shall cast light upon the biblical passage; and such in fact is in several instances the case.* *

But the most nearly related to the biblical Hebrew is the Talmudic idiom, especially in the first and earliest part of the Talmud, the Mishna; which, it is true, was first reduced to its present form in the third century after Christ, (about A. D. 190 or 220,) but is in part composed of elements which are much older. It cannot well be doubted, that much of the ancient Hebrew idiom has been retained in it; and not a few difficult words of the Bible are very happily illustrated from it.59 The

58 The earlier literature respecting the monuments of the Phenician dialect is found quite complete in Hartmann 1. c. To this have since been added: Kopp Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit, I. p. 197 sq. II. p. 178 sq. Comp. the Jen. A. L. Z. 1820. No. 39. H. A. Hamacker 'Diatribe philol. crit. aliquot monumentorum Punicor. nuper in Africa repertorum interpretationem exhibens etc.' Lugd. Bat. 1822. 4to. Also several smaller treatises by Münter, Lindberg, and others; comp. the A. L. Z. 1825, No. 64. Some of the author's own attempts at deciphering inscriptions and the legends of coins, are published in the A. L. Z. 1825, No. 63, 64. and 1826, No. 110, 111. A treatise containing a review of the most important monuments of the Phenician language in a palaeological and philological respect, together with attempts at deciphering and a critical catalogue of letters and words already derived from this source, and communicating also some other monuments as yet unknown, now lies nearly ready for the press. A catalogue of Phenician words derived from earlier documents, but which may now be augmented nearly three fold, see in the Gesch. der Heb. Sprache, p. 227 sq.

* For one instance, see the article 7 in the author's lexicon.

59 See the articles DEN, HEUN, D'UN, 5, 77, etc. in the , author's lexicon. The Mishna has been most capitally published by Surenhusius, (Amst. 1698-1702. 6 tom. folio,) with a Latin version VOL. III. No. 9.

4

antiquity of the earlier talmudic dialect appears from this circumstance among others, that a multitude of words in the Talmud were not less obscure to the learned rabbins of the middle ages, than the biblical glosses; so that they were obliged to compile lexicons and commentaries upon it, in which they also often made use of the Arabic language with great advantage.60 The younger portions of the Talmud are much less to be confided in; here the tradition appears less pure; and in the age when they were written, the learned Jews were most of all estranged from a genuine literal interpretation.61 In this and in

and the commentaries of R. Moses Maimonides and R. Obadias de Bartenora; as also single tracts of more recent commentators, among whom Guisius is by far the most learned, and has often made good use of the Arabic. On the philological use of the Mishna for Hebrew lexicography, see A. T. Hartmann's Supplementa ad Gesenii Lex. Heb. e Mischna petita, Rostochii 1813. Compare also his Thesauri Ling. Heb. e Mischna augendi, P. I—III. ib. 1825, 26. 4to.

60 The most celebrated lexicon of the Talmud is the Arûch, (77777 the alphabetically arranged book,) by Nathan Bar Jechiel of Rome (ob. 1106), with the additions of Mussaphia (ob. 1674), and which has quite recently been published, with notes, by M. J. Landau, under the title: 'Rabbinisch-Aramäisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch,' Prague 1819-24. 5 vols. Buxtorf indeed made use of this lexicon, (see note 53 above,) but did not thereby render it superfluous.-A very important work is the still unpublished lexicon of R. Tanchum of Jerusalem, ‘al Morshid,' in three manuscripts of the Bodleian library, Uri's Catal. p. 91, 93, 94. It explains difficult words in Arabic, and often refers back to the Bible. Guisius alone, in his notes on several talmudic tracts, has often made use of it.

61 The Gemara, which is an explanation and enlargement of the Mishna, is divided into the shorter one of Jerusalem, which is not fully complete and was composed about A. D. 230-270, or according to others nearly a century later,—and the much later and more prolix one of Babylon, compiled in the sixth century. The former is less esteemed by the later Jews, and has therefore been less frequently printed, viz. at Venice, fol. without date; Cracow 1609 fol. Dessau and Berlin 1743 and 1757. fol. Of the latter there have been ten editions, among which that of Amsterdam 1644, 12 vols. sm. folio, and that of Frankfort on the Main, 1715 sq. are the most highly esteemed. See Wolf's Biblioth. Heb. II. p. 895 sq. Schöttgen de Messia p. 839. The latest edition is that of Vienna 1806, 12 vols. fol.—The dialect of the two Talmuds is also different; the first being composed in the dialect of Jerusalem, and the latter in that of Babylon.

the Rabbinical dialect,-a learned language, founded on a basis of ancient Hebrew and Chaldee, and so adapted as to meet the necessity of treating on many subjects unknown to the ancient Hebrews, as grammar, philosophy, etc.-it often happens, that infrequent biblical words are employed in significations which the rabbins attribute to them from mere conjecture, and not seldom incorrectly enough;* and there is certainly reason here to be distrustful.62

3. But the most important by far of all the languages kindred to the Hebrew, and in every respect the most fertile source of Hebrew etymology and lexicography, is the Arabic, one of the richest and most cultivated, and also in its literary history one of the most important, languages in the world.63 We know however only the northern and principal dialect [of the Koreish], which prevailed in the region of Mecca, and which, being elevated by Mohammed to the language of books and the universal dialect of the people, has entirely supplanted the southern or Hamyaric dialect; unless indeed this latter, as is very probable, is for the most part preserved in the Ethiopic language. The Arabic literature, and consequently our knowledge of the language, commences shortly before Mohammed,64 with numerous speci

Some examples of a false apprehension of biblical words, which have passed over into the idiom of the Talmud and of the rabbins, are the following: festival, from Ex. 23: 14, where h signifies three times; grape-kernels, instead of unripe grapes, according to the Samaritan, Arabic, and the etymology; louse, instead of gnat; and especially the names of countries, as TOON Germany, Spain.

62 This distrust, however, is carried too far by Michaelis, in his Beurtheilung der Mittel die ausgestorbene Heb. Sprache verstehen zu lernen, § 40, 41.

63 The more copious details of what can here be merely hinted at, as also the proofs, may be seen in the author's articles 'Arabische Sprache' and 'Arabische Literatur,' in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopaedia. Compare also the literary histories of Eichhorn, Wachler, and others. The printed works in Arabic literature, up to 1811, are collected in Schnurrer's Bibliotheca Arabica, Hal. 1811; but this work needs now a large supplement, as the study of Arabic has greatly flourished since that time. But far more extensive and important works still lie concealed from the public eye, unprinted, in the libraries.

64 Against the hypothesis of Arabic poems reaching back to the age of Solomon, see De Sacy in the Mémoires de Literature, tom. L. p. 247 sq.

mens of highly original and genuine popular poetry, of various contents; the shorter of which are contained in the collection called the Hamâsa ;* while seven larger ones bear the name of Moallakât. These were soon followed by the Koran itself, which veneration towards the prophet soon elevated to the rank of the loftiest model of language and of poetry; and also by a number of elegant poets, who are as yet least of all known to us. After the earliest Abassides and the building of Bagdad in the ninth century, the national literature assumed also a scientific character. This latter literature grew up in a foreign soil; and contains treatises upon philosophy, mathematics, and the natural sciences, partly translated from the Greek, and partly imitated after Greek models. The christian literature of the Arabians, viz. the different versions of the Bible by Jews and Christians, may also here be mentioned. The strictly national literature of the Arabians, however, consists of an extensive series of poets, grammarians, rhetoricians, historians, and geographers, which does not close until the fourteenth century. The poetry, which has partly a lyrical character, and partly wears the external form of prose, was often in the hands of the grammarians; a circumstance which indeed often gives it a more learned and laboured form and manner, but at the same time

Some of

Extracts from the Hamâsa were published by A. Schultens in his work Monumenta vetustiora Arabiae etc. L. B. 1740. these are also appended to the editions of the Arabic Grammar of Erpenius. But the most complete and perfect edition is the following: Hamasae Carmina cum Tebrizi Scholiis, ed. G. W. Freytag, Tom. I. Textus, Bonnae 1828. 4to. A second volume is promised, to con

tain a Latin version and notes.-EDItor.

That is, the suspended; because, it is said, on account of their peculiar excellence, they were inscribed upon fine linen in letters of gold and suspended at the gate of the temple at Mecca. The names of the authors, in the order in which they are usually ranged in the manuscripts are, Amralkeis, Tarafa, Caab ben Zoheir, Lebid, Antara, Amru, Hareth. They have all been published separately in the following editions, of which the more recent ones are accompanied by scholia, and are the best: Amralkeis, by Lette, L. B. 1748; by Hengstenberg, Bonn 1823. Tarafa, by Reiske, L. B. 1742; by Vullers, Bonn 1829. Zoheir, by Lette, L. B. 1748; by Rosenmüller, Leipz. 1792, and again in his Analecta Arabica, Pars II, Leipz. 1826; by Freytag, Hal. 1823. Lebid, by Peiper, Bresl. 1828. Antara, by Wilmet, L. B. 1826. Amru, by Kosegarten, Jena 1819. Hareth, by Vullers, Bonn 1827.-EDITOR.