sia
Polyglotta. Sufficient data however are extant, and I trust that I
have adduced evidence to render it extremely probable that a principle
of analogy in structure prevails extensively among the native idioms
of Africa. They are probably allied, not in the manner or degree in
which Semitic or Indo-European idioms resemble each other, but by
strong analogies in their general principles of structure, which may
be compared to those discoverable between the individual members of
two other great classes of languages, by no means connected among
themselves by what is called family relation. I allude to the
monosyllabic and the polysynthetic languages, the former prevalent in
Eastern Asia, the latter throughout the vast regions of the New World.
If we have sufficient evidence for constituting such a class of
dialects under the title of African languages, we have likewise
reason--and it is equal in degree--for associating in this class the
language of the ancient Egyptians.[647]

That the written _Abyssinian_ language, which we call _Ethiopick_, is
a dialect of old _Chaldean_, and sister of _Arabick_ and _Hebrew_; we
know with certainty, not only from the great multitude of identical
words, but (which is a far stronger proof) from the similar
grammatical arrangement of the several idioms: we know at the same
time, that it is written like all the _Indian_ characters, from the
left hand to the right, and that the vowels are annexed, as in
Devanagari, to the consonants; with which they form a syllabick system
extremely clear and convenient, but disposed in a less artificial
order than the system of letters now exhibited in the _Sanscrit_
grammars; whence it may justly be inferred, that the order contrived
by PANINI or his disciples is comparatively modern; and I have no
doubt, from a cursory examination of many old inscriptions on pillars
and in caves, which have obligingly been sent to me from all parts of
India, that the _Nagari_ and _Ethiopean_ letters had at first a
similar form. It has long been my opinion, that the _Abyssinians_ of
the _Arabian_ stock, having no symbols of their own to represent
articulate sounds, borrowed those of the black pagans, whom the
_Greeks_ call _Troglodytes_, from their primeval habitations in
natural caverns, or in mountains excavated by their own labour: they
were probably the first inhabitants of _Africa_, where they became in
time the builders of magnificent cities, the founders of seminari