A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans

XXIV PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.
deducible from an analysis of languages, conducted upon strictly phi-
losophical principles.
In tracing, however, the affinities of languages, many writers, in the
eagerness of etymological research, have endeavoured to derive all lan-
guages from one common origin ; but they have signally failed in the
attempt, and for tliis reason, that the language of Noah, the primitive
speech of mankind, was abolished before the dispersion of the human
race, and this " one language and one speech," was miraculously sup-
planted by various distinct languages. Of this fact, the sacred text
seems to be decisive, and yet many commentators on the Bible, and
other writers, maintain, that the language of our first parents was pre-
served in the family of Shem. But independently of this irrefragable
inference from sacred history, the non-existence of a primitive language
from which all others are alleged to have been derived, seems suffi-
ciently established from the fact stated by Sir William Jones, in his
ninth Anniversary Discourse, that no affinity exists between Arabic,
Sanscrit, and Tartaric, and that almost all existing languages bear more
or less relation to the one or the other of these tongues. Supposing,
however, that there are languages which have no such affinity, a
conjecture far from being improbable, their distinct existence does not
affect the argument, but only adds to the number of original languages.*
From the eai-liest periods of history, there have co-existed three dis-
tinct families of language, and of which all other languages appear to be
dialects. Some philologists have proposed to distinguish the different
classes of idioms by the generic terms of Semitic, Hamite, and Japetic ;
a division which seems to be not only conformable to the structure of the
languages included under these different denominations, but also to the
apparently settled plan of separation and dispersion of Noah's posterity
as recorded by Moses. Eichhorn observes, that the class of idioms
termed by German philological writers Semitic languages, divide them-
selves into the three following branches :—The Hebrew, or the dialect of
Palestine and Phcenice, the Arabic, and the Aramean or northern Sem-
itic, spread over Syria and Mesopotamia ; and he maintains that these
are as nearly related to each other as the Ionic, yEolic, and Doric dialects
of the Greek.f The term Semitic, however, has been thought objection-
able by some, on the ground that several of the nations who spoke the
languages so denominated in common with the descendants of Shem,
were of Hamite origin, as the Phoenicians or Canaanites.f Under the
class of Hamite idioms, may be comprehended principally the dialects
of the old Egyptian speech, the Coptic, Sahidic, and Bashmuric, in-
cluding co7)jecturaUy, until the mutual relations of these languages shall
have been more fully investigated, several idioms spoken by races of
» Kennedy, p. 5.
+ Einleitung in das Alte Testament, von joh. G. Eiciihoin, B. I. p. 49. Uiitt.
Ausg.
t Prichard, Note on the Semitic Languages.