ancient The Arabians as they have the same way of joyning so have they likewise the essentiall writing The names if fully written would appeare to be 1. the same names 2. the same fort of Letters 3. the names to be taken out of the same tongue and 4. that their order should be the same with Ebrew Samaritan Calde and the Syriac Alphabet All the difference may easily bee shewen by degrees going from Samaritan to the old Syriac hence to the new Syriac of Trostius his new Testament or the bookes printed in Germany and Leyden by Erpenius hence to that latter printed at Rome given out by Gabriel Sionita or by that Syriac Old and New Testament lately given out by that same worthy and learned man at Paris Hence to some farre better Syriac Manuscripts extant in England which being compared with the most ancient Arabic writing as I have seene it at Ephesus in a table that hangs there in a Church built by a Turck to the honour of Iesus Christ called Isa Peigamber the characters thereof being like Syriac you will finde them to be almost all one Nay among my own Manuscripts I have some pieces of Arabic witten upon Parchment being the Cufi writing which comes very neer unto the neatest Syriac extant There are here in England above 20000 severall fashions of Arabic writings every Manuscript being different from other and some of them being composed of severall tracts bound up together will afford 10 20 nay 30 severall formes of writing And I my selfe have one Manuscript that containes above an hundred different sorts Wherefore you must not stand either upon this or that print for even as we our selves differ in writing so do they And therefore I desire you to acquaint your selves with the written bookes as much as possible Nay there are some coppy bookes published in sundry countries wherein that they might bee thought to bee skillfull in strange tongues they have made such soul worke about the Syriac Arabic Turkish Persian Malayan Tatar and Mogull Letters that I am ashamed of them Nay among printed bookes onely France and Italy have good Arabic characters those in Germany and the Low countries are not good Nor are Erpenius his characters according to the true and neat Arabic duct in writing Nor are those Arabick pieces cut in copper in the deceased Crinesius his booke called Babel or Joh. Zechendorfius yet living both Germans well performed But I hope wee shall shortly make neater worke in that kinde here in England then hath beene done hitherto in Europe Rule 4 They have all one and the same consonants in power and by way of pronouncing not much different from our English The pronunciations which we have in our English Alfabet of all our letters we see to be almost the same with French High and Low Dutch and other Nations of Europe on the same fashion those of the Orient being as well Men as wee have not much lesse or much divers soundings of letters The primitif thus a b g d h e v u 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 y i k l m n x sh o f p rz q r s t. Our English is a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q r s t u w x y z. just so pronounces the Ebrue and Samaritic Calde and Syriac Arabic and Etiopic viz. A b c or g as wee English pronounce g before e or i ge gi the reason is because that c in Italy from whence wee fetch our Alfabet before e or i is pronounced as if à t were before je ji thus tje tij and our g is pronounced as if there were à d before je ij thus dje dij So that the difference is betweene the Italian or Roman c and the English Ebrue Arabick Calde aad Syriac g as the proportion of 〈◊〉 D e because the Grecians who did immediatly receive their Alfabet from this primitife Tongue as the son is the immediate heire of his parents almost generally have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e yet for the most part even that same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they pronounce as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e hence it is no wonder that in the Greec Latin English and all occidentall alfabets is a simple e in place of that easy the easiest breath of all the gutturall letters after a cald by the Grecians the spiritus lenis and he the spiritus asper F is unjustly yet according to many hundert Nations in the World arisen in place of the primitive w or v cōsonant which being too hard pronounced by the Coptites the Romans Italians Spaniards French made filius from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an interpofition of l betweene two i viz. u i thus is f in place of w v. G is come in place of the primitive easy s for the pronunciation of zayin is as the Grecians Germans and Low Coùntry pronounces in the beginning of any word And because that some of the Aeolians and old Latines did pronounce g as the French do je ge hence is it that they mistaking the second degree of s done onely by the tongue and the teeth which is the tongue not comming at the teeth as the teeth closed and the palat made with a cavity make z a g as the French ge and je Then the primitive letter requires a single sibilation and the Greec letter from whence the Latines have it a compound one H this is from the second fort of h in the primitive tongue the second wherof is here the single h in Ebreu it is of a double pronunciation first Kh easy unto all the Europians almost except English and French 2. halfe h and halfe kh almost impossible for all the Europians Yet by the Jewes yee may learne it the best Here followes a letter unknowne unto the Latines from whence the English have their Alfabet to wit th the Greecs as the nearest unto the Orient and these parts that did speake this tongue have it from this primitive tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thét theta And must be pronounced with the bredth of the tongue I is in this primitife tongue the y of the English and French pronunciation The Latines mistaking it to be naturally a vowell when it was a consonant made it a vowell Yet as in this primitive tongue all the letters are consonants and not vowels so is also the whole Alfabet of Greec Latine English and of all Europe only consonants not vowels whereof now and then some become to be vowels yet by a meer accident K l m n. are of the same nature in the primitife that they are in English onely take heed that you never pronounce k as kh but constantly as ca co cu. Ka ke ki ko ku Here comes in another letter knowne by the Greecs Romans and English rightly placed onely in the Greec Alfabet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 x which all the people
and essentiall unto this Tongue in the former will yeeld essentiall Rules for the latter And whatsoever is onely accidentall to this tongue being brought in by some ingenious invention will afford Rules onely for accidentall observations in Analogy Analogy is the second part of Grammer contayning Rules for Noun and Verb and layeth downe likewise the fundamentall order of the Dictionary Vpon the inward essentiall division of the Analogy dependeth the multitude and distinction of the Syntacticall Rules Every part being of a different Office Degree and Action must be kept within its bounds and limits as for instance whatsoever belongs unto Analogy must not be brought unto Orthography nor Syntacticall things unto Analogy Wee must first diligently and distinctly consider single Words before wee come to the joyning sence Therefore in the Dictionary as well as in the Grammer all care must be had to insert such things as will make the Tongue easy and plaine The Dictionary will afford greater ease for this Tongue then the Grammer it selfe and it is either Generall or Speciall The Generall comprehendes not only all the Rootes of Ebrew Calde Samaritan Syriac Arabic and Ethiopic but also their divers formes of Nouns and Verbs Analogall or Anomall collected out of severall Authors and Dictionaries with all their speciall significations The speciall contayning all the 8000 Roots with the Ebrew and Calde formes so farre onely as they are extant in the Ebrew Bible not onely with all the significations of them as hitherto set downe by Authors but also much inriched with Calde Syriac Arabic and Ethiopic significations which will doe much good frequently in the Bible A Generall Grammer for Ebrew Samaritan Calde Syriac Arabic and Etiopic RULE I. AS other Tongues may bee written forwards or backwards that is towards the right or left hand so this Therefore Ebrew Samaritic Syriac and Arabic is written towards the left Ethiopic towards the right hand like Greeke and Latine and all other European tongues descending from this primitive Rule II. As other Tongues so this writes the Letters a part or joynes them The Iewes as they write any tongue with their letters so did they the bible and other bookes of note with Letters a part as we do in printing yet in their common writings doubtlesse they did as we doe for celerity sake joyne their Letters And that by a threefold argument 1. Because it is naturall to all people to write fast and ioyning the caracters is the onely way 2. The heathens contradistinct to the Jewes of that Country viz. the Syrians being Christians and Arabians for the most part Muhammedans doe write the Letters joyntly as other Countries do when they would write fast And no doubt it is the common course of that Country as well as it is of ours Onely some few Letters they joyne not viz. The Syrians a d e u tz r t or Olaf dolat He Vau Tzode Ris and Taw. The Arabians a d w z r or Elif Del Dsel vaw zayin ra with any following Letter but with the foregoing they are as well as any other â— a l or Aleph and Lamed are found joyned in one figure by the Jewes The Etiopians do write every Letter apart like the Jewes which I thinke is done by them onely in some bookes of note as the bible and all church-Church-books yet in common writings I doubt not but that they joyne them as well as wee Otherwise they may be thought to want the common sence in writing I desire that this may be enquired after and being found by experience to be so that Europe may be acquainted with it Rule 3. The essentiall duct or stroak of the Letters in this whole primitiue Tongue is one and the same Ebrew and Calde Letters are the very same for there are no Caldeans extant but the Iewes since the Babilonian captivity who gave unto that forme of writing and pronunciation which they learnt there the name of Calde notwithstanding they lived in Jerusalem and the rest of the holy Land The Iewes use these murabba or square Letters which they call Calde in any tongue whatsoever as in Italian Spanish German French Persian Arabic Turkish Polonian or Muscouian tongues The Samaritan are the old Ebrew Letters used by the Jewes before the Babilonian captivity My reason is this First because they are lesse polished more crooked unproportionable uneven and illfavoured then the common Ebrew now in use For as the Jewes before the captivity were lesse civilized more proud stifnecked rebellious untractable and hardhearted not onely to strangers but to themselves also as appeares by the generall complaint of the Prophets so after that affliction of 70 yeares captivity they became more meeke humble patient and tractable and in that time finding that the Caldeans had the same Language in essence with them and that their writing was more neate and comely then their own by how much those were a better governed and policy'd people then they they began not onely to learne but affect and that so well that they left their owne crooked and illfavoured Character unto those Samaritans which they called Cuttims because descending from Cuthaya or Scythia out of an hatred of their worship and religion and love of their owne religion and new learned Character which they found to bee more easy and neate than their old Secondly because it is the common course of all Nations to mend the fashion of their writing as the Germans Low-duch Polonions and English themselves have done and do yet dayly The Syrian Characters are the same formerly used in Syria Cnaan Flistea or Palestina by the Heathens or Christians not the Jewes and thence it is that the greatest difference betwixt Calde and Syriac is only in the characters the tongue being the same called Calde when the Jewes speake it and Syriac when the Christians Now wee know well enough that religion doth not change the tongue as when popery was cast out of England the tongue did remaine the same And those petty differences betweene Calde and Syriac taught by Emira Ecchellensis Waserus Masius Crinesius de Dieu and others following them shall all be cleared up and taken away in their proper place Neither do they write downewards as Masius c. affirme but onely some men for their more perfect and accurate writing turne first their paper downeward then make they that basis or fundamentall strooke whereby the characters are joyned downward and so write the body of the Letters all along upon it which fully done they turne againe upwards Nor do they use many different fashions of their writings about the lines but write line for line as wee do And there are many thousands that do not turne their paper and yet write as faire and swift as the other And this I have observed my selfe by many that have resolved mee that question The other Syriac Estrangelo Letters are also the same but onely that they are lesse polished as being more
Ethic Politic Oeconomic so Poesie and all other Arts whatsoever are honored beautified nobilitated and highly advanced by the Christian faith more than ever before in the heathenish Philosophers times who did imbrace them more for curiosity then Religion sake but we Christians esteeme them because they willingly give all their assistance and offer up their service to the Bible and Divinity But further if we would speak of these artes in reference unto othermen viz. the greatest part of those in Asia and Affrica I avow that a more worthy work cannot be undertaken by a Generous Nation as England I have experience of to bee than that the Learned men thereof should not only sit still at home referring all things only to themselves and studies but also joyne with Heathens Christians and Jewes to learne from them teach them love them and to be beloved of them to meet them invite and doe them good not only with temporall but also which they would accept of with more thankfull humble devout earnest minds with Spirituall refreshments Are you the worse for having your Sermons frequented by thousands more then formerly or the Exchange with thousands of Merchants more then your selves every one of them encreasing the common-wealth and riches of the City or for having store of spirituall intellectuall and corporeall goods wherewith to refresh all Asia and Affrica by your writings and instructions in their owne tongue but I must leave this to me at least pleasant music and come to the fifth point to shew that these six languages viz. Ebrew Calde Syriac Samaritic Ethiopic and Arabic are BUT ONE Truly I would never have touched that point either in this my English Essay or in any of my latine books and writings because I know it is displeasing to some who would not willingly heare the truth or the nature and secrecy of this tongue discovered or cannot believe it to be so or if they doe will not confesse it but would keep the people still in ignorance admiration of unspeakable high matters whereunto no body is able to attaine but themselves nay they thinke that I undervalue the Holy tongue feigning as if I spake of it in a contemptible way because of this unity as if God were therefore to be contemned because BUT ONE and that I loose my owne reputation of Learning by writing and speaking of it in that way of commendation Some others are apt to thinke and say that this sort of commendation doth only arise out of some philosophicall notions about unity and diverfity which are also very usefull and necessary following therein Plato's wayes of discoursing of things rather in high and witty fancies than in plaine and samiliar way tending to and advancing the easines and utility of the matter under hand but only that the truth must bee said and written much profit arising from a true notion of things whole Kingdomes being willing to engage in a worke according to their notions be they good or bad wherefore I thought it reasonable to say something in behalfe of this holy primitive tongue when so many hundred wits lye and sleep out of a false conceit that it is impossible to overcome these Orientall tongues because there is no end of studying them and never almost any seene to get out with credit and honour Many thousand wits otherwise imployed that might easily be brought to any tongue if they were well informed of the subject Many thousand study not at all that would be glad to have some good subject presented them In respect of all these in love towards the rongue I tender to all the English wits of whatsoever profession honour title degree and state this sort of learning only with this condition that they truly love God whom they see not feare and tremble at his power and greatnesse yet withall faithfully embrace his mercy kindnesse and goodnesse and rejoyce in the flourishing condition of their own Kingdome for if they cannot doe this I have done with them and desire not to engage farther with them Upon this point viz. that all those hitherto though falsly esteemed divers tongues are but ONE I did partly before build the usefullnesse and shall hereafter also set downe the easinesse of them when I have fully demonstrated that unity which I now speake of Vnity then is a flower of essence never of accidents for they cannot have that prerogative to become one whereas let essence be presented with all the various accoutrements that the wit of man can invent it cannot be changed but will alwayes remain one and the same Now therefore when we speake of the unity of these tongues viz. that these six tongues in my opinion are only one and not divers it must be understood of their essence not accidents Ignorant people may thinke that languages have neither essence nor accidents but the learned and such I speake unto at this time though in some measure to others also know that not only created matters but also tongues may be considered both in their essence and accidents And as essence is one so hath it essentiall proprieties viz. Vnity Truth and Goodnesse besides divers others all which are so united with essence or the essentiall being of things metaphysically considered that if they are one and the same it followes necessarily that whatsoever is good and true in one continues still to be the same under whatsoever climate name shape or plantation it be found Then if Ebrew be good holy and primitive and Caldaic Syriac Samaritic Ethiopic and Arabic call them by as many names as you please be the same primitive tongue then if you deny whether with or without reason any one of them the name of primitive you may as well deny it to Ebrew it selfe the denying of one being the denying of the other Now then I will lay downe the foundation of this unity Ebrew Calde Syriac Samaritic Arabic and Ethiopic is one tongue because it hath but one matter and forme whereof it consists and whereby it differs from all other tongues whatsoever none of them having the said properties The matter of these viz. Ebrew Calde c. is 22. sundry letters reduceable unto 20. used generally by these people in all ages from David the King and Prophets dayes untill us Nay further seeing that David used the very same words which Moses the holy penman of the five Bookes of the Law and story of the patriarchs before the law both before and after the deluge retayning the same nature that was observed by Ezra the Scribe I thinke we have a good ground from reason to say that Adam himselfe did use the same tongue But because the antiquity of the Ebrew Alphabet even from Adams dayes is already sufficiently demonstrated against any cavills I shall goe on to shew my unity T is true that there is some diversity in the Arabic Syriac and Ethiopic Alphabet though not arising from the tongue it selfe but only that the Ethiopians and
no sound for thereby it is distinguished from the vowels who have a sound these Jewish Masters would give it one by joyning thereunto the shorter vowels fatah segol hireq qomez qubbuz Which Doctrine destroyes that position of sua mobile for if it be movable and to be pronounced like an e what need is there to joyne it with segol to make up e and if it were an e before hath it not the sound of two e now and is it not with fatah ea or ae with hireq ei or ie with qomez eo or oe With qubbuz eu or ue And yet they set it onely a simple a e o And if it may be joyned with a e o why not with i and u What have these two short vowels sinned onely the wit failed these Grammarians Or if they did it to avoid confusion because sva joyned with hireq would make up the form of segol for three poynts sake and sva qubbus would get five poynts and so make up the same forme with sva segol it is cleare againe that they had not wit enough to make such formes of hireq and qubbuz that sva hireq and sva qubbuz might not make a confusion either with sva segol or segol And yet where is that compound sva in Syriac Arabic and Etiopic for in the Samaritic the whole Talmud and divers Rabbines and thousands of Arabic books you finde neither it nor any vowell And if you say that the Caldeans have all these vowels and these svâs I say either they had them from the Jewes before the Babilonian captivity or during the time of it now if any man can produce any one line in any Author warrantable or not I care not shewing us so much as one line onely of the true Calde writings with vowels and suâs and then I will yeald If you say in Daniel and Esra we see it plainly I answer do yee not remember that they were Jewes nor did they write and point their books with the Calde letters and poynts but with their own For every one of those dialects have a peculiar manner of vowelling differing from the other Samaritic hath none Syriac hath assumed the Greec 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or v and afterwards some who did nor like to take the vowels of the Grecians to their bookes and to spoyle their own writing therewith invented an other sort of poynts And as true as it is that these Greec vowels are the proper vowels of the Syrians so true is it that these Ebrew Jewish vowels were once the Heathenish Caldean vowels also Arabic hath divers vowels from Syriac Etiopic has divers from Arabic and Syriac and Ebrue so that wee finde every dialect of this tongue to be different from the other in the matter of this accidentall worke of pricks for vowels from whence it clearly appeares that neither these are proper to the Caldean or not proper to the Ebrew Either of them must fall And we see that the nature of the Jewes constantly is first to change the Consonants secondly the vowels of any tongue whatsoever We have example of it in the Persian Turc Arabic Greec Spanish Italien French German and Polonian tongues when there is none of these vowels of theirs no svâs at all and yet for all that they have printed them so and printed not with our letters but with theirs Will you now go and say that Latine hath the Ebrue consonants and those 15 vowels And that the Caldeans had the same poynts with the Ebrew It is to be pittied that that excellently learned Man and My worthily honored Friend Dr. John Buxtorf at Basil Professour of Divinity of this tongue hath thus farre deviated from all reason as to play for the primitivenes of these points and to write a great book in quarto in defence of it being condemned to such a vaste and yet superfluous labour that stone of Sisifus The whole tongue reclaimes their antiquity Those that looke a little farther then the Ebrue Bible may easily see that whereas there is an agreement amongst the Consonants in these dialects there is none in the vowels I pray let not authority make here slaves of us and keepe us still in a feare and give us an infinite toyle of anomalies in the Ebrue Bible whereby we shall never be able to get the Siriac Arabic and Etiopic tongue One onely of these compound suâs viz. sva fatah read after its Consonant as it doth stand under it looses under 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 finall the sua because that sua is not admitted under the last letter as is said here before which fatah makes no syllable being neither a long vowell nor a short one but onely a part of sua It might have beene left away together with the sua onely they thought it requisite that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might bee pronounced with an a being gutturall letters and not easily to be pronounced without it And because taken away from sua it was called gnuba or taken which the latter Jewes and our Christian Gammarians not rightly understanding thought it fignified that it must bee pronounced before its consonant A false assertion and of such grosse an errour that it overthrowes the nature of this tongue wherein every syllable beginnes with a consonant and yet is here neither reason nor a powerfull cause why this fatah gnuba should begin a syllables when it cannot so much as make a syllable This gnuba is superfluous when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is its letter because that sounds hi that point within being hireq as that excellent learned Schindler it hath in his Grammer and is frequently underwritten comming from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This gnuba fals away if a letter follow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 elohim God c. and is onely after a long ē i ō ū never a long a. You may leave out the gnuba in your reading These compound suâs are frequently in the Ebrue Bibell not under the throate letters for the use whereof they are said to be invented but under the non-gutturals b. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 31.39 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Num. 10.36 z. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 2.12 q. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very freqently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nehe. 10.34 And contrary there are above 200 of examples where a single sua is under a throat or gutturall letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I well desist Job 16.6 Iud. 15.7 Out of which confusion multitudes of exceptions and exceptions upon exceptions and that in the Ebrue Bible also not onely in the Calde part of it and that all printed and written copies of the Ebrue Bible never do agree herein wee may clearly see that this Monster and mishape of creating and destroying this inconstancy and fury of building up leveling to the ground will descry unto any wise eye the madnesse of the