(1.) The predominance of guttural sounds. The He- brew has four or (we may say) rive guttural sounds, descending from the slender and scarcely perceptible' throat-breathing represented by the first letter of the alphabet (X) through the decided aspirate n, to the strong n and gurgling ". To these we must add "i, which partakes largely of the guttural character. Nor were these sounds sparingly emploj-ed ; on the contrary-, they were in more frequent use than any other class of letters. In the Hebrew dictionary the four gutturals occupy considerably more than a fourth part of the whole volume, the remaining eighteen letters occupy- ing considerably less than tliree fourths. Tliis predom- inance of guttural sounds must have given a Aery mark- ed cliaracter to the ancient Hebrew, as it does still to the modern Arabic.
(2.) The use of the very strong letters 13, i£, p, which may be represented by tt or ts, q, in pronouncing which the organ is more compressed and the sound given fi>rth with greater vehemence. These letters, especially the last two, are also in frequent use.
When the Greeks borrowed their alphabet from the Phoenicians, they softened or dropped tnese strong let-
HEBREW LANGUAGE
132
HEBREW LANGUAGE
tcrs (:: being softened into 9, and ::? p being dropped except as marks of number), and changed the guttural letters into the vowels a, i, i], o.
(3.) The Shemitic languages do not admit, like the Indo-European, of an accumulation or grouping of con- sonants around a single vo\vel sound. In such words as craj), crush, grim], strong, stretch, we find four, five, and six consonants clustering around a single vowel. The Shemitic languages reject such groupings, usually inter- posing a vowel sound more or less distinct after each consonant. It is only at the end of a word that two consonants may stand together without any intennedi- ate vowel sound ; and even in that case various expedi- ents are employed to dispense with a combination which is evidently not in accordance with the genius of the language.
(4.) Tlie vowels, although thus copiously introduced, arc nevertheless kept in strict subordination to the con- .sonants; so much so that it is only in rare and excep- tional cases that any word or syllable begins with a vowel. In Hebrew we have no such syllables as ah, ag, it<l, in which the initial sound is a pure vowel; but only la, go, da. If Sir H. Eawlinson is correct, it would ap- )iear that the Assyrian language differed from the other Slicniitic languages in this particular. In his syllabic aljihabet a considerable number of the syllables begin with a vowel.
If we enileavor to calculate the effect of the foregoing peculiarities on the character of the language, we can- not avoid the conclusion that the Shemitic languages are of a more primitive type than the European — much less matured, polished, compacted — the natural utterance of a mind vehement and passionate, impulsive rather than calmly deliberative.
2. AVith respect to roots and words, the Shemitic lan- guages are distinguished in a very marked manner: ( 1.) B>j the three-letter root. This is one (if the most striking characteristics of these languages, as it does not appear that there is any language not belonging to this class in the formation of whose roots the same law has been at work. It is very difficult to ascertain the ori- gin of this singular phenomenon. It may possibly be regarded as a kind of ccpiivalent for the compound roots of other languages (which are altogether wanting in the Shemitic) ; an original two-letter root being enlarged and expanded into a greater or less number oi three-let- ter roots, for the purjiose of giving expression to the va- rious modifications and shades of the primitive root idea. The attempt has indeed been made, and with no small measure of success, to point out and specify the two-letter roots from which the existing tliree-letter roots have been derived ; but it has been properly re- marked tViat such an investigation carries us (piite away from the Shemitic province. When we roacli tlic two- ktter root we have left behind ns the Shemitic lan- guages altogether, and drawn forth a ne\\- language, which might be regarded, did we not know that tlie most ancient is not always the most simple, as the one primeval language of mankind. I5y " three-letter roots" We mean those having three consonants forming a dis- syllal>lc, and we must except from our remarks those cdiHainiug the so-called weak letters, which assimilate thenisclvcs verj' strongly to the monosyllabic roots of primitive verbs in the Indo-European group of lan- guages. See l'im,oi,of;Y, C'omi-auativk.
(2.) The consideration of I he Hebrew three-letter root, and its possible growth out of a more original two-letter root, leads on to tlic notice of another prominent feature of the Shemitic languages, viz. the further r/rowth iihd expansion of the three-letter root itself into <i variety of vhat are called conjiigational forms, expressing intensity, rejleriveness, causation, etc. A similar formation may be traced in all languages ; in some non-Shemitic lan- guages, as the Turkish, it is very largely and regularly developed (Max IMilller, Lectures 'on Science of Language. p. 3I.S, c>tc.\ In English we have examples in such verbs as sit and set, lie and lay, set bemg the causative
of sit, lay of lie ; or we may say sit is the reflexive of set, and lie of lay. So in Latin sedo and sedeo,jacio and ja- ceo, etc., in which latter root the conjugational forma- tion is still farther developed into jacio and jactito. But what in these languages is fragmentary and occasional, in Hebrew and the cognate languages is carried out and expanded with fulness and regidarity, and consequently occupies a large space in the Shemitic grammar. The conjugations are of three sorts : (o) Those expressing in- tensity, repetition, etc., which are usually distinguished by some change within the root; (6) those expressing 7-eJlexiveness, causation, etc., which are usuall3" distin- guished by some addition to the root ; (c) the passives, distinguished by the presence of the u or o sound in the first syllable.