SHELL-SHELLDRAKE. entire shell is made up of an immense number of a single membranous layer in folds or plaits, which such plates, which lie parallel to one another, separated by minute vertical pillars. In the Mollusca, the shell is formed upon the surface of the mantle, which corresponds to the true skin of other animals. Hence it must be regarded as epidermic. It consists of cells consolidated by a deposit of calcareous salts in their interior, but, as in the case of many other tissues, the original cellular organisation often becomes so hidden by subsequent changes, as to cease to be recognisable. The typical condition of the shell in this sub-kingdom is lie more or less obliquely to the general surface. In the Crustacea, the structure of the shell has only been examined in the order of Decapods. In this order-in the common crab, for example-the Fig. 2.-Section of the Shell of Pinna parallel to the surface, shewing Prismatic Cellular Structure, cut transversely, magnified 185 diameters. best seen in certain bivalves-the genus Pinna, for example. On breaking off a small portion of the projecting margin of one of these shells, and examining it under the microscope, it is found to be made up of a vast number of prisms, hexagonal in form, and nearly uniform in size, which are arranged perpendicular to the surface of the lamina of the shell, so that the thickness of the lamina is formed by their length, and its surfaces by their extremities. On submitting such a lamina to the action of a dilute acid, the calcareous salts are dissolved, and a membrane is left which shews the prismatic structure as perfectly as it was seen in the original shell, the hexagonal divisions being evidently the walls of cells resembling those occurring in the pith or bark of a plant. It sometimes happens in recent, but more commonly in fossil shells, that the animal matter Fig. 3.-Calcareous Prisms of the Shell of Pinna, from Fig. 4.-Portion of transverse section from Claw of shell consists of three layers, viz. (1) an external For further information on this subject, the reader is referred to Dr Carpenter's various articles on the Microscopic Structure of Shells, and especially to his article Shell' in the Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology (from which the materials of the present article have been almost entirely drawn), and to his Microscope and its Revelations. SHE'LLDRAKE, or SHIELDRAKE (Tadorna), a genus of ducks of the section having the hind-toe without any pendent membrane. The shelldrakes decays and leaves the prisms ununited, and easily separable from one another. It is only in a few families of bivalves that the cellular structure is seen in this very distinct form, or that it makes up a large portion of the shell; and these families are closely allied to Pinna. In many shells, the external layer is formed on the above plan, while the internal layer is nacreous; in many, again, the nacre, or 'mother of pearl,' and in others sub-nacreous structure, constitutes nearly the whole thickness of the shell. The nacre, according to Sir D. Brewster, consists of a multitude of layers of carbonate of lime, alternating with animal membrane; and the grooved lines on which iridescent lustre depends, are due to the wearing away of the edges of the animal laminæ, while those composed of carbonate of lime stand out; it is, however, more probable, from Dr Car- are a connecting link between geese and ducks, havpenter's researches, that the peculiar lineation of ing much resemblance to the former. The species the surface of nacre is due to the disposition of are mostly natives of the southern hemisphere, Shelldrake, female and male (Tadorna vulpanser). SHELLEY. but the COMMON S. (T. vulpanser, or Bellonii) is common on the sandy sea-shores of Britain; many coming from the north for the winter, and some remaining all the year, and breeding, making their nests in rabbit-burrows or other holes in soft soil, whence in some places the S. receives the name of Burrow Duck. It is a beautiful bird, the sexes nearly alike in plumage; the head and upper part of the neck green, with a collar of white, and a lower collar of rich chestnut, extending over part of the back, the rest of the back white. The whole length is fully two feet. The S. is very capable of being tamed, and breeds in domestication. Its note is a shrill whistle. Its flesh is coarse and unpalatable.-The RUDDY S. (T. rutila), the only other European species, is rare as a British bird, although common in many parts of Europe and Asia. During the interval, in the course of a tour in Switzerland, he had formed the acquaintance of Lord Byron, with whom afterwards in Italy he had much intimate intercourse. In March 1818, he left England finally-as it proved-to proceed to Italy; and during that and the following year, chiefly while a resident in Rome, he produced what may rank as his two finest poems-the grand lyrical drama of Prometheus Unbound and the tragedy of The Cenci. While at Venice with Lord Byron in 1820, he wrote Julian and Maddalo, a record in enduring verse of an interesting conversation of the discussional kind between the noble poet and himself. His other works of chief importance are: Rosalind and Helen, begun before he left England; The Witch of the Atlas, written in 1819; Epipsychidion; Adonais (a lament on the death of Keats); and Hellas (a lyrico-dramatic burst of exultation on the outbreak of the Greek war of liberty)-all three produced in 1821. The winter of 1822, S. passed at Pisa; and in the April following, he established himself near Lerici, in the Gulf of Spezia. His fondness for boating had through life amounted to a passion, and here he indulged it to the full. On July 8, 1823, in the company of an ex-naval friend, Mr Williams, he sailed from Leghorn, whither he had gone to welcome his friend, Mr Leigh Hunt, to Italy, and was lost in a sudden squall on his voyage homeward. The bodies were, after some time, washed ashore, and were burned, as the quarantine law of the country required, in presence of Lord Byron, Mr Leigh Hunt, and another intimate friend, Mr Trelawney. S.'s ashes were carefully preserved, and lie buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, near the grave of Keats. SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE, the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Bart., the representative of an old Sussex family, was born at Field Place, near Horsham, in that county, on August 4, 1792. His earlier education he received at home with his sisters. About the age of ten, he was sent to a school near Brentford, and thence, three years after, transferred to Eton. Shy and sensitive, yet self-willed and unsubmissive, he suffered much from the harsh discipline of masters and the tyranny of his ruder associates. In his refusal to fag at Eton, he gave early indication of that passionate impatience of every form of constituted authority not approving itself to his reason which continued through life to distinguish him, and to find expression in his writings. In 1808, he left school, and after two years passed at home, he was sent to University College, Oxford. Even thus early, he had become a freeIn S.'s opinions, religious, social, and political, thinker of a somewhat advanced kind, and a pam- crude as they often were, and everywhere expressed phlet, entitled A Defence of Atheism, which he with an unwise reckless vehemence, there was much circulated during the second year of his college that might reasonably offend; and they not only on course, led to his expulsion from Oxford. This so their own account roused against him a storm of irritated his father, that for some time he declined obloquy, but made him throughout life the accreto receive him; and on his rash marriage, in August dited mark of the most foul and malicious slanders. 1811, to a Miss Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of To this chiefly it is to be attributed that, whilst he a retired innkeeper, the estrangement between them lived, his genius met with no wide appreciation; but became final and complete, the old gentleman con- since, it has been amply recognised, and perhaps no senting to allow his son a liberal yearly income, but writer of his time at this day ranks higher on the never after having any intercourse with him. S.'s whole than he. In sustained lyrical impetuosity, marriage was in its issue tragical In 1813, a separ- S. surpasses every other writer; his diction is not ation took place between him and his wife, who, more remarkable for its opulence than for the with two children, returned to the care of her expressive subtlety and precision with which it father; and three years after, the unhappy woman defines the nicest refinements of feeling and thought; drowned herself. The refinements of intellectual and his page flashes with imagery like a royal robe sympathy which poets desiderate in their spouses, rich with gems. But too often, whilst he dazzles, S. failed to find in his wife, but for a time he seems he also bewilders; he is fond of supersubtle abstracto have lived with her not unhappily; nor to the tions, unsubstantial as clouds or dreams; and frelast had he any fault to allege against her, except quently in reading him we seem merely to be such negative ones as might be implied in his looking on wreaths of rainbow-coloured mist. This meeting a woman he liked better. This was Mary want of clear and firm outlines is more or less felt Godwin, daughter of the celebrated William Godwin throughout all his larger works, with the single and Mary Wollstonecraft, with whom, in 1814, he exception of The Cenci, in which a terrible story of travelled in France and Switzerland, and who after-real life is dramatised with consummate vigour and wards became his second wife. Such excuse of his directness of treatment. As to the matter of the conduct in the matter as the theory of congenial rest of his poems, they concern themselves, for the souls' may afford in the eye of the moralist must most part, not with the world as it is or has been, but to the full be allowed for Š., whose later union was with a perfected world which is to be. S. is the of almost ideal felicity and completeness. On the vates of the future, as Scott is the poet of the past. death of his first wife, he laid claim to his children; Of the charge of atheism against S., it is enough to but this their grandfather, Mr Westbrook, strange say that it rests mainly on his boyish poem of Queen as it may now seem, successfully resisted at law Mab; that this he did not himself give to the on the ground of his atheism, as exhibited in the world; and that when, in 1821, it was surreptipoem of Queen Mab, which a year or two before he tiously published, he issued an express protest had printed, though only for private circulation. against his being held answerable for any opinions In 1815, while living at Bishopsgate, near Windsor, set forth in it. In his later works, a vague Panhe wrote his Alastor, one of the most finished and theism seems indicated; and one or two passages characteristic of his works; which was followed by occur which fairly admit of a purely theistic interThe Revolt of Islam, composed in 1817 at Marlow.pretation. The only complete edition of S.'s poems SHELL-GUN-SHELLS. is that published by Mrs Shelley in 1839. selection from his letters, with translations and prose-essays appeared in 1840. See Medwin's Life of Shelley (1849); Trelawney's Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (Lond. 1858); Thomas Jefferson Hogg's Life of Shelley (Lond., 2 vols., 1858), and the Shelley Memorials, by Lady Shelley (Lond., 1859). A of seconds. This fuse might either be kindled by hand the moment before the mortar was fired, or its ignition might be effected by the act of firing itself. The Shrapnell shell, introduced by Colonel Shrapnell of the Royal Artillery about 1808, contained a number of bullets, and being fired at bodies of men, it was timed to explode about 100 yards before reaching them, when the shell burst, and the bullets with the fragments continued their course, diverging continually as they went, until they reached their object in a death-cloud. The Concussion shell, or Percussion shell, is one in which the charge is fired by the detonation of a cap on striking an object. If sufficiently delicate to explode on touching a soft object, and at the same time not to be exploded by the resistance of the air to its rapid flight, this form of shell is the most certain in execution. By common testimony of all who knew him, S., who was held up to execration as a perfect monster of iniquity, was one of the purest, gentlest, most lovable of men; of the tenderest private affections, and, beyond the immediate circle of these, of the largest flowing charity. The passion of philanthropy expressed in his writings found as practical an expression in his daily life as if he had never made any very great profession of it. The episode of his first marriage seems more or less awkward for him; but the one passionate frailty of a boy can scarcely be held a serious blemish on a man whose whole subsequent life was exceptional in virtue and beneficence. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN, wife of the poet, was born in London 1798, married Shelley, as above stated, in 1816; and in the same year produced a remarkable novel, entitled Frankenstein, the hero of which, a profound student of nature, discovers the secret of creating life, and produces a monster whose history, though wild and horrible in its incidents, is invested with a strong human interest. The work had a great success, and may be reckoned the best of Mrs Shelley's literary efforts. Other novels of hers are Valperga, The Last Man, Lodore, and The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck. She likewise wrote Rambles in Germany and Italy; a series of biographies of foreign artists and poets for the Cabinet Cyclopædia; and carefully edited her husband's poems. She died in London, February 1, 1851. SHELL-GUN belongs rather to the past than the present, as in modern rifled artillery all guns fire shells. Before their introduction, however, shells were fired from guns of large bore, and proportionately small thickness of metal, not differing materially from howitzers, except that they had greater length. SHELL-LAC. See LAC. SHELLS, called in earlier times bombs, consist of hollow vessels of metal, containing gunpowder or other explosive compound, so arranged that it shall explode at a certain point, and spread destruction around by the forcible dispersion of its fragments. The invention of this murderous missile cannot be accurately traced. Shells were employed in 1480 A. D. by the sultan of Gujerat, and by the Turks at the siege of Rhodes, in 1522. The Spaniards and Dutch both used them during the war of Dutch independence; and they appear to have been generally adopted by about 1634. As shells required Mortars (q. v.) for their projection, they were not used in naval warfare until the French constructed special bomb-vessels in 1681; but since that period, shell-guns, being cannon of large bore, have been introduced, and shells are now employed by all ships of war. Since the introduction of rifled ordnance, the shell has become the commonest form of projectile. It has ceased to be spherical, and is usually in the shape of an elongated bolt. Several rival shells at present divide public favour, and compete for adoption into war service. Without noticing the numerous varieties which are in course of trial on the continent and in America, the following are the principal British competitors. The Armstrong shell is a pointed bolt of iron (usually percussion), containing an inner 'segment shell,' made up of 49 segments of cast iron. Seven of these segments form a circle, or ring, and seven circles give the necessary length. A coating of lead affords a soft medium for fitting into the grooves of the gun. The shell thus made somewhat resembles a bottle without the neck. The necessary bursting charge having been inserted, the rear-end is plugged with lead, the fuse is screwed into the front, and the shell is ready for action. This projectile has a great and accurate range, and its segments cannot fail, on explosion, to do great damage. The principal drawback has been found in the lead-casing, which is often thrown off in parts soon after the shell leaves the gun, and which thus falls among the foremost ranks of the army using it, sometimes inflicting severe Until within a few years, every shell was a wounds. The Whitworth shell is hollow sphere of cast-iron, varying in thickness an elongated hexagonal bolt of from half an inch to two inches, and in diameter iron or steel, cast in one piece, from five and a half inches to thirteen inches. The and with a bursting charge at sphere had a fuse-hole (like a bung-hole) an inch across, through which the charge was inserted, consisting of pieces of metal and powder to burst the shell. The hole was plugged by a fuse, which was a tube of slow-burning powder, timed to communicate fire to the charge after the lapse of a certain number the rear-end. It explodes on SHELL-SAND-SHEMITIC LANGUAGES. bore of the Lancaster gun (q. v.). There are many other forms, but they differ principally in the devices used for making the shell conform to the rifling of the gun. Martin's shell must, however, be noticed, from its peculiarity of being charged with molten iron, which sets on fire all combustible matter on which it can be thrown. The Diaphragm shell, invented by Colonel Boxer, R.A., has an iron division or diaphragm to separate the powder in the shell from any balls or slugs, in order that the friction of the latter may not prematurely cause the powder to explode. A six-pounder diaphragm shell contains 30 carbine-balls; an eight-inch shell, 322 musket-balls. SHELL-SAND. Sand consisting in great part of fragments of shells, and often containing a small proportion of organic matter, is a very useful manure, particularly for clay soils, heavy loams, and newly reclaimed bogs. It is also advantageously applied to any soil deficient in lime. It neutralises the organic acids which abound in peat, and forms with them compounds which serve as food for plants. Great deposits of shell-sand are found on the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall, and are of great value in the agriculture of that district. Shell-sand is also found on many other parts of the British coast, and nowhere more abundantly than in the Outer Hebrides. The sand of many parts of the coast, however, being mostly silicious, is incapable of the Shell-sand is much used as a manure in some of the maritime districts of France, as Bretagne and Normandy. same use. SHEMA'KHA, a maritime government of Transcaucasia, Russia, bounded on the S. by the river Kur, and on the N. by the Caucasus. Area, 21,654 sq. m.; pop. 633,886. North of the Kur and around its mouth the surface is level, low, and fruitful, and there are numerous warm and fertile valleys, though little of the surface is under cultivation. Only in the towns and seaports, and in the villages in their vicinity, are agriculture and industry pursued. The mountainous regions are inhabited by a rude predatory population. SHEMAKHA, the capital of the government of the same name, about 70 miles west-north-west of Baku. It is a thriving town, carries on extensive manufactures of silk and cotton goods, and is much engaged in horticulture and in general trade. Pop. 22,014. SHEMI'TIC (Semitic*) LANGUAGES the general name of a certain number of dialects, supposed at one time to have been spoken by the descendants of Shem. The term is of recent origin (Schlözer, Eichhorn), and a misnomer; for, in the first place, not all the nations derived in Genesis from Shem spoke an idiom akin to those understood by the term Shemitic (e. g., the Elamites, Lud, &c.), and, on the other hand, Canaan and Cush, whose Shemitic speech is undoubted, are there traced to Ham. Shemitic Languages, however, as a conventional appellation,' is still the best of all the general terms hitherto proposed (Arabic; Syro-Arabic, analogous to Indo-Germanic). The family of Shemitic languages, which spread originally over Canaan (Phoenicia and Palestine), Assyria, Aram (Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia), and Arabia; and, at a later period, over part of Asia * In Hebrew, the name from which the adjective is derived, is spelt Shem; but, as in many other cases, the sh of the original was transformed by the Septuagint into 8 (see SHIBBOLETH); and hence, through the influence of the modern versions that have in this respect followed the Septuagint, the form Semitic is more current among continental writers than Shemitic. Minor and the Punic northern coast-i. e., from the countries on the Mediterranean to the Tigris, and from the Armenian Mountains to the south coast of Arabia-may broadly be divided into three principal classes: 1. The Aramaic or Northern (northeastern) dialect, comprising, chiefly, the so-called Chaldee and Syriac; 2. The Southern, the chief representative of which is the Arabic, closely allied to whose older (Himyaritic) form is the Ethiopic; 3. The Middle, or principally Hebraic, to which also belong the languages of the other Palestinian inhabitants, those of the Canaanites and Phoenicians above all. The difference between the Middle and Northern branches, is less sharply marked, than between the Middle and the Southern or Arabic. Before proceeding to treat of them individually, we shall try to point out their general position among other languages, and principally, itic and that other most important family of the the salient points of difference between the ShemIndo-Germanic or Aryan languages. First of all, then, we notice the preponderance given in Shemitic to the consonants in contradistinction to the vowels. The former are indeed the basis and the body of its words. The vowels are more or less but never themselves containing it, while in the accessories, modifying, fixing, precising the meaning, Indo-Germanic languages the root itself consists generally of a combination of vowels and consoliteralness' of Shemitic roots in the advanced stage nants. A further peculiarity is the prevailing 'triin which we now know them. The Indo-Germanic languages derive their wealth from the logical law of their composition of roots, of verbs, and particles; the Shemitic add to their store in phonetically multiplying their sounds: either by splitting, as it were, their single consonants into two or more, through the reduplication of radicals, or by the addition of new consonants to the primary root, which is thus developed often from a monosyllabic (for by far the greatest number of Shemitic roots consisted primarily of two consonants only, to which a third was generally added at a later period) into a root of five letters. Compound words are of the utmost rarity both in the noun (except proper names) and the verb, and they never consist of combined roots of verbs and particles, but of verbal and nominal roots. Regarding the formation of cases, tenses, and all those other grammatical changes of noun and verb which, in the Indoor noun itself is concerned-almost exclusively by Germanic family, are wrought-as far as the verb suffixes, while the radical vowel changes merely according to euphonic rules within its own limited sphere; the Shemitic languages, principally and chiefly work their flexions by a change of vowels within the radical consonants, leaving the latter themselves intact. Only when these changes suffice and thought, supplementary letters and syllables no longer for the more elaborate modes of speech are sought in aid, and a certain small number of prefixes or affixes represents the vast and varied phrases) of the Indo-Germanic. The Shemitic langroups of little words (amounting at times to whole than the former family. There are only two genders guages are also, if poorer, less complicated in forms which, however, are also distinguished in the second and third persons of the verb-and two principal tenses. These are strongly marked by the suffix in the so-called perfect and by a prefix in position of the personal pronoun, represented by a the so-called aorist or imperfect (future). The former expresses the finite, the completed action, the fact; the latter, the incompleted action, the thought, that which is becoming, growing, as it were, into a fact. One of the most curious features SHEMITIC LANGUAGES. is the sudden change that may be produced in the two by a certain prefixed conjunctive-consonant. Perfect then becomes future, and vice versa. Declension, in the Indo-Germanic sense, exists, if at all, in an extremely limited sense in Shemitic. The juxtaposition of two words (with slight vowelchanges) forms the genitive, while the other cases (in the Hebraic at least) are formed by prepositions. The oblique cases of pronouns are indicated by suffixes. The syntax is of the crudest and simplest description: a mere stringing together of sentences without any particular attempt at a logical and methodical arrangement of periods, according to their temporary superior or inferior relation to the subject-matter. Another most important point of distinction between the two families is formed by what has been called their lexical difference, i. e., the wantexcept in a few isolated cases of any correspondence or identity in their individual words. Most of those words which exhibit a similarity, can be shewn to have been either adopted at a late period, or they simply fall under the category of onomatopoeic words (words imitating the sound of the object expressed, and therefore shewing in all cases greater or smaller affinity to the original sound); or, again, words in which the common type of human language would involuntarily, and under all circumstances, connect a special meaning with a special sound, and would, therefore, be more or less identical in all idioms. Of words introduced into European languages by Shemitic (Phoenician) traders may be instanced, kanua cane, gamal camel, mor= myrrh, kezish = cassia, ahelim aloe, nerd: nard, carkon = crocus, sappir sapphire, sak sack, &c. Of onomatopoeic terms, lakak (Sansc. lik) to lick, charat (Sansc. charidan) = to grate, scratch, galal to roll, parak = to break, &c. On the other hand, words have crept into Shemitic from foreign languages; e. g., the Egyptian, ior, iero, iaro, river, Nile, is found as yeor in Hebrew, pardes (Heb.) paradise, is Persian, kop (Sansc. kapi) is the Heb. for = = = = Slavonic idioms: Lithuanian, Lettish, Russian, Polish, Bohemian. But even these are not so far removed from each other as the Shemitic idioms. What the latter have in common are those grammatical and other characteristics indicated above, and the root-words themselves, which nearly everywhere have the same original signification; only that in this respect the Arabic shews by far the largest development of meanings out of the single roots, and consequently an unparalleled wealth of derivatives. Yet it must not be forgotten that our relics of ancient Hebrew are of a scanty nature, and that the Arabic has remained a living language until our day, and has, through Islam, spread further than any ancient and perhaps even modern language. Regarding the much-vexed question as to which of the Shemitic languages is the oldest, it must be confessed that no positive result has yet been attained. For although the oldest palpable monuments of Shemitic have survived in Hebrew, while our earliest documents in Aramaic date from Cyrus, and those in Arabic, even centuries after Christ (Himyaritic, Ethiopic, 4th c.; northern Arabic, 6th C. A. D.), yet we cannot now decide which of these has preserved the type of the original mother-tongue most intact. It sometimes happens that vast internal movements, or a series of events in the history of a people-wanderings, wars, and the like-change, quicken, and develop its language even to decay, before it has had time to beget a literature. When this time does arrive, we meet already with all the traces of this decay in imperfections, corruptions, and archaisms of form. Thus, the Hebrew of the Bible, that is the most ancient form in which it has survived, offers more grammatical analogies (in incomplete structure, inflexion, &c.) to the modern than to the ancient Arabic, which lasted in its primitive purity and fulness of form as long as the simple life of the dwellers in the desert was not broken by those events which upheaved, from the time of Mohammed, their whole existence, and brought them in closest and most violent contact with other nations of other tongues. Then that process of decomposition, or phase of negligence and corruption, set in, which resulted in the looseness exhibited by modern Arabic. It thus reached the downward stage of the Hebrew of the Old Testament at ever so much later a period. Arabic classical literature thus exhibits, compared with the Hebrew, and even more with the Aramaic-which we meet in a worse state of aged and crippled organism and stunted form-about the same vigour, freshness, and fulness of form and structure, which the Sanscrit exhibits among the Indo-Germanic or the Gothic in the narrower circle of the Germanic dialects. With all We shall now endeavour to draw an outline of this, however, we cannot absolutely decide in favour the relation of the Shemitic languages among them- of the Arabic as the nearest approach to the original selves, and to cast a rapid glance at their individual type. The phase in which it enters into our hischaracteristics and history, referring for fuller details torical horizon may be as far if not further removed to the articles devoted to the special branches indi- from it even as the Aramaic. Its hasty individual cated. Although the Shemitic languages are clearly development may have quickened more radical sister dialects, their relationship is far from being so changes than even the decaying or decayed other close as, for instance, that of the different Greek branches present. So that, as we said, for the predialects. Thus Abraham, belonging by his descent sent at least, the question of priority must remain to a people of Shemitic tongue, and coming from open. We shall, however, allot the first place to a country where Shemitic was the general language, the second or Southern Shemitic (Arabic) class, at his arrival in his new place of abode, inhabited simply because of its copiousness of words and develby Shemites, was considered, and considered him-opment of forms. A faint trace of its peculiarity self a foreigner to a much greater extent than of article (al) is supposed to be found in Gen. x. 26 it would have been the case had a Greek emi- (Almodad); but this seems fallacious enough, congrated from one part of Greece into another. It sidering that the Hebrew article must have been would be more fit perhaps to institute a comparison originally the same, and the word may simply between the different Shemitic dialects and the exhibit the ancient Hebrew form. In the golden Germanic languages among themselves: German, epoch of Hebrew literature, Arab culture does Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, &c.; or the indeed seem to have stood in high renown— ape, karpas (Sansc. karpása) = wool, cotton, &c. As regards the age of the family of Shemitic languages, it is matter of great doubt whether or not they were developed earlier than any other, e. g., the Indo-Germanic. The monuments that have survived are not sufficient for us to form a final judgment as yet. It stands to reason, however, that a development may have taken place simultaneously and independently in the idioms of other nations. The notion long cherished (and still upheld by a few isolated speculators) that Hebrew was the original language of all mankind up to the episode of the tower of Babel, may here be passed over without remark. See PHILOLOGY. |