PART I. CHAP. I. LETTERS, SOUNDS, AND SIGNS. § 1. THE ALPHABET. 1. Preliminary Remarks.—The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are all originally and essentially consonants; but as a consonant cannot, strictly speaking, be sounded by itself, these letters, as they appear in the alphabet, are not so properly the representatives of sounds, as of the position of the organs in the ineffectual attempt to utter sounds. This may perhaps be maintained to be theoretically the case in regard to the consonants of the English and other European languages; but practically it is not so. In English, for example, the letter b, is the sign of a complex sound, involving that of a vowel, and as it stands in the alphabet equivalent to be: The letter therefore requires no other denomination than itself to designate it. The Heb.b, on the other hand, indicates no vowel sound whatever, but simply the position and action of the organs of speech in the abortive attempt to enounce without the aid of a vowel-an aid which the actual utterance indispensably requires. It is perhaps for this, among other reasons, that the letters of the Shemitic alphabets instead of being named, like the European, from their sounds, are distinguished by certain technical appellations, as Aleph, Beth, Gimel, &c., of which see § 2. 4, although Gesenius, Ewald, and others, recognise in these names the evidence of an ancient picture-character, in which certain objects were employed as hieroglyphics, the initial sound of whose name corresponded with the sound of the several letters; as the figure of a lion, for instance, to express the sound L. Of this nature were the wellknown symbolical characters of the Egyptians, and such is, partially at least, that of the Chinese alphabet at the present day. As to the Shemitic letters, this idea is certainly favored by the names applied to them; Aleph signifying an ox, and Beth a house, and the characters being such as may easily have originated in the one case from a rough sketch of an ox's head, and in the other from that of a house. 2. Some learned men among the moderns have indeed maintained that an alphabet of consonants is impossible, and that N, 7, , were anciently only vowels. But this opinion is refuted by the fact, that these letters are always treated as consonants in the triliteral roots, and consequently admit the most heterogeneous vowels, as o, oi, ix. At the same time it may readily be conceded, that, 7, 7, have originally a weaker consonant sound than the rest and one so nearly approximating to that of the vowels, a, u, i, that they might be not inaptly employed as the ordinary representatives of those sounds. It seems to have been in reference to such a use, that these letters were termed by the older grammarians matres lectionis, i. e. parents or guides of reading, an appellation of great antiquity, and evidently implying that in their opinion they answered, from a very early period, some special purpose over and above that of their natural function as consonants. Yet it is plain that there never was a period in the history of the language when these three letters fulfilled the office of all the vowel sounds; for there are great numbers of words composed solely of the firmest consonants, in which neither of the matres lectionis appear, as 3, ¬¬, pra, &c., yet who can suppose for a moment that these words were ever enunciated without the aid of a vowel sound? The expedient, therefore, whatever it may have been, for indicating the general system of vowel-sounds appears to have been as ancient as the use of these letters for that purpose, so that we see no sufficient reason for giving them, in contradistinction to the other consonants, the title of vowels. 3. As to the origin of the present Hebrew character, great difference of opinion has long existed among the learned. The tradition of a fundamental alteration in the forms of the letters has been preserved in the Talmud and the fathers, which must, at any rate, have rested on some historical grounds. According to this tradition the present character, which is found with trifling variations in all MSS. of the Old Testament, and was even in the time of Je rome the same as we now have it, was brought by Ezra from Assyria, at the return from the captivity, and hence is called the Assyrian character ; the earlier ancient Hebrew character, on the other hand, being called the Hebrew character. The entire accuracy of this tradition however, is doubted, especially the fact of Ezra's having introduced the alteration in question, for the Samaritan Pentateuch, which was brought into Samaria from Jerusalem about the end of the fifth century before Christ, and the new coins of the Asmoneans struck a century or two after the last mentioned date, afford sufficient evidence, that the ancient character was still in use as late as the last century before Christ. But the later Jews, as is well known, attribute to Ezra every thing which they can refer to no other source. In the present instance, if the tradition above alluded to be divested of its apoc ryphal features, the following connected view may perhaps be gathered from it:-The Shemitic character, from the time we have any certain knowledge of it, was divided into two very different branches. The western branch which has become especially celebrated in the Phænician character, was also the character of the Hebrews until the last century before Christ, was retained by the Phoenicians still later, and by the Samaritans even to the present time. Its alphabetical characters are antique, but stiff and heavy, angular and uneven, without proportion or beauty. The eastern branch, on the other hand, prevailing in Babylonia and the other countries bordering on the Euphrates and Tigris, became by frequent use much rounder, more regular, more ductile and beautiful, and was even at an early period gradually modified into more of a current character. These distinguishing advantages gave it a decided ascendancy; in the course of time it extended over all Syria and Arabia, and the Jews, after the Babylonian exile, were the less able to resist its influence, inasmuch as the north-eastern or Aramaic language and literature were continually making deeper and deeper inroads upon them. This powerful influence perhaps in the last century before or the first after Christ must have abolished, or at any rate essentially and radically modified, the ancient character; and not long after, by reason of the increasing superstitious reverence of the Jews for the letter of the sacred text, the existing character became in effect consecrated and immutable, and thus has been preserved in all the copies without essential alteration through the lapse of intervening centuries to the present time. 4. The established character thus constituted and fixed, has preserved a beautiful regularity, combined with an antique simplicity, in the form of its letters, which in contradistinction to other alphabetical characters, have given it the name of the the square character. All the letters with the exception of three 3, p,, are about of uniform height and size, and have either a broad stroke above, as, 7, 5, 7, 1, 7, 5, 7, or firm points of support below, as,,, . In some few cases, as,, y, it would seem that the descending stroke, lest it should descend too far, has been bent in to the left, though the primitive form remains when these letters are final. Koph (p) is an excep tion to this remark. This character shows, as will be evident on inspection, some tendency and adaptedness to connection of letters, and some of the MSS. discover a marked approach to a current mode of writing. General usage, however, resisted this incipient tendency, even from early times, especially as the dignity and sanctity of the character were conceived to require, that the primitive separation and distinctness of the letters should be preserved; under this idea, even the connections of letters which are possible are forbidden in the Talmud. Had the Hebrew been already a connected character at the time the Scriptures were written, it would doubtless have remained so, as has been the case with the Kufic character in the Koran. § 2. ALPHABET. The Hebrew Alphabet consists of twenty-two, or, as the S () is twofold, of twenty-three letters, whose names, forms, and powers are as follows: Hebrew. English. Aleph practically no sound of its own; the accom- 1 2 Vay v in valve; often silent. 6 Observations on the Letters. 1. For the sounds given to the vowels in the English names, see Table, § 6, in the column headed " power." 2. The third column, containing the English names of the letters, will give the student a tolerably correct idea of their pronunciation, but it is only from the Hebrew names themselves that he can learn this with perfect accuracy. The first exercise, therefore, after mastering the vowel-signs should be to turn back and apply them in reading the Hebrew Alphabet. 3. The best method which the learner can adopt for making himself acquainted with the letters, is to write them over carefully and frequently, till he is quite familiar with their forms. If he use a pen, the point should be cut a little oblique in order to make the horizontal strokes strong and regular; the others, which are perpendicular or curved, should be made fine and equal, or gently swelling as they appear in the printed character. The oriental reed is said to be by far the best instrument for writing these letters. 4. The number and order of the consonants, as given in the table, are found in the text of the Hebrew Bible. The following are the passages:-Psalms 34, 119, 145; Proverbs 31, from verse 10 to the end; Lamentations 1, 2, 3, 4. In Psalm 34, however, the verse beginning with Vav has either been lost, or both He and Vav are found in the 6th verse; and in the 145th, that which should commence with is also wanting. In the 2d, 3d, and 4th chapters of the Lamentations, Ayin and Pe are found transposed, which may perhaps be attributed to the copyists. 5. The sources of authority in regard to the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters are threefold. (1) The usage of the sister dialects, especially the living. Arabic. (2) The observed relations and interchanges of letters in the Hebrew itself. (3) Jewish tradition. In respect to the latter, there are indeed very considerable diversities of usage among modern Jews, which somewhat weaken the evidence drawn from this source. The pronunciation of the Polish and German Jews conforms more to that of the Syriac, while that of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, which most Christians follow, bears a closer resemblance to the Arabic. But as a counterpoise to this, we have an invaluable traditionary clue to the ancient pronunciation in the manner, in which Hebrew proper names are written in Greek letters in the Septuagint. The information, however, derived from this scource, though valuable as far as it goes, is not complete, as the Greek has no adequate representatives for certain sounds of the Hebrew, as e. g.,, the former of which is very variously indicated, as ny, Topoppa, by Hi, y Aμank. 6. The Hebrews undoubtedly gave to and a sound more or less distinct; the former it is supposed equivalent to an unaspirated h, or the light breathing (spiritus lenis) of the Greeks, and the latter a very deep guttural, peculiar to Shemitic organs, and which if it were perfectly known, it would probably be impossible to represent in our language. For a full account of the vocal powers of the several Hebrew letters, see Gesenius' Heb. Lex. (Robinson's Translation) under each. 7. Five of the letters, viz.,,,,, when occurring at the end of words, lose their usual forms, and assume the following :— Kaph is written 8. The following, viz. *, n, 3, 2, n, frequently occur in a dilated form; as N,7, This is in order to fill out a line, |