His having unluckily on one

or a statue, he is showing himself to be one | sitions of cabmen. He never hailed a
of the mere herd, "pleased with a rattle, hackney coach in his long life, the driver of
tickled with a straw;" he picks out defects, which, by his own account, did not try to
and upon these stepping-stones, he hopes to cheat him. The grumbler is a mighty dis-
spring into the dignity of knowledge and coverer of grievances. He invented the
ability. Your regular professed grumbler word nuisance. He is perpetually discov-
the cream and quintessence of the worthy ering new nuisances, and perpetually won-
folks alluded to by Lord North-is general- dering what the authorities are about.—
ly a gentleman inclined to be stout, and There are the smoke nuisance-the street
partial to a snooze after dinner. He is band nuisance-the iron hoop nuisance
probably beginning to exhibit the increas--the no thoroughfare nuisance-the om-
ing belly and the decreasing leg. He af- nibus nuisance-the fruit-selling nuisance
fectionates ample folds of broad cloth-is-the lucifer nuisance-the orange-peel
curious in the matter of worsted comforters nuisance, cum multis aliis.
for keeping his throat warm, and small In-
dia-rubber boats for keeping his feet dry. sion tumbled over a bit of the latter slippery,
He is a comfortable man-very precise and yellow abomination was a perfect god-send
regular in his habits-and has a comforta- to him. He spoke of nothing else for a
ble house with every thing in it as precise month. He inveighed against the sinful-
and regular as himself. He hath no greatness of orange-sucking-thought govern-
misfortunes to bewail :-consequently he ment should prohibit the introduction of
grumbles at the petites miserès. His very such raw material for nuisance, or that the
comfort turns into the serpent that stings
him. He is perpetually finding out sub-
jects for pathetic complaint. If he be not
eloquent upon the dust in the streets, he
will be overpowering upon the mud. The
weather always seems to be engaged in a
conspiracy against him.

осса

Azores should be ignominiously scuttled in
the Western Ocean. The grumbler rarely
goes out that he does not come home to
dinner with a perfectly new and original
nuisance, which he develops in all its
enormity over the soup-discusses in all its
collateral bearings over the fish-points
out plans for its abolition over the roast,
and inveighs against its originators while he
is dispatching the pudding. The grumbler
loves to grumble in print. He is perpetu-
ally teazing newspaper editors with his suf-

The east wind he holds to be the ringleader. He is persuaded that it was only created to waft rheumatism on its wings, and keep up the average supply of sciatica. If, however, the weather be still, and close, and hot, he knows very well that fever is brew-ferings and his wrongs. He frequently coning-he is sure of it, mark his wordsnothing else can be expected from this confounded choky day. If he goes out without his umbrella and the clouds gather and the rain falls, he is almost speechless with indignation. It is always so, always his luck were he to have encumbered himself with a great awkward umbrella, the rain would never have thought of coming on-never. To hear him you would suppose that the clerk of the weather office was a real personage that he and the grumbler had quarrelled in their youth and that the official in question, being of a spiteful turn of mind, had never forgotten the old grudge.

Our grumbler walks about a good deal, and comes home laden with grievances. You are perfectly astonished at the number of times he has been "within an ace of being run over" by the stupidity of omnibus men:-never of course by his own. Besides, he can make your hair stand on end with narratives of the attempted impo

cludes his epistle by indignantly asking
what the police are about? Nobody ever
tells him. He likes twanging Latin names
for signatures-sometimes he is Investiga-
tor-anon he changes to Denunciator—
now he takes the character Clericus, grum-
bling ecclesiastically-again we find him as
Vindex-often as Judex. Proteus-like, he
slips from the syllables of Probitas into the
letters of Civis-from Aruspex to Amicus.
Sometimes, however, he is content with
plain English, and is generally allowed to
be the originalFather of a Family." The
ordinary grumblers are mere "Constant
Readers" and "Subscribers."

Nothing is too remote for the grumbler
to be displeased with. From the state of
the pump in the next street but one, he
comments upon the oscillations of the plan-
etary system; he has been heard indignant
at the sun for the impropriety of having
spots upon his face, and thinks the moon
would be much more useful were she al-
ways to keep full.

And so he goes on-leading on the whole j into Ethiopic, and the Abyssinians, cona tranquil life-exercising himself by grum-verted to Christianity, in the time of Frubling as doctors tell us infants do by crying mentius, received the Greek Scriptures, be-never very seriously incommoded by any tween A. D. 325 and 335. thing but always making himself appear The Syrian, like the Hebrew and Phoa little incommoded with every thing. Yet nician, consists of an alphabet of twentyin the main he is good natured and sleek; two letters, written from right to left; which but his good nature and sleekness are. are either separate or joined with the preclothed with grumbling as with a garment. ceding or succeeding characters; but the He receives, and grumbles at the smallness Hamaiyaric of inscriptions, found on the -pays, and grumbles at the largeness, of coast of Southern Arabia, has, on the conthe amount. Grumbling is his employment, trary, an alphabet of twenty-five, if not as well as his amusement. His life is one twenty-six letters, written from left to right; eternal grumble-he is born and grumbles -lives and grumbles-dies, and,--then and not till then-grumbles no more.

for it is probable that further research will discover that the Hamaiyaric embraces the whole twenty-six letters, composing the alphabet of the Ghiz, or modern Ethiopic. The scheme and arrangement of the latter,

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE HAMAIYARIC called, from two syllables of the series be

AND ETHIOPIC ALPHABETS.

From the Asiatic Journal.

in no respect from the names and power of the twenty-two Phoenician and Samaritan Hebrew letters from which they were derived. In some of the inscriptions, copied by Messrs. Hulton and Smith, from the neighborhood of the Bedwin town of Dhees, distant only four hours from Ras Sherma, on the southern coast of Arabia, the following letters, Bet, Waw, and Mai, retain their original Phoenician character.

longing to its first letter, Ho He Ya T, differs from that of the Phoenician and HeThe accompanying paper, by James Bird, brew, which commences with Aleph and Esq., which was read before the Bombay Bet; but an inspection of the alphabetical Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and table will render evident to the most unwhich will appear in the next number of learned observer, that the names of twentyits Journal, is forwarded to the Asiatic two letters in modern Ethiopic, correspondJournal in the belief that it will interesting in character with the Hamaiyaric of inits readers. scriptions from Arabia, and the Ethiopic of In making public translations of the Ham- inscriptions from Axum and Tigree, differ aiyaric inscriptions from Aden and Saba, it was my intention to reserve a consideration of the question, "whether this alphabet be of Greek or Semitic origin," till a more convenient opportunity might permit me to analyze the character of individual letters. My public engagements will not, however, at present admit the execution of this plan, and I am, therefore, obliged to submit an imperfect outline of my opinion on the subject, in deference to the advice of a friend, who suggested the propriety of publishing, along with translations of the inscriptions, an alphabet of the character. At no distant period I will resume the subject of the Hamaiyaric and Ethiopic alphabets, and endeavor to show that the former had its origin from the ancient Phoenician, made apparent by the accurate researches of the learned Gesenius; and that the latter differs not materially from the former, except in having adopted the system of seven Greek vowels, expressed by particular marks and modifications of the letters in the first column, which, Dr. Wall remarks, has been termed Ghiz, or the free,' in order to mark its pre-eminence; because the letters are not restricted to particular vowel terminations, but constituted the entire system when the Bible was translated from Greek

The names of the Hamaiyaric letters, corresponding as they do with those of the Hebrew and Phoenician, obviously indicate its Semitic origin; and no doubt can exist that these constitute the character anciently known among the Arabs as Al Musnad, or the 'propped;' being in many cases not materially different from the Hebrew and Syriac characters, having only the addition of foot-props. This and other forms of the Arabic alphabet, including the Kufic, were borrowed from the Phoenician and Hebrew letters that were in current use among the Jews from the second century before Christ to the seventh of the Christian era. chaelis, in his Grammatica Syriaca, pp. 22, 23, correctly asserts," Quo tempore Arabes a Syris literas sumserunt mutuas, quod factum est Muhammedis ætate, seculo septimo ineunte aut paulo antea, tres modò vocales

Mi

1845.] ON THE ORIGIN OF THE HAMAIYARIC AND ETHIOPIC ALPHABETS.

ی

277

habuisse Syros necesse est, tot enim ab illis | this use, precisely in the same manner as acceperunt Arabes, Fatha, Kesre, Damma, the cognate letters were afterwards employquas et Cuphica jam scriptio habuit; toti- ed in unpointed Syriac, and are, at this demque vocales, literis ipsis innexas Sabio- moment, employed in unpointed Arabic,"* rum seu Galalæorum alphabetum habet.' is so consonant to truth and the practice The Hamaiyaric, like the character of the followed in the Hamaiyaric inscriptions Palmyrene inscriptions, seems altogether from Southern Arabia, as to bring home to deficient in vowel signs, which, as Dr. Wall us conviction that, while the Hamaiyaric is satisfactorily shows, were not in use when a derivative from Phoenician, it at the same the Septuagint version of the Bible was time employed four additional characters to made; all the letters of the Hebrew text express the Greek consonantal sounds of being, at this time, employed as signs of syl- Zeta 5, Eta n, Pi л, Psi y, as apparent in lables, beginning with consonants and end- the comparison made of the several alphabets. ing with vowels.* The letters of the al-Along with this adoption of Greek vowels phabet were all consonantal, inclusive of and additional consonantal characters, the of the Arabic, or the Ain, Alif, Hamaiyaric and Ethiopic alphabets use, as Waw and Yod, of the Hebrew and Syriac, numbers, certain figures derived from the which were termed quiescent in the pointed numerical system of Greek letters. texts of the Bible; but were afterwards emIf the opinions regarding the origin of ployed as vowel signs, as seen, from the Ham- the Hamaiyaric and Ethiopic alphabets be aiyaric inscriptions, by a comparison of these correct, and of which I entertain not a with the corresponding words in Arabic. doubt, it will follow, as a matter of course, The Syrians had at first only three vowels, that the Hamaiyaric inscriptions from Aden corresponding to the same in Arabic; but, should be read from left to right, like modas the literati advanced in translating the ern Ethiopic; and made use of diacritical Bible and other works into Greek, they en-points, such as appear to have been introdeavored to express all the sounds of the duced into Syriac by the Nestorian Chrisproper Greek name, substituting at first tians. The Ethiopic inscriptions, on the five Greek vowels, and subsequently carryreverse of the Greek tablet, at Axum, pubing them as far as seven; † which number lished in Mr. Salt's Voyage to Abyssinia, was also adopted by the Ethiopians on the and written in precisely the same character transfer of the Hamaiyaric character to the as the Hamaiyaric of Southern Arabia, read shores of Axum. The quiescent letters of from left to right, and record that John, both the Arabic and Ethiopic alphabets Bishop of Ethiopia, taught from the neigh possess no sound in themselves, till animat-borhood of the river (Nile) the Sabeans of ed by points; and the Waw, on the coins Hazramaa. He is the same John who was of the Maccabees, or the Hebrew Waw so sent, as appears, into Ethiopia, during the modified, is found to retain this character reign of the Emperor Justin, A. D. 521, in in some other inscriptions, such as the Bac-order to settle the Christian faith of that trian Pali, from Shah Baz Ghari; which, country, and was accompanied by several as can be clearly shown, has a kindred ori- missionary assistants. This and other facts gin with the Pehlvi writing on the Persian give probability to the opinion that the Hamonuments of Nakhshi Rustam, Nakh- maiyaric of inscriptions, in Southern Arashi Rajib, and Takhti Bustan, and are bia, are of comparatively modern origin, closely allied to letters of the Palmyrene and cannot, at the utmost, have an antiquity inscriptions; of which the first dates not beyond two hundred years before the birth earlier than the year 135 of our era. The of Christ; when, on the coins of the Macopinion of Dr. Wall, therefore, "that it was cabees, we find many Hebrew letters cogfrom reading Greek that the Jews learned nate with those of the Hamaiyaric inscripthe use of vowel signs, and in consequence tions. The language of those now transapplied three of their letters occasionally to lated is a mixture of Ghiz and modern Arabic; and as the adjectives found in the inscriptions are formed on the principles of Ethiopic grammar, while the preposition Ba, used both in Persian and Ethiopic, is found in them, it must necessarily follow

Examination of the ancient orthography of the Jews, and of the original state of the text of the Hebrew Bible, by Charles William Wall, D. D, Professor of Hebrew in the University of Dublin, vol. ii. p 271.

Grammatica Syriaca Joannis Davidis Michaelis, p. 24, et Bibliotheca Orientalis Assemani, tom. i. p. 522.

* Wall's Examination of Jewish Orthography, vol. ii. p. 221.

hat these inscriptions can be but little an- num utuntur;" and Strabo notices that, toterior to the commencement of the Chris-wards Arabia Felix, in the Indian Ocean, tian era, and are, in all probability, several there were colonies of Sidonians, Syrians, centuries after it, when the Hamaiyaric and people of the island of Arwad.* sprung from the Phoenician, altered to express Greek vowels and proper names.

I must, therefore, dissent from an opinion expressed in a late publication on the hisThe comparatively modern origin of the torical geography of Arabia, that the HaHamaiyaric alphabet may be also deduced maiyaric characters only consist of twenty from what we know regarding the origin of letters, or can be the first alphabet of manthe Coptic, which cannot be traced back kind. Mr. Forster terminates his observfurther than the first century of our era, ations with this remarkable conclusion: though the language itself existed at an "There is every moral presumption to favor earlier period. When the early Christians the belief, that, in the Hisn Ghorab inscriptranslated the Bible into Coptic, the ver- tions, we recover the alphabet of the world sions of it from the Septuagint were written before the Flood:" but neither palæografrom left to right; and where Coptic sounds phy nor philology will bear him out in so could not be expressed by Greek letters of unphilosophical a conclusion. I may briefly similar force, additional Coptic letters were recapitulate the chief points which argue used. In this manner seven additional against the correctness of his interpretation Coptic characters were added to the twen- of the Aden, Hisn Ghorab, and Nakab-alty-four letters of the Greek alphabet; ex- Hajar inscriptions: 1st. The Hamaiyaric hibiting, in this respect, a remarkable simi-inscriptions on the coast of Southern Aralarity with the practice pursued in the bia are precisely in the same character as Hamaiyaric characters, and in the transla- the Ethiopic inscriptions found on the option of the Scriptures from Greek into the Ethiopic. We not only observe this analogy between the systems of the two alphabets, but can distinguish an almost identity of character between the seven additional letters of the Coptic alphabet and those similar found in Ethiopic. The following seven letters, not in the Greek alphabet, or sh, f, k, h, z, s, ti, will, on a comparison with the alphabetical table of the Hamaiyaric, be found to be almost identical in character.

The Semitic origin of the Hamaiyaric letters, and their derivation from the Phoenician, may be ye further accounted for by what Masudi, in nis Golden Meadows, and other Arabic historians, relate, that the descendants of Khatan or Yoktan, inhabiting southern Arabia, used the Suryani, or Syriac language, previous to the amalgamation of the several dialects now constituting the Arabic language, which probably derived its title, posterior to the Exodus, from the Hebrew, Arab, signifying a mixed people. Philostorgius further relates that Syrians were settled in the neighborhood of the Ethiopic Ocean, "Ad maris rubri, inquit, exteriorum sinum, in sinistro latere, degunt Axumitæ, ex vocabulo metropolis ita appellati: urbium enim caput Auxumis dici

tur.

Ante hos autem Auxumitas, Orientem versus, ad extimum pertingentes Oceanum, occolent Syri, ab eorum quoque regionum incolis ita dicti. Etenim Alexander Mace

posite coast of Axum, and on the reverse of the Greek tablet there; which dates not earlier than the fourth century of our era. 2d. The existence in Hamaiyaric of three quiescent letters used by the Syriac as vowels, and the change of Ain into a, i, or u, a practice which had not existence prior to the commencement of the Christian era.3d. The striking similarity between the ancient Hamaiyaric and alphabetic characters of the modern Ethiopic, which had not an antiquity greater than the time of Frumentius; while the probability is, that it is considerable later, or about A. D. 508, while Philoxenus translated the Scriptures into Syriac, and adopted the system of the Greek vowels. 4th. The introduction into Hamaiyaric of three, if not four, additional letters to express Greek sounds, which differed from those of the Hebrew or Phonician. 5th. The figure of a cross accompanies most of the inscriptions from southern Arabia, and is very apparent below the Hisn Ghorab inscription, indicating its comparatively recent and Christian character. Such seem to me strong reasons for differing from Mr. Forster, and from his system of reading the inscriptions from right to left, instead of from left to right, as in modern Ethiopic.

At some future time I will return to this subject.

*Biblotheca Orientalis Assemanni,tom. iv. p. 603.

do eos ex Syria abductos, illic collocavit: The Historical Geography of Arabia, by the qui quidem patriæ Syrorum lingua etiam-Rev. Chas. Forster, B. Ď. vol. ii. p. 408.