'A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English; with a Dissertation on the Languages, Literature, and Manners of Eastern Nations' [‎41r] (86/1826)

PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Amongst other proofs wjiich I propose to offer in the course
of this disquisition, one appears to me to be of high authority ; I
mean radical words in the Eastern tongues, expressive of pecu
liar habits or inventions ; the existence of the terms being positive
evidence of the pre-existence of the objects which they describe.
In this mode of proof I shall advance no words which appear to
have been adopted from the Grecian or other foreign languages,
as these could demonstrate no originality; and I shall avoid all
circumlocutory description, as that can prove no antiquity.
Whatever is expressed by a number of words, we shall, for the
most part, find is neither perfectly nor generally known; it is
only when the idea has become familiar that the superfluity of
phrase is dropt, and the principal word becomes sufficient to
make the whole completely understood.
Page ii. 1 St. Ephraim and St. Basil insist strongly that the
Aramean or Mesopotamian dialect of the Syriac was that in
which God delivered his commands to Adam ; the Maronites, or
Eastern Christians, contend for the Chaldaic; James Bishop of
Roha, Bochart, and others, give the precedence to the Hebrew ;
Eutychius supports the Greek; Mr. Webb the Chinese; Goro-
pius, Becanus, and Pezron are warm for the Teutonic; whilst
Gregory Nyssaeus declares his antagonist Eunomius an impious
heretic for supposing man to have received any language what
ever from God. See also D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale,
p. 514. Sharpe on the Origin of Languages, p. 2 , 6 , &c.
The learned Bochart has given us a list of about twenty lan
guages, supposed to have been in use in very early ages, and
has arranged them, with regard to antiquity, in the following
order: The Hebrew, the Chaldaic or Syriac, the Arabic, Phoe
nician, Egyptian, the Azotian or Philistine, the Persian, Par
thian, Median, Elamite, Cappadocian, Pontic, Asiatic, Phrygian,
Pamphilian, Libyan, Cretan, and Lycoanic, together with the
Greek and Latin ; all of which (the three first, the Persian, and
two last excepted) were, probably, only dialects of the principal
tongues. See Bochart Phaleg, p. 57, &c.
P. ii. 2 See Preface to Arabic Lexicon of Golius, p. 1 . Sale’s
Preliminary Discourse to his Translation of the Kur’an, p. 33
et seq.
P. iii. 3 D’Herbelot, p. 513 and 514. Sale’s Preliminary
Discourse, p. 37 , &c. The seven principal Muallakat Poems
are in Pocock’s collection, in the Bodleian Library of Oxford,
No. 64. And in another volume, No. 174, are above forty
more, which had been also honoured by being hung up in the
Kaaba.
P. iii. ^ Pocock, in his preface to the Carmen 7'ograi, men
tions a circumstance which may give some idea of the pains
which the Arabians have taken with their language. A king
having sent to a grammarian for the books in his possession
relative to that tongue, he desired the messenger to inform the
monarch, that, if he wished to have them, he must send sixty
camels to carry the dictionaries alone.
P. iv. ° Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 34. DTIerbelot,
87, 589, and 705. Tarlkhu’l muslimln, i. e. Historia Saracenica
Thoms Erpenii, p. 193, &c. Preface to Carmen Tograi by
Pocock. A rabic G rammar by the author of this Dictionary, p. 4.
P. v. 6 By Pliny, Zoroaster is called a Proconnesian; by
Suidas, an Assyrian and Medo-Persian; by others he is styled a
Pamphylian, an Armenian, a Bactrian, an Indian, and a Chinese.
His era is still more wide of possibility than his birth-place : Pliny
(1. 30, c. 1 ) places him thousands of years before Moses: Her-
madorus Platonicus, Hermippus, and Plutarch, 5000 years before
the siege of Troy : Suidas only 500 years before that period:
Eudoxas, 6000 years before the death of Plato (which happened
about 350 B. C.) : Xanthus Lydius, 600 years before Darius
Hystaspes : Justin 1300 years before Sardanapalus : whilst others
fix him in the days of Ninus and Semiramis, who seem to be
equally undefined with himself. Some Eastern writers place
Zardusht 1300 years after the flood ; some make him the dis
ciple of Elija or Elisha, others of Ozair, Ezra, or Esdras : some
consider him as Abraham ; others as the usurper Zahhak ; and
M. D’Herbelot (from the name Mikhush, which occurs in the
Tartkh Muntakhab) conceives him, by a stretch of fancy, to
have been Smerdus Magus. But the greater number make him
cotemporary with Kishtasb, king of Persia; and, consequently,
suppose him to have lived about 500 years before the Christian
era. See also D’Herbelot, p. 932. Hyde, Religio Vet. Pers.
312, 423, 443, et passim. Bryant’s Mythology, ^ oh II. p. 106.
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