61. If more than sixteen or seventeen letters be found in the Amiclean or Eugubean inscriptions, I think they prove, either that these inscriptions are forgeries, or that their date has been mistaken. For after the detection of the frauds of the rascals Ennius and Fourmont, I think they cannot be permitted to overturn the positive assertion of Pliny, that Cadmus brought only sixteen letters, supported as the assertion is by the varieties of authorities and reasonings which I have given, and the independent examination and opinions of learned modern inquirers, that all these languages are reduceable to sixteen letters. Before the conclusion of this work the reader will find, that consequences of the most important nature follow the reduction of the different written languages to one system, consisting of that number of letters.
62. The decimal system of which the last table (Sect. 52) consists, has every appearance of being founded on the original simple twenty-eight units. After civilization had advanced, a higher notation than the twenty-eight would be wanted, and the Arabians appear to have adopted the decimal system, keeping as near as possible to the ancient twenty-eight letters, as a close examination will prove; for what is the 20 but two tens, the 30 but three tens, the 100 but ten tens, the 1000 but one hundred tens? Perhaps it may be said, that the coincidence of the decimal numbers to the twenty-eight calculi is accidental. But is it accidental that the powers of notation in the Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, and Irish letters are the same till they come to nineteen; that is, similar in eighteen instances in succession? It is a very singular accident that in each of the eighteen cases the letters and numbers should agree in the different languages. It is also a most fortunate accident which should cause the elements of the Irish names of letters, the Muin, Nuin, &c., as I shall now shew, to be found in the Arabic. By a careful comparison of the names of the different letters in the Irish Beth-luis-nion, with the Samaritan, Hebrew, and Greek, it will appear almost certain that they have all been called after the trees which now grow in the latitude of England, or else that the trees have been named after them.[1] But it is proper to observe, that great allowance ought to be made for the change necessarily arising from the lapse of perhaps thousands of years. It seems to me impossible to doubt the original identity of the Samaritan, the Greek, and the Hebrew letters; and how wonderfully are they changed! Then if we do not find the English names of trees differ more from the Irish names of letters, and the names of the Greek, Hebrew, and Samaritan letters, than the alphabets differ from each other, we shall have a similarity as great as, perhaps greater than, can be expected. It is not at all probable that the similarity should continue till this time in all the letters: very few will be sufficient to establish the fact, if they only possess a sufficient degree of similarity. The Arabic system of notation or arithmetic, which is so intimately connected with their system of letters, is believed, by all Orientalists, to have come from India. I trust I shall be able to prove that they came together from India.
63. The Aleph, Alpha, and Ailm, are not strikingly similar; but there is a very obvious resemblance between the words Ailm and Elm; the first letter of the word Ailm being pronounced as we pronounce the A in our A. B. C. or in the word able.
64. The Beth or Beith of the Samaritan and Hebrew is the identical Beth or Beith, the Birch-tree of the Irish. Pliny calls Betulla the Birch, a Gaulish tree. In one of the dialects of Britain, the Welsh, it is called Bedw.
65. In the next three names of letters, the similarity is lost, except that they begin with the same consonants.
66. The Digamma forms an exception to all rules.
67. The Jod, or Iod or Iota, and Iodha and Yew, are all clearly the same, or as near as can be expected. This will be immediately found on pronouncing the Y in the word Yew by itself, instantly followed by the other letters.
68. The name of this tree is, as I have shewn in my Celtic Druids, one of the names of Jehovah, Ieu. It is considered by our country people to be in its wood the most durable of all trees.
69. There is nothing more which is striking till we come to the Mem, Mu, Muin, vine. The vine may have readily come from the word Muin—the letter M being dropped for some unknown cause; or the M may have been prefixed to the Vin, and be what Hebrew grammarians call formative; or it may have been prefixed for a reason which will be given hereafter.
70. The Nun is the Nu and Nuin without difficulty, though it has no relation to the Ash in sound or in letters. Yet the Nun of the Hebrew is evidently the same as the Irish tree Nuin.
71. The Oin and the Irish Oir have a similarity, but have no relation to the Spindle or the Oir, except in the first letter of the latter name.
72. The Samaritan and Hebrew Resh is the Irish Ruis.
73. The Shin and Tau are only similar in the first letters to the Suil and Teine.
74. The similarity, it is true, is not found in many of the sixteen letters, but there is sufficient similarity to prove
- ↑ It has been observed in the Celtic Druids, that the vine which is found among the trees in this alphabet is neither of Indian nor of British origin; for though it grows in both, it is common in neither; but it is indigenous in the same latitude in the country which I suppose was the birth-place of the human race, that is, between 45 and 50 degrees of North latitude, where all the other trees of this alphabet are to be found.
