DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0196
INVENTION. 179
represent the first letter, the Egyptian figured an ibis, a bird
which belongs to Hermes ;" 1 which is actually the fact, as the
ibis is formed equivalent to the word Aah (the moon), or the
letter A, as it sometimes occurs in the name of the god Thoth
or Hermes.
Hermes or Thoth, according to Diodorus, was the scribe of
Osiris and the inventor of letters;2, and the same is stated in
the false Sanchoniatho.3 In the hieroglyphic legends or titles
of this deity he is called " scribe of the daimons and lord of
hieroglyphs," or the "words of the gods." As these hiero-
glyphs were used at a very early period, and the old formulae
were implicitly copied in later times, they formed a language as
different from that ordinarily spoken as Sanscrit from Pracrit or
the Chinese of Confucius from the colloquial. Hence it is
spoken of as the sacred dialect; while the language in later
use is called the common dialect. These dialects, or the old
and modern language, differing in some particulars, belong to a
spoken language intermediate between • the Semitic and Indo-
Germanic. Their structure, indeed, resembles the Semitic
family, approaching the Chaldee and the Hebrew; but the
words of which the body of the language is composed are many
of them traceable to Indo-Germanic roots. The first, that in
which the religious formulas are drawn up, and which may be
called the sacred dialect, is used throughout in inscriptions of
grave style; the other, which reproduces the speeches and
addresses, is the colloquial, and nearer in its construction to
the Coptic. A few words, chiefly of the Aramaean language,
appear at the time of the nineteenth dynasty.
Although the spoken language was of the Semitic branch, it
! Syinpos. ix. 1. ; Cory. Fragments, S, 9.
3 Some have supposed it to be pre-Adamite. Smith, Dissertation, &c.;
8vo. 1842.
represent the first letter, the Egyptian figured an ibis, a bird
which belongs to Hermes ;" 1 which is actually the fact, as the
ibis is formed equivalent to the word Aah (the moon), or the
letter A, as it sometimes occurs in the name of the god Thoth
or Hermes.
Hermes or Thoth, according to Diodorus, was the scribe of
Osiris and the inventor of letters;2, and the same is stated in
the false Sanchoniatho.3 In the hieroglyphic legends or titles
of this deity he is called " scribe of the daimons and lord of
hieroglyphs," or the "words of the gods." As these hiero-
glyphs were used at a very early period, and the old formulae
were implicitly copied in later times, they formed a language as
different from that ordinarily spoken as Sanscrit from Pracrit or
the Chinese of Confucius from the colloquial. Hence it is
spoken of as the sacred dialect; while the language in later
use is called the common dialect. These dialects, or the old
and modern language, differing in some particulars, belong to a
spoken language intermediate between • the Semitic and Indo-
Germanic. Their structure, indeed, resembles the Semitic
family, approaching the Chaldee and the Hebrew; but the
words of which the body of the language is composed are many
of them traceable to Indo-Germanic roots. The first, that in
which the religious formulas are drawn up, and which may be
called the sacred dialect, is used throughout in inscriptions of
grave style; the other, which reproduces the speeches and
addresses, is the colloquial, and nearer in its construction to
the Coptic. A few words, chiefly of the Aramaean language,
appear at the time of the nineteenth dynasty.
Although the spoken language was of the Semitic branch, it
! Syinpos. ix. 1. ; Cory. Fragments, S, 9.
3 Some have supposed it to be pre-Adamite. Smith, Dissertation, &c.;
8vo. 1842.