Blair Collection > Celtic researches, on the origin, traditions & language, of the ancient Britons

101
Presuming from v.hat I have alreaci\' said, that I
may
venture to place the s<u red character of this Uinguag(î upon
a footing with that of the Greek of the New Testament,, it
follows^ that we have the tScit consent of history to enter
iipon the enquiry I now suggest; though in the prosecution of
it, wc have only the direction of some leading circumstances.
Under this guidance, I nuist, for the present, content myself
with offering a few remai-ks.
1. The Hebrew language appears to have been already'
formed ami fixed, when Abraham fust went into the land of
Canaan, about 325 years after the Birth of Peleg, and many
years before the death of Sheui, and of the men of the first
generations after the deluge,
2. At tins time, it was not the language of the Canaanitcs
only, but also, of other families in and about Palestine. — •
Thus the princes of the Philistines, the progeny of the first
Eg3i)tians, wese saluted in pure Hebrew, by the name of
Abimelech, " My Father the King," and the chief captain of
the host was called Pliicol, The mouth of ail, a most expressive
title for a general commander. The formation of a language
which was common to independent tribes, one proceedin<>•
from the North (from Sidon) and the other from the Soutli
(Egypt) could not have been recent.
3. Its general charat'lcr must have been patriarchal.
Ashur had withdrawn beyond the Tigris, at the time of the
ioundation, not the destruction of Nimrod's kingdom, and
therefore long before the confusion. INIizraim had founded
an early kingdom in Egypt, whence the Philistine colony. —
The old Chaldeans had dwelt between the two rivers, from
tile days of Peleg. Canaan (the Χν» of Sanelion. and his first
Phoenician) seems, at the same time, to have withdrawn to
G 3