The Celtic druids / By Godfrey Higgins.

  • Godfrey Higgins
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Celtic druids / By Godfrey Higgins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/536
    The reader will find in the ensuing work that the Hebrew language, which is of the first importance, is treated as a language of great simplicity,*—that its vowels are considered precisely the same as those of the English, and of all the other languages in the Western part of the world. But he will observe, that some words have no vowels, and that in almost every word consonants come together without them. The cause of this cannot at this day be certainly known ; but it may have arisen either from a wish in the priests to conceal or render difficult the art of reading, or merely from a habit of abbreviating words for the sake of expedition, or of reducing works to as small a size as possible. This was similar to a practice which took place in the Latin lan- guage some centuries ago, by which it would have been brought to the same situation as the Hebrew, if it had been continued. Thus for manum, they wrote mriln, &c., &c. In this state the Hebrew was found, when the Jews began to recover after the ruin of their country ; and, to obviate the inconvenience of it, points as vowels were invented, instead of the vowels being restored, as they ought to have been. But nothing simple or plain was likely to suit the followers of the modern cabala, the most childish foolery that ever men of common sense permitted themselves to be deluded with. The unlearned reader will please to observe that I am here only delivering my own opinion of the origin and reason of this state of the language. The fact of its present state with- out points in the synagogue copies is all which here concerns us, and that fact will not be disputed. As two consonants cannot be pronounced or understood without vowels, they must in almost every word be supplied. Dr. Parkhurst always supplies an a or an e, ad libitum. I have little or no doubt, that different vowels were anciently supplied according to what the meaning of the word required ; but I think that, in order to render it more difficult to understand, it may, in the very earliest times, have been constantly written without any vowels. I am convinced that the unlearned reader will be satisfied that the Hebrew is essentially the same as the Greek and Latin—having, like them, its five vowels. The learned Hebraist, whose mind has been poisoned by the craft of the synagogue, I do not expect readily to give up his prejudice in favour of unlearned sim- plicity. But if the old men will not give up, their nonsense, it will be exploded, * Vide Walton’s Prol. Diss. VII.
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