Hebræo-African

An epithet invented by Dr. J. Cowles Prichard, in imitation of Indo-European, to include a group of African languages which have definite relations to the Hebrew . These are especially the Aby in i an languages, the Galla , the Coptic , and the Libyan . Within the limits of an article we cannot state all the points of relationship, but we may note the remarkable similarity of the first and second pronouns, the mode of conjugating, the principal tense of the verb, the facility of forming derivative verbs from a primary (but the languages connected with Turkish have this), the inaptitude in compounding words, even so far as not even to prefix prepositions to verbs. The Aby in i an languages come nearest to Hebrew, and next the Libyan. Tutscheh notes the singular approximation of the Galla to the Arabic in the syntax used with the plural of nouns. The Coptic is of all the most distant from Hebrew.     F. W. N.