cross the widest part o f the African continent from west to east, and wou ld eve ry where meet with persons acquainted w ith it, more particularly i f he should follow the course o f the great riv e r called the Nile o f the Negroes, on the banks o f which, from Jinnie and Timbuctoo, to the confines o f Lower E gypt, are innumerable cities and towns o f Arabs and Moors, a ll speaking the Arabic. Again, were a traveller to proceed from Marocco to the farthest shore o f Asia, opposite the islands o f Japan, he would find the A ra b ic generally spoken or understood wherever he came. In T u rk e y , in Syria, in Arabia, in Persia, and in India, it is understood by a ll men o f education; and any one possessing a knowledge o f the Korannick Arabic, might, in a v e r y short time, make himse lf master o f the Hin- dostannee, and o f e v e ry other dialect o f the former. T h e letters o f this language are formed in four distinct ways, according to their situation at the beginning, middle, or end of words, as w e ll as when standing alone; the greatest difficulty, however, to be overcome, is the acquiring a just pronunciation, (without which no livin g language can be essentially useful), and to attain which, the learner should be able to express the difference o f power and sound between what may be denominated the synonymous letters, such as \s and cl> with O ; P w i t h l ; i_jo with (_f<>; ¡ jo and la with i ; a with t_j and ¿ s with ^jwithj . Besides these, there are other letters, whose power is e x tremely difficult to be acquired b y an European, because no language in Europe possesses sounds similar to the Arabic letters nor has any language, except, perhaps, the English, a letter with the power o f the Arabian l t>. Those who trave l into Asia or Africa scarcely ever become sufficiently masters o f the A rabic to speak it fluently, which radical defect proceeds altogether from their not learning, while studying it, the peculiar distinction o f the synonymous letters. No European, perhaps, ever knew more o f the theory o f this language than the late Sir W illiam Jones, but still he could not converse with an Arabian, a circumstance o f which he was not conscious until he went to India. T h is great man, however, had he been told that his knowledge o f this popular eastern language was so far deficient, that he was ignorant o f the separate powers o f its synonymous letters, and consequently inadequate to converse intelligibly with a native A rab , he would ce rtain ly have considered it an aspersion, and have disputed altogether that such was the fact. Considering how much we are indebted to the Arabians for the preservation o f many o f the works o f the ancients, which would otherwise ha ve never, perhaps, been known to us, it is re a lly surprising that their language should be so little known in Europe. It is certainly v e r y difficult and abstruse (to learners particularly), but this difficulty is rendered insurmountable b y the European professors knowing it only as a dead language, and teaching it without due attention to the pronunciation o f the before mentioned synonymous letters, a defect which is not lik e ly to be remedied, and which w ill always subject the speaker to incessant errors. T o shew the Arabic student the difference between the Oriental and Occidental order o f the letters o f the alphabet, I shall here giv e them opposite' each other.
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