The treasury of languages

by Unknown

Arabic.

One of the three main branches of the Semitic family, spoken in the peninsula of Arabia. Unknown till the century before Mahomet, it suddenly then reached its highest perfection in the poems of the Moallakât. It is the richest, the most flexible, and most exact of all the Semitic tongues, and its grammar the most subtle and perfect, probably, of all known languages. The dialect of the tribe of Koreisch, adopted by Mahomet in the Koran, has been, since the seventh century, the classical language of large parts of Asia and Africa, and has greatly influenced the Turkish, Maltese, Persian, Hindi, and other tongues, owing to the wide range of Arabian conquest. Classical Arabic must be distinguished from Arabic as actually spoken. The “vulgar” Arabic makes scarcely any distinction of vowel-sounds, has a grammar simple to rudeness, and is destitute of the richness and versatility of the tongue as employed by its most famous scholars. R. P. S.

Arago.

A dialect of Papuan, vernacular in New Guinea.

Araiacu.

American: a dialect of N. Brazil, to the W. of Fonteboa; it is allied to the Barré, Baniwa, Manoa, &c. See Von Martius, vol. ii., p. 133, who places it in his Cren or Guereno class. R. G. L.

Arakanese or Arracanese.

A monosyllabic tongue closely allied to the Burmese, otherwise called the Reccan or Rukheng. The district in which it is spoken forms a narrow strip of sea-coast, about 500 miles long, extending from Cape Negrais in the S. towards Chittagong in the N., along the E. peninsula of S. Asia.

Aramaic.

Generic name of the languages spoken in the region extending from the Taurus and Lebanon to the R. Tigris. It is one of the main branches of the Semitic stem, and is itself divided into two dialects, East Aramaic, or Chaldean, and West Aramaic, or Syriac. The former became the medium of Jewish thought, and is the language of the Targums and the Talmud, and also of the Samaritan Pentateuch. The latter is Christian. A sub-dialect spoken by the heathen is called Sabaean, or Nabathean. The oldest remains of the Aramaic are found in the name given by Laban to the Hill of Witness between him and Jacob. R. P. S.