proof to the contrary, why may not the fact that they are called Chaldeans, and are in the Chaldean territory, suggest the supposition, that they are, indeed, the representatives of the ancient Chaldeans?

Third. The language, also, of the Nestorians, has claims to being regarded as Chaldean. The language which they still speak, is a dialect of the language spoken by Chaldeans under the Babylonish and Assyrian monarchies. It is a corrupt continuation of the Casidim, of the language of Abraham, of the wise men of Babylon, of the language of the Tarquins, and the language of our Chaldean grammars. This branch of the Shemitic languages has had a most eventful history; and were the materials extant, many dialects of the Aramean language would be discovered to have existed during its various phases. Bar Hebreus says, that in his day the Aramean was divided into three dialects, the Syrian, the Chaldean, and Nabatai. It being clear that the Nestorians speak Aramean, and the language of Bar Hebreus permitting us to look for more than one modern dialect of it, the question on which a division of opinion might arise, would be, whether the language of the Nestorians more nearly approaches the Chaldee or the Syriac. The differences were never very great; and it has been freely assumed, that the present Nestorian dialect is a Syrian dialect; but, for the purpose of making out their Chaldean origin, it would be important to show that their present language prefers Chaldee affinities. Even, however, if it should, after farther investigation, appear that their language has an intimate relation to the Syriac of books, it would not decide that their language was not related to the original Chaldee, from which came both the East and West Aramean or Syriac. The Greeks gave the name of Syriac to the latter language, because Syria was the country in which the Aramean was most cultivated, and was the centre of the intellectual movement of the Chaldean mind.

We do not claim more than the most superficial knowledge of these languages; but having investigated the subject somewhat, we would, for the sake of drawing out the opinion of those who have the opportunity for deeper research, suggest the inquiry, whether there are not grounds for maintaining that, however slight may have been the difference between the Syriac and Chaldee, the language of the Nestorians, notwithstanding all the changes the modern dialects have undergone, assimilates with the latter? And the differences which actually do exist be

tween the dialects spoken by the twenty-five thousand Syrians near Mardin and the Nestorians of Curdistan, are they not, in many respects, those indicated by the grammars of the classical dialects of each? This difference then, as now, aside from the preference for certain roots and substantives, was chiefly in the pronunciation of the vowels and consonants. At the present day, the letters which the Syrian aspirates, the Chaldean pronounces hard; the ph and dh and th of the Syriac, becoming the p and d and t of the Chaldee. The Chaldean also pronounces the vowel letters Pethocho and Zekofo of the Syrian, with the sound Petoho and Zekopo. Thus, while a Syrian, for God, says alaha, the Chaldean says aloho; while the Syrian says taora for ox, the Chaldean says tora. They incline also to the same alteration of the sibilant and dental letters in some words, as in ancient times. In illustration of this difference of pronunciation, we give here the manner in which the first, second, and third verses of Matt. v. were read to us by a Nestorian deacon and a Syrian bishop. The first reading is the Nestorian.

Kad khaza déin isho 'l hinshi islik 'l tûra û kad itiu karëu 'I wateh telmidao: Weptah pûmi û malip hewa 'l hoon û amer Towehûn 'l miskini be rûhh didilhun hii melkûta deshméya.

This second reading is by a Syrian bishop:

Kadh hezo den yeshuo el hunshi islik eltûro o kadh yitia kûréû 'I woteh telmidhao. Wefthah fûmi o malef hevo 'l hûn womar. Tubéhûn' miskini bi ruh didilhûn hi melkûtha deshmayo.

This difference of pronunciation that has come over each modern dialect is so great, that a Syrian cannot converse intelligibly with a Chaldean: an experiment which we have seen tried. The opinion of Messrs. Smith and Dwight in their Researches (II. p. 212), that the language of the Nestorians was the same as that of the Syrians, was expressed before any investigation had been made into the character of either dialect, and needs some qualification. Where, however, Chaldeans and Syrians have intimate relations with each other, as at Mosul, the difference is not so apparent, the people of different villages speaking dialects, now inclining to one and then to another of those two forms of the Aramean. We have been informed, however, of several instances where the Nabathai or Sabeans have conversed freely with Nestorians; and on one occasion the Sabean said to the Chaldean or Nestorian, " You speak our

dialect like a nightingale." Mr. Kassam, a Chaldean, and English consul at Mosul, calls the dialect of the Nestorians a Syro-Chaldean.* We suppose that we shall not arrive at a correct conclusion of the question, whether the language of the Nestorians has most affinity with the Chaldee or Syriac, by comparing their spoken language with the remains of Chaldee literature the book of Daniel, for instance, and the ancient Syriac version of the same together. For, of course, in translating the Bible from the Hebrew into their spoken language, whenever at a loss for words, we should choose them from a book more or less familiar to them, viz., the Syriac version, which is their ecclesiastical and classic language, and which they adopted when they became Christians; while the Chaldee of our Scriptures, to whatever extent it may be regarded as pure, was still but the language of a particular epoch and a local form.

Certainly those who suppose that the Nestorians are descended from the ten tribes, cannot be disposed to deny that their language is Chaldean, seeing that the Chaldean is notoriously the language which the Jews learned in their captivity. Yet at this day, the Jews of that region, as if to show the difference between their origin and that of the Chaldeans, speak the language as they do that of every nation under heaven where they are found, with a peculiar accent: and in those countries with such other differences, that the utmost that can be said of them is, that the Jews and Nestorians contrive to understand one another. But in 1839, Mr. Kassam remarked to us, that he could not understand the Chaldean Jews around Mosul, even when they were using words with which he was acquainted Although, as has been seen, we have proposed to give the name of modern Chaldee, rather than of modern Syriac, to the dialect spoken by the Nestorians, still we would not that our. main conclusion should be unnecessarily rejected from a strife about words. Even if we abandon the distinction of two independent dialects being spoken at the present day, it will be sufficient for the substantiation of the argument as to their Chaldean origin, that they speak a language derived from the Aramean or Chaldee.

Fourth. We cannot forbear suggesting that their physiognomy is such as to justify the supposition that the Nestorians

* Ainsworth's Travels in Asia Minor, Vol. II. 264

are Chaldeans. The Chaldeans have a near affinity of race with the Jews. When Abraham emigrated to Canaan, he carried with him the language of his brother Nahor, and from that time an intimacy was kept up for hundreds of years between their descendants. After a thousand years, the descendants of Abraham as Hebrews are again brought in close contact with the same people from whose race they were descended, the Chaldeans. The physiognomy of both was originally the same. In the Chaldeans of the present day, the Shemitic type has remained so marked, that several persons much conversant with men of different races, have thought they resembled Jews. And we ourselves having had several weeks intercourse with twenty or more of the mountain Nestorians, were struck at first sight with what may be called their Jewish physiognomy. Now, unless we must necessarily regard them as of unmixed Jewish descent, this may be very satisfactorily accounted for, by referring, in the first place, to this original relationship of the Hebrews and the Chaldeans; and in the second place, from the assimilation of the features of the Jews in many respects to the features of those in whose country they have been dwelling; and thirdly, from the fact that the myriads of Jews of whom Josephus speaks, have intermarried many of them with the original Chaldeans and Syrians of the country. For the physiognomy of the Jacobite Syrians is more Jewish than that of any other people, unless we except the Chaldeans. The descendants of the large number of Jews who became Christians, would, after the amalgamation, more resemble Jews than would the descendants of those who, becoming Mussulmans, intermarried with Arabs and Persians. For, in the former case, they would have reunited with those who were of the same original stock. In admitting this resemblance of physiognomy between Jews and Chaldeans, that which we first asserted as the candid expression of a conviction, although we knew not how to account for it, we now can make use of as a means of ascertaining their origin. M. Boré, in maintaining their Chaldean origin, finds the same resemblance. His language is, "The Chaldean physiognomy is of the same type with the Jewish." II. 210.

Now, when we find a people in the original country of the Chaldeans speaking the language of the Chaldeans, and called often by themselves, and generally by others, Chaldeans, with a physiognomy that allows them to be Chaldeans, it is fair to suppose, if other facts harmonize, that they are bona fide Chal

deans. On the general question, in addition to the opinion of M Boré, it may be well to quote the opinion of Dr. Ainsworth, a distinguished English traveller, who has lately explored the country under the direction of the Royal Geographical Society. "As far as my own information goes, and as far as Mr. Rassam, who is a native of the country, could ever trace the remote traditions of the country, the Nestorians consider themselves as Chaldeans, and as descendants of the ancient Chaldeans of Assyria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia, driven by the persecutions of Mohammedanism to their present mountain fastnesses."* If the theory be adopted that they are the ten tribes, we are called upon to annihilate the relics of a far mightier nation, still found in the country of their fathers. For, if we conclude all the Nestorians to be Jews, and nothing else but Christian Jews, (and unless they have been preserved pure, the argument for their identity with the ten tribes has no peculiar force,) then where shall we hope to find any distinct remains of this ancient and great people, the Chaldeans? If we estimate the Nestorians at a hundred thousand, and allow them to be regarded as the representatives of the Chaldeans, we still may find a population large enough to gratify our Christian enthusiasm for the Jews, and to solace our hopes of finding the lost tribes, in the fact that there are more than three times one hundred thousand Jews, still to be found adhering to their ancient traditions, either on the spot of their exile, or in other parts of Central Asia. And it is not the first time that some of these same Jews have been thought to be remnants of the tribes of the Captivity. Moreover, the conclusion urged by Dr. Grant, in his interesting work on the Nestorians, and with such elaborate detail, would prove too much for the prejudices of our early faith. Great events, even the conversion of other nations not yet brought, or not then brought into the kingdom, depend on the conversion of the Jews. The lost tribes whom we have sought, have been Jews, and not Christians. But, if the ten tribes were the myriads that they are supposed to have been at the time of their conversion to the church, being then more numerous there than in any other part of the world, the fulfilment of those prophecies should long since have been accomplished. Of all the arguments that may be adduced in favor of the Jewish origin of the Nestorians, is

Ainsworth's Travels and Researches in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. London, 1842. Vol. II. 256. SECOND SERIES, VOL. XI. NO. I.

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