Notwithstanding the characters differ materially from those now employed, yet it is certain that they are Ethiopic, from most of the letters precisely resembling those in the present alphabet, and from the circumstance of the words in the early part of the inscription being separated by two round dots (፡,) placed horizontally indeed, though it is now the practice to mark them perpendicularly (፡;) this slight variation, however, in their position, cannot make any difference in the sense to which they were intended to be applied.
If it could be ascertained that these characters were cut at the same time with the Greek inscription on the opposite side of the stone, which appears to me extremely probable, it would lead to a very important result, as it would decide the fact, that they were the native characters in use during the reign of Aeizana, a circumstance that must tend strongly to disprove the idea hitherto entertained of the Geez alphabet, as well as that of the Coptic, being borrowed from the Greek; (vide Mr. Murray's remark in Bruce, Vol. II. p. 402,) a point that I have always considered as extremely improbable.[1] I should myself feel much more inclined to think, that it may have derived its origin from some ancient Ethiopic or Egyptian set of letters; for where can we expect to find the alphabet of either nation with so much probability as in Abyssinia, among a people not only calling itself Ethiopic, አትዮጰያ, but exhibiting the fairest claim to that descent, and which afterwards, as is clearly pointed out in history, became mixed with settlers from Egypt.
That the language spoken in the country at a very early period was partly the same with that now in use I have been enabled to ascertain, from a very curious fact which I have lately met with in the course of my researches. Cosmas, a Greek writer, who visited Adulis, and discovered the Greek inscription relating to the affairs of Abyssinia, gives, in his elaborate treatise "on the World," a description of several animals which he
- ↑ M. Ludolf seems to entertain a more just opinion, that the character is very ancient, and gives as a reason, the sound of some of them being lost, or confounded with others. Vide Hist. Ethiop. Vol. IV. c. 1.
