As for
the former, it is soft-sounding, and very rich and flexible.
Sir Henry says that it sounds something like modern Greek,
but of course it has no connection with it. It is easy to acquire,
being simple in its construction, and a peculiar quality about it
is its euphony, and the way in which the sound of the words
adapts itself to the meaning to be expressed. Long before
we mastered the language, we could frequently make out what
was meant by the ring of the sentence. It is on this account
that the language lends itself so well to poetical declamation,
of which these remarkable people are very fond. The Zu-Vendi
alphabet seems, Sir henry says, to be derived, like every other
known system of letters, from a Phoenician source, and therefore
more remotely still from the ancient Egyptian hieratic writing.
Whether this is a fact I cannot say, not being learned in such
matters. All I know about it is that their alphabet consists
of twenty-two characters, of which a few, notably B, E, and O,
are not very unlike our own. The whole affair is, however, clumsy
and puzzling. {Endnote 13} But as the people of Zu-Vendi are
not given to the writing of novels, or of anything except business
documents and records of the briefest character, it answers their
purpose well enough.
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