Pantographia

PANTOGRAPHIA;

CONTAINING ACCURATE COPIES OF ALL THE KNOWN ALPHABETS IN THE WORLD; TOGETHER WITH AN ENGLISH EXPLANATION OF THE PECULIAR FORCE OR POWER OF EACH LETTER: TO WHICH ARE ADDED, SPECIMENS OF ALL WELL-AUTHENTICATED ORAL LANGUAGES; FORMING A COMPREHENSIVE DIGEST OF PHONOLOGY.

"CHALDEA, or BABYLONIA, a kingdom of Asia, and the most ancient in the world, was founded by Nimrod, the son of Cush, and grandson of Ham, who, according to some historians, built Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.

"Philologists are much divided in their sentiments or opinions, respecting the antiquity of this language.

"Pliny informs us, that Gellius attributed letters to the Egyptian Mercury, and others, to the Syrians.

"The learned Roman just mentioned, supposed that the Assyrian letters were prior to any record of history, and by these he undoubtedly meant the Chaldean: it should seem most probable, that the language used by the antediluvian Patriarchs, bore the greatest analogy to this, especially when it is universally allowed that they inhabited that part of the globe, whence many have thought the Chaldean to have been prior to Samaritan and Hebrew."

(from Pantographia by Edmund Fry, 1799, pp. 28-39.)