Allow me, in reference to MR. CROSSLEY's remarks, to say, that from the
accidental resemblance of the Hebrew and Celtic words _Lamech_ and
_Lamaich_, no philological argument can be drawn of identical meaning, any
more than from the fact that the words Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazar, or
Belteshassar[2], are significant in Russian {433} and Sclavonian, as well
as in Chaldee. _Lamache_ in Arabic means (see Freytag) "_levi intuitu et
furtim adspicere_ aliquem;" also to _shine_, as lightning, or a star.
_Lamech_, therefore, is an appropriate designation for a man known to prowl
about for plunder and murder, and whose eye, whether taking aim or not,
would give a sudden and furtive glance.
The word _lamed_ signifies, in Hebrew, _teaching_; the word _Talmud_ is
from the same root. It is the same in Syriac and Chaldee. The _original_
significant of these three languages is to be found in the Arabic _Lamada_:
"_Se submisit_ alicui; _humiliter se gessit_ erga aliquem." (Freytag.) No
argument can be drawn from the shape of the letter [Hebrew: L] (_lamed_),
because, although popularly so called, it is _not_ a Hebrew letter, but a
Chaldee one. The recent discoveries, published in Layard's last work,
demonstrate this fact; Mr. Layard falls into the mistake of calling the
basin inscriptions Hebrew, although Mr. Ellis, who had translated them,
says expressly that the language is Chaldee (_Nineveh and Babylon_, p.
510.), one of them only being Syriac (p. 521.). Chaldee and Syriac, indeed,
differ from each other as little as Chaucer's and Shakspeare's English,
although the written characters are wholly distinct.
Davis, in his _Celtic Researches_, has done all that was possible, taking a
very limited view, however, in fixing upon certain linguistic resemblances
in some ancient tongues to the Celtic; but a clear apprehension of the
proper place which the Celtic language and its congeners hold in
comparative philology, can only be learnt from such works as Adelung's
_Mithridates_, and Adrien Balbi's _Atlas Ethnographique du Globe_.