CHAPTER IV.
LANGUAGE AND WRITING.
It was noted in the preceding chapter that Chaldaea, in the earliest times to which we can go back, seems to have been inhabited by four principal tribes.

The early kings are continually represented on the monuments as sovereigns over the Kiprat-arbat, or, Four Races.

These "Four Races" are called sometimes the Arba Lisun, or "Four Tongues," whence we may conclude that they were distinguished from one another, among other differences, by a variety in their forms of speech.

The extent and nature of the variety could not, of course, be determined merely from this expression; but the opinion of those who have most closely studied the subject appears to be that the differences were great and marked-the languages in fact belonging to the four great varieties of human speech--Hamitic, Semitic, Arian, and Turanian.
The language which the early inscriptions have revealed to us is not, of course, composed equally of these four elements.

It does, however, contain strong marks of admixture.