11. No Whit Different From Our Own Language To-day

No Whit Different From Our Own Language To-day

We thus see that the Hebrew, just like the Aramaic, has embedded in it traces of the nations that influenced its history from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1500, or indeed to the present time. The reader will compare this with the marks which have been left upon our American nomenclature by the different nations that have influenced its history. The native Indian appears in the names Massachusetts, Connecticut, Allegheny, Ohio, Mexico, Yucatan, and countless other terms. The Spanish appears in Florida, San Anselmo, Los Angeles, Vera Cruz, New Granada, and numerous appellations of mountains, rivers, and cities; the French, in Montreal, Detroit, Vincennes, Duquesne, Louisiana, St. Louis, and New Orleans; the Dutch, in Hackensack, Schenectady, Schuyler; the German, in Germantown, and Snyder County (Pennsylvania). Some of these languages have contributed, also, various words of common use such as moccasin, succotash, potato, maize, tomato, tomahawk, prairie, sauerkraut, broncho, and corral.

These languages all have left their mark, but the great directing, predominating, language and nation were the English, as is shown not merely in our literature and laws, but also in such names as New Hampshire, Boston, New York, Albany, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and the names of most of our cities, counties, and statesmen. But that the English received their laws largely from the Romans and the Normans is evident in any law book or court room; that they received their religion from the Hebrews through the Greek and Latin churches is evident from the words we use every day such as amen, hallelujah, priest, baptism, cathedral, bishop, chant, cross, resurrection, glory, and countless others.