360 Among the Western Arabs, the ancient Arabic figures are used, viz. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: they often write 100 thus, 1..--200, 2..
To explain the force of the synonymous letters on paper would be impossible; the reader, however, may form some idea of the indispensable necessity of knowing the distinction by the few words here selected, which to one unaccustomed to hear the Arabic language spoken, would appear similar and undistinguishable.
Rendered as near to European pronunciation as the English Alphabet will admit.
Seventh Seban [Arabic:] 361 Hatred Hassed [Arabic:]
Poison Sim[206] [Arabic:] 362 Absent G'raib [Arabic:]
[Footnote 206: The African Jews find it very difficult in speaking, to distinguish between _shim_ and _sim_, for they cannot pronounce the _sh_, ش but sound it like _s_ س ; the very few who have studied the art of reading the language, have, however, conquered this difficulty.]
It is difficult for any one who has not accurately studied the Arabic language, to imagine the many errors which an European commits in speaking it, when self taught, or when taught in Europe. This deficiency originates in the inaccuracy of the application of the guttural and synonymous letters.
The ain ع and the غ grain cannot be 363 accurately pronounced by Europeans, who have not studied the language grammatically when young. The aspirated _h_, and the hard _s_, in the word for _morning_ (sebah), are so much like their synonymes, that few Europeans can discern the difference; the one is consequently often mistaken for the other; and I have known a beautiful sentence absolutely perverted through an inaccuracy of this kind. In the words rendered _Hatred_ and _Harvest_, the two synonymes of س and ص or _s_ hard and _s_ soft, are indiscriminately used by Europeans in their Arabic _conversations_, a circumstance sufficient to do away the force and meaning of many a sentence.
The poetry as well as prose of the Arabians is well known, and has been so often discussed by learned men, that it would be irrelevant here to expatiate on the subject; but as the following description of the noblest passion of the human breast cannot but be interesting to the generality of readers, and, without any exception, to the fair sex, I will transcribe it.