and barbarous, must be learned by all men of business in India, as the letters from the princes of the country are feldom written in any other A fpecimen of these different forms of writing is engraved,

and inferted at the end of this Grammar.

OF NOUNS; AND FIRST, OF GENDERS.

THE reader will foon perceive with pleasure a great resemblance between the Perfian and English languages, in the facility and fimplicity of their form and conftruction: the former, as well as the latter, has no difference of termination to mark the gender, either in fubftantives or adjectives: all inanimate things are neuter, and animals of different fexes either have different names, as

pufer پسر نر

a boy,keneez a girl, or are distinguished by the words

ner

شیر ماده heeriner a lion شیر نر made females as ماده male, and

sheeri madé a lioness.

Sometimes, indeed, a word is made feminine, after the manner of the Arabians, by having added to it, as mashuk a friend,

amicus,

معشوق

a mashúka a mistress, amica, as in this verse:

کل در برومي بر کف و معشوقه بکامست

Flowers are in my bofom, wine in my hand; and my mistress yields to my defire.

But in general, when the Persians adopt an Arabick noun of the feminine gender, they make it neuter, and change the final

୪

ت into نعمة thus

nimet a benefit is written : and almost all the Perfian nouns ending in, which are very numerous, are borrowed from the Arabs.

OF CASES.

The Perfian fubftantives, like ours, have but one variation of case, which is formed by adding the fyllable to the nominative in both numbers; and answers often to the dative, but generally to the accufative cafe in other languages; as,

is omitted, as

When the accufative is used indefinitely, the fyllable

gul chíden to gather a flower, that is, any flower; but when the noun is definite or limited, that fyllable is added to it, as gulra chíd be gathered the flower, that is, the particular flower. There is no genitive cafe in Perfian, but when two fubftantives of different meanings come together, a kefra or short e () is added in reading to the former of them, and the latter remains unaltered,me the musk of Tartary, which must be read mushke Khoten. The fame rule must be obferved before a pronoun poffeffive; as pusere men my child: and before an adjective; as shem

پسر من

شمشیر تابناک

fhire tabnak a bright fcymitar. If the first word ends in or the letter is affixed to it; as L pasha a basha, Jogo Sl pasháï

-mi ميوهاي شيرين , miraha fruits ميوها .Moufel the baba of Moufel

୪

$

vaháï shireen sweet fruits: if nouns ending in come before other nouns or adjectives, the mark Hamza is added to them, as cheshméï heyvan the fountain of life.

چشمه حیوان

The

The other cafes are expreffed for the most part, as in our language, by particles placed before the nominative, as

.ai purer O child اي پسر,Vocative

Ablative, az puser from a child.

The poets, indeed, often form a vocative case by adding to the nominative, as öl fakia O cup-bearer,

shaha O king; thus Sadi

ufes bulbula as the vocative of bulbul a nightingale.

بلبلا مژده بهار بیار خبر بد ببوم باز بگذار

Bring, O nightingale, the tidings of spring; leave all unpleasant news

to the owl.

In fome old compofitions the particle

fative cafe; as

او را دیدم

م

ނ

mer is prefixed to the accumer ora deedem I faw him; but this is either obfolete or inelegant, and is feldom used by the moderns. The reader, who has been used to the inflexions of European languages, will, perhaps, be pleased to see an example of Persian nouns, as they answer to the cafes in Latin:

Boy, bring the wine, for the season of the rose approaches; let us again

break

break our vows of repentance in the midst of the roses. O Hafiz, thou defireft, like the nightingales, the presence of the rofe: let thy very foul be a ransom for the earth where the keeper of the rofe-garden walks!

I shall in this manner quote a few Perfian couplets, as examples of the principal rules in this grammar: fuch quotations will give fome variety to a subject naturally barren and unpleasant; will ferve as a specimen of the oriental ftyle; and will be more eafily retained in the memory than rules delivered in mere profe.

OF THE ARTICLE.

Our article a is supplied in Persian by adding the letter to a noun, which restrains it to the fingular number; as

fingle rofe;

guli a كلي

رفتم بباغ صبحدمي تا چينم كلي آمد بكوش ناكهم آواز بلبلي

One morning I went into the garden to gather a rofe, when on a fudden the voice of a nightingale ftruck my ear.

Without this termination gul would fignify roses or flowers collectively, as

مي خواه و كل نشان كن

Call for wine, and fcatter flowers around.

When