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XIV Syriac idiom, or is really a Hebraism. It should farther be noticed, that the genuine Syriac Canon is of much less compass than that of the Western Churches, and lacks, for instance, the Book of Esther and the Chronicles. The punctuation, therefore, of these last books in the Urmia edition, is of more slender authority than that of the others, which reproduces an ancient and established tradition, although it is not free from mistakes.

Many Syriac words, of which the form is not in keeping with the rules of Aramaic, have been proved now to be loan-words from the Assyrian. I have frequently drawn attention to such strangers. In this matter I follow Jensen's data in Brockelmann's Syriac Lexicon, and partly, direct communications from Jensen himself, as well as Delitzsch's Assyrian Dictionary. In the case of some words however, which are now indeed looked upon as being borrowed from the Assyrian, it is perhaps a matter of doubt whether the supposed borrower may not be the lender, or whether the words concerned may not be part of a common stock.

I have increased the number of references from one paragraph to another, but the order of these paragraphs remains the same. As the figures indicating that order have not been altered, quotations made in accordance with the paragraphs of the old edition are suitable also for the new. The few additional paragraphs which have been introduced, bear severally the number of the one which immediately precedes, a b being attached thereto.

The new edition has received much benefit from the discussion of the first by Prof. G. Hoffmann in the "Lit. Centralblatt" of 4th March, 1882,—as well as from other printed and written notices from his hand.

The late Prof. Bensley, as well as Dr. J. O. Knudson and Dr. H. Schulthess farther earned my gratitude by pointing out various inaccuracies, particularly errors of the press. And after all, in preparing the second edition, I came upon a few more blunders, some of them rather serious. If, as I venture to hope, the new form of the book should turn out to be tolerably free from annoying mistakes of the press, this is due very especially—seconded by the dexterity of the compositor—to the