On the Origins or the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language

the three-hundredth after the flood, which was the nine-hundredth more or less of the life of Noah, in that year in which Peleg Peleg was born, the sons of Noah went away into various colonies, the world having been divided among them, and for that reason they called that one Peleg, which signifies division, so that it might preserve the memory of so celebrated a deed by its name. Ham therefore gave to his firstborn the part of Ethiopia which is above Egypt, from whom they themselves are called the Cushite Ethiopians, whom Josephus reported to be so called by all Asians in his own age. Not far from here, Ptolemy says that the Cushites and the Cusharim Cush river pertain to inner Libya; the Greeks called the voice which signifies blackness or blacks "Aethiopes," Cushites that is, "burnt-faced," by interpreting it. To the other, by the name Mizraim, Egypt fell, from whom they were also once called the Mesraites (it is read corruptly as Mersaites in Josephus), which name endures even today; for the Arabs as well as the Turks who possess those lands today call the whole of Egypt "Mitzir" and "Mitzri," and the Jews call it by the ancient word "Mitzraim." Mitzraim The voice itself signifies "straits," the Greek interpretation "city." The first interpretation squares not badly, for there they do not depend on the benefit of the sky or soil, as in other regions, but on the rising or falling of the river. Whence the whole region, especially the Mediterranean, abounds with a Ham many and baneful kind of animals. By another word it is called the land of Ham, Ps. 105 that is, of heat, or in which Ham himself lived. Phut had the western parts of Africa, and named his peoples the Phutites, by which name the whole of Africa was once called, according to Josephus. But according to Ptolemy, the Phutite peoples are in the western part of Tingitanian Mauritania, which has its name from the city of Tingis, called Altangir today, where the kingdom of Fes is, from where also a river of the same name, which is wont to be written wrongly as "Phthuth," flows toward the west. The Greeks called that region "Maurusia," by a name invented from the color of the inhabitants. The Latins once called it Tingitanian Mauritania to distinguish it from those inner parts which have their name from Caesar. Now sailors call the whole maritime region Barbary,