On Phoenician Letters

task entrusted to you for this age, you may turn it, so that by the benefit of languages, first in Paris according to the judgment of the council, and finally either at Rheims or wherever a more convenient occasion may appear, a seminary may be spread and increased in Paris. Thus, indeed, you will either easily surpass or equal the glory of all mortals. For this reason, that you might see in this very brief summary that the origins of all the languages of the world, or at least the more celebrated ones, were derived from the holy language, I dedicate these to you. From that most sacrosanct one which Moses received from heaven on tablets, there flowed Syriac and Arabic, both of which are read and written from the Orient and with a rightward course toward the breast. From the external one, which is now Samaritan, and was once Phoenician and was so called, two proceeded in inverted order: Gallic, that is to say, Latin (since the name of the Gauls is the first in the whole world), and Greek, as is evident from the characters themselves. Although these are of a very small mass, as principles are wont to be, yet because they contain in themselves a very great power, it seemed not unworthy to me to inscribe them to you,