Brewer's: Oldest Nation

and most ancient of all languages. Psammetichus of Egypt, wishing to penetrate these secrets, commanded that two infants should be brought up in such seclusion that they should never hear a single word uttered. When they had been thus secluded for two years, the boys both cried out to the keeper, “Becos! Becos!” a Phrygian word for Bread, so Psammetichus declared the Phrygian language to be man's primitive speech. (See Language.)

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