Part 32

248 Though I state these views on the authority of M. Pictet, I think it right to add the following note which an eminent Irish scholar has had the kindness to send me:—“The ordinary name of Ireland, in the oldest Irish MSS., is (_h_)_ériu_, gen. (_h_)_érenn_, dat. (_h_)_érinn_. The initial _h_, is often omitted. Before etymologizing on the word, we must try to fix its Old Celtic form. Of the ancient names of Ireland which are found in Greek and Latin writers, the only one which _hériu_ can formally represent is _Hiberio_. The abl. sing. of this form—_Hiberione_—is found in the Book of Armagh, a Latin MS. of the early part of the ninth century. From the same MS. we also learn that a name of the Irish people was _Hyberionaces_, which is obviously a derivative from the stem of _Hiberio_. Now if we remember that the Old Irish scribes often prefixed _h_ to words beginning with a vowel (_e.g._ _h-abunde_, _h-arundo_, _h-erimus_, _h-ostium_), and that they also often wrote _b_ for the _v_ consonant (_e.g._ _bobes_, _fribulas_, _corbus_, _fabonius_); if, moreover, we observe that the Welsh and Breton names for Ireland—_Ywerddon_, _Iverdon_—point to an Old Celtic name beginning with _iver_—, we shall have little difficulty in giving _Hiberio_ a correctly latinized form, viz. _Iverio_. This in Old Celtic would be _Iveriu_, gen. _Iverionos_. So the Old Celtic form of _Fronto_ was _Frontû_, as we see from the Gaulish inscription at Vieux Poitiers. As _v_ when flanked by vowels is always lost in Irish, _Iveriû_ would become _ieriu_, and then, the first two vowels running together, _ériu_. As regards the double _n_ in the oblique cases of _ériu_, the genitive _érenn_ (_e.g._) is to _Iverionos_ as the Old Irish _anmann_ ‘names’ is to the Skr. _nâmâni_, Lat. _nomina_. The doubling of the _n_ may perhaps be due to the Old Celtic accent. What then is the etymology of _Iveriû_? I venture to think that it may (like the Lat. _Aver-nus_, Gr. Ἄφορ-νος) be connected with the Skr. _avara_, ‘posterior,’ ‘western.’ So the Irish _des_, Welsh _deheu_, ‘right,’ ‘south,’ is the Skr. _dakshina_, ‘dexter,’ and the Irish _áir_ (in _an-áir_), if it stand for _páir_, ‘east,’ is the Skr. _pûrva_, ‘anterior.’

“M. Pictet regards Ptolemy’s Ἰουερνια (Ivernia) as coming nearest to the Old Celtic form of the name in question. He further sees in the first syllable what he calls the Irish _ibh_, ‘land,’ ‘tribe of people,’ and he thinks that this _ibh_ may be connected not only with the Vedic _ibha_, ‘family,’ but with the Old High German _eiba_, ‘a district.’ But, first, according to the Irish phonetic laws, _ibha_ would have appeared as _eb_ in Old, _eabh_ in Modern-Irish. Secondly, the _ei_ in _eiba_ is a diphthong = Gothic _ái_, Irish _ói_, _óe_, Skr. _ê_. Consequently _ibh_ and _ibha_ cannot be identified with _eiba_. Thirdly, there is no such word as _ibh_ in the nom. sing., although it is to be found in O’Reilly’s dictionary, along with his explanation of the intensive prefix _er_—, as ‘noble,’ and many other blunders and forgeries. The form _ibh_ is, no doubt, producible, but it is a very modern dative plural of _úa_, ‘a descendant.’ Irish districts were often called by the names of the occupying clans. These clans were often called ‘descendants (_huí_, _hí_, _í_) of such an one.’ Hence the blunder of the Irish lexicographer.”—W. S.

249 See Rawlinson’s Glossary, s. v.

250 W. Ouseley, Orient. Geog. of Ebn. Haukal. Burnouf, Yasna, Notes, p. 102.

251 Ptol. vi. c. 17.

252 It has been supposed that _harôyûm_ in the Zend-avesta stands for _haraêvem_, and that the nominative was not _Harôyu_, but _Haraêvô_. (Oppert, Journal Asiatique, 1851, p. 280.) Without denying the possibility of the correctness of this view, which is partially supported by the accusative _vidôyum_, from _vidaêvo_, enemy of the Divs, there is no reason why _Harôyûm_ should not be taken for a regular accusative of _Harôyu_. This _Harôyu_ would be as natural and regular a form as _Sarayu_ in Sanskrit, nay even more regular, as _harôyu_ would presuppose a Sanskrit _sarasyu_ or _saroyu_, from _saras_. M. Oppert identifies the people of _Haraiva_ with the Ἀρεῖοι, but not, like Grimm, with the Ἄριοι.

253 It is derived from a root _sar_ or _sṛi_, to go, to run, from which _saras_, water, _sarit_, river, and _Sarayu_, the proper name of the river near Oude; and we may conclude with great probability that this Sarayu or Sarasyu gave the name to the river Arius or Heri, and to the county of Ἄρια or Herat. Anyhow Ἄρια, as the name of Herat, has no connection with Ἄρια the wide country of the Âryas.

254 Diversions of Purley, p. 190.

255 AR might be traced back to the Sanskrit root, _ṛi_, to go (Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, i. 218); but for our present purposes the root, AR, is sufficient.

256 If, as has been supposed, the Cornish and Welsh words were corruptions of the Latin _arâtrum_ they would have appeared as _areuder_, _arawd_, respectively.

257 Grimm remarks justly that _airtha_ could not be derived from _arjan_, on account of the difference in the vowels. But _airtha_ is a much more ancient formation, and comes from the root _ar_, which root, again, was originally _ṛi_ or _ir_ (Benfey, Kurze Gr., p. 27). From this primitive root _ṛi_ or _ir_, we must derive both the Sanskrit _irâ_ or _iḍâ_, and the Gothic _airtha_. The latter would correspond to the Sanskrit _ṛita_. The true meaning of the Sanskrit _iḍâ_ has never been discovered. The Brahmans explain it as prayer, but this is not its original meaning.

258 Grimm derives _arbeit_, Gothic _arbaiths_, Old High-German _arapeit_, Modern High-German _arbeit_, directly from the Gothic _arbja_, heir; but admits a relationship between _arbja_ and the root _arjan_, to plough. He identifies _arbja_ with the Slavonic, _rab_, servant, slave, and _arbeit_ with _rabota_, _corvée_, supposing that sons and heirs were the first natural slaves. He supposes even a relationship between _rabota_ and the Latin _labor_. German Dictionary, s. v. _Arbeit_.

259 Latin _remus_ (O. Irish _rám_) for _resmus_, connected with ἐρετμός. From ἐρέτης, ἐρέσσω; and ὑπηρέτης, servant, helper. _Rostrum_ from _rodere_.

260 Cf. Eur. Hec. 455, κώπη ἁλιήρης. Ἀμφήρης means having oars on both sides.

261 From Sanskrit _plu_, πλέω; cf. fleet and float.

262 Other similes: ὕνις, and ὕννις, ploughshare, derived by Plutarch from ὗς, boar. A plough is said to be called a pigsnose. The Latin _porca_, a ploughed field, is derived from _porcus_, hog; and the German _furicha_, furrow, is connected with _farah_, boar. The Sanskrit _vṛika_, wolf, from _vraśch_, to tear, is used for plough, Rv. i. 117, 21. _Godaraņa_, earth-tearer, is another word for plough in Sanskrit. Gothic _hoha_, plough = Sk. _koka_, wolf. See Grimm, Deutsche Sprache, and Kuhn, Indische Studien, vol. i. p. 321.

263 In the Vale of Blackmore, a waggon is called _plough_, or _plow_, and _zull_ (A.-S. syl) is used for _aratrum_ (Barnes, Dorset Dialect, p. 369).

264 Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, p. 267; Benfey, Griechisches Wurzelwörterbuch, p. 236.

265 The Greek υποδρα, askance, is derived from ὑπὸ, and δρα, which is connected with δέρκομαι, I see; the Sanskrit, dṛiś.

266 Generi coloniali, colonial goods. Marsh, p. 253. In Spanish, generos, merchandise.

267 Many derivatives might have been added, such as _specimen_, _spectator_, _le spectacle_, _specialité_, _spectrum_, _spectacles_, _specious_, _specula_, &c.

268 Benloew, Aperçu Général, p. 28 _seq._

269 Benfey, Grammatik, § 147:—

Roots of the 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 classes: 226 Roots of the 1, 4, 6, 10 classes: 1480 Total: 1706, including 143 of the 10th class.

270 Renan, Histoire des Langues sémitiques, p. 138. Benloew estimates the necessary radicals of Gothic at 600, of modern German at 250, p. 22. Pott thinks that each language has about 1000 roots.

271 The exact number in the Imperial Dictionary of Khang-hi amounts to 42,718. About one-fourth part has become obsolete; and one-half of the rest may be considered of rare occurrence, thus leaving only about 15,000 words in actual use. “The exact number of the classical characters is 42,718. Many of them are no longer in use in the modern language, but they occur in the canonical and in the classical books. They may be found sometimes in official documents, when an attempt is made at imitating the old style. A considerable portion of these are names of persons, places, mountains, rivers, &c. In order to compete for the place of imperial historian, it was necessary to know 9,000, which were collected in a separate manual.”—_Stanislas Julien._

272 The study of the English language by A. D’Orsey, p. 15.

273 This is the number of words in the Vocabulary given by Bunsen, in the first volume of his Egypt, pp. 453-491. Several of these words, however, though identical in sound, must be separated etymologically, and later researches have still further increased the number. The number of hieroglyphic groups in Sharpe’s “Egyptian Hieroglyphics,” 1861, amounts to 2030.

274 Marsh, Lectures, p. 182. M. Thommerel stated the number of words in the Dictionaries of Robertson and Webster as 43,566. Todd’s edition of Johnson, however, is said to contain 58,000 words, and the later editions of Webster have reached the number of 70,000, counting the participles of the present and perfect as independent vocables. Flügel estimated the number of words in his own dictionary at 94,464, of which 65,085 are simple, 29,379 compound. This was in 1843; and he then expressed a hope that in his next edition the number of words would far exceed 100,000. This is the number fixed upon by Mr. Marsh as the minimum of the _copia vocabulorum_ in English. See _Saturday Review_, Nov. 2, 1861.

275 Renan, Histoire, p. 138.

276 Endlicher, Chinesische Grammatik, § 128.

277 If two words are placed like _jin ta_, the first may form the predicate of the second, the second being used as a substantive. Thus _jin ta_ might mean the greatness of man, but in this case it is more usual to say _jin tci ta_.

“Another instance, _chen_, virtue; Ex. jin tchi chen, the virtue of man; _chen_, virtuous; Ex. chen jin, the virtuous man; _chen_, to approve; Ex. chen tchi, to find it good; _chen_, well; Ex. chen ko, to sing well.”—_Stanislas Julien._

278 Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, b. ii. s. 521.

279 Each verb in Greek, if conjugated through all its voices, tenses, moods, and persons, yields, together with its participles, about 1300 forms.

280 Histoire Générale et Système Comparé des Langues sémitiques, par Ernest Renan. Seconde édition. Paris, 1858.

_ 281 Peshito_ means simple. The Old Testament was translated from Hebrew, the New Testament from Greek, about 200, if not earlier. Ephraem Syrus lived in the middle of the fourth century. During the eighth and ninth centuries the Nestorians of Syria acted as the instructors of the Arabs. Their literary and intellectual supremacy began to fail in the tenth century. It was revived for a time by Gregorius Barhebræus (Abulfaraj) in the thirteenth century. See Renan, p. 257.

282 Messrs. Perkins and Stoddard, the latter the author of a grammar, published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. v. 1.

283 Renan, p. 214 _seq._, “Le chaldéen biblique serait un dialecte araméen légèrement hébraisé.”

284 Arabic, _tarjam_, to explain; _Dragoman_, Arabic, _tarjamân_.

285 The most ancient are those of Onkelos and Jonathan, in the second century after Christ. Others are much later, later even than the Talmud. Renan, p. 220.

286 Renan, pp. 220-222.

_ 287 Talmud_ (instruction) consists of _Mishna_ and _Gemara_. _Mishna_ means repetition, viz. of the Law. It was collected and written down about 218, by Jehuda. _Gemara_ is a continuation and commentary of the Mishna; that of Jerusalem was finished towards the end of the fourth, that of Babylon towards the end of the fifth, century.

288 First printed in the Rabbinic Bible, Venice, 1525.

289 Quatremère, Mémoire sur les Nabatéens, p. 139.

290 Renan, p. 241.

291 Ibid. p. 237.

292 Quatremère, Mémoire sur les Nabatéens, p. 116.

293 Ibn-Wahshiyyah was a Mussulman, but his family had been converted for three generations only. He translated a collection of Nabatean books. Three have been preserved, 1, the Nabatean Agriculture; 2, the book on poisons; 3, the book of Tenkelusha (Teucros) the Babylonian; besides fragments of the book of the secrets of the Sun and Moon. The Nabatean Agriculture was referred by Quatremère (Journal Asiatique, 1835) to the period between Belesis who delivered the Babylonians from their Median masters, and the taking of Babylon by Cyrus. Prof. Chwolson, of St. Petersburg, who has examined all the MSS., places Kuthami at the beginning of the thirteenth ceatury B. C.

294 Renan, Mémoire sur l’âge du livre intitulé Agriculture Nabatéenne, p. 38. Paris, 1860.

295 See Letter on Turanian Languages, p. 62.

296 Renan, Histoire des Langues sémitiques, p. 137.

297 Pococke, Notes to Abulfaragius, p. 153; Glossology, p. 352.

298 Endlicher, Chinesische Grammatik, p. 223.

299 Endlicher, Chinesische Grammatik, p. 339.

300 “In this word _tse_ (tseu) does not signify son; it is an addition of frequent occurrence after nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Thus, _lao_, old, + _tseu_ is father; _neï_, the interior, + _tseu_ is wife; _hiang_, scent, + _tseu_ is clove; _hoa_, to beg, + _tseu_, a mendicant; _hi_, to act, + _tseu_, an actor.”—_Stanislas Julien_.

301 Letter on the Turanian Languages, p. 24.

302 Survey of Languages, p. 90.

303 The Abbé Molina states that the language of Chili is entirely free from irregular forms. Du Ponceau, Mémoire, p. 90.

304 Letter on Turanian Languages, p. 206.

305 Of these I can only give a tabular survey at the end of these Lectures, referring for further particulars to my “Letter on the Turanian Languages.” The Gangetic and Lohitic dialects are those comprehended under the name of Bhotîya.

306 Professor Boller of Vienna, who has given a most accurate analysis of the Turanian languages in the “Transactions of the Vienna Academy,” has lately established the Turanian character of Japanese.

307 Letter on the Turanian Languages, p. 75.

308 M. Stanislas Julien remarks that the numerous compounds which occur in Chinese prove the wide-spread influence of the principle of agglutination in that language. The fact is, that in Chinese every sound has numerous meanings; and in order to avoid ambiguity, one word is frequently followed by another which agrees with it in that particular meaning which is intended by the speaker. Thus:—

_chi-youen_ (beginning-origin) signifies beginning. _ken-youen_ (root-origin) signifies beginning. _youen-chi_n (origin-beginning) signifies beginning. _meï-miai_ (beautiful-remarkable) signifies beautiful. _meï-li_ (beautiful-elegant) signifies beautiful. _chen-youen_ (charming-lovely) signifies beautiful. _yong-i_ (easy-facile) signifies easily. _tsong-yong_ (to obey, easy) signifies easily.

In order to express “to boast,” the Chinese say _king-koua_, _king-fu_, &c., both words having one and the same meaning.

This peculiar system of _juxta-position_, however, cannot be considered as agglutination in the strict sense of the word.

309 Turanian Languages, p. 24.

310 These “Outlines” form vols. iii. and iv. of Bunsen’s work, “Christianity and Mankind,” in seven vols. (London, 1854: Longman), and are sold separately.

311 Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1855, p. 298.

312 Ibid., p. 302, note.

313 “Here the lines converge as they recede into the geological ages, and point to conclusions which, upon Darwin’s theory, are inevitable, but hardly welcome. The very first step backward makes the negro and the Hottentot our blood-relations; not that reason or Scripture objects to that, though pride may.” Asa Gray, “Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology,” 1861, p. 5.

“One good effect is already manifest, its enabling the advocates of the hypothesis of a multiplicity of human species to perceive the double insecurity of their ground. When the races of men are admitted to be of one species, the corollary, that they are of one origin, may be expected to follow. Those who allow them to be of one species must admit an actual diversification into strongly marked and persistent varieties; while those, on the other hand, who recognize several or numerous human species, will hardly be able to maintain that such species were primordial and supernatural in the ordinary sense of the word.” Asa Gray, Nat. Sel. p. 54.

314 Professor Pott, the most distinguished advocate of the polygenetic dogma, has pleaded the necessity of admitting more than one beginning for the human race and for language in an article in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, ix. 405, “Max Müller und die Kennzeichen der Sprachverwandtschaft,” 1855; in a treatise “Die Ungleichheit menschlicher Rassen,” 1856; and in the new edition of his “Etymologische Forschungen,” 1861.

315 Dugald Stewart, vol. iii. p. 35.

316 Herder, as quoted by Steinthal, “Ursprung der Sprache,” s. 39.

317 “In all these paths of research, when we travel far backwards the aspect of the earlier portions becomes very different from that of the advanced part on which we now stand; but in all cases the path is lost in obscurity as it is traced backwards towards its starting point:—it becomes not only invisible, but unimaginable; it is not only an interruption, but an abyss, which interposes itself between us and any intelligible beginning of things.” Whewell, Indications, p. 166.

318 “Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache; um aber die Sprache zu erfinden, müsste er schon Mensch sein.”—_W. von Humboldt, Sämmtliche Werke_, b. iii. s. 252. The same argument is ridden to death by Süssmilch, “Versuch eines Beweises dass die erste Sprache ihrem Ursprung nicht vom Menschen, sondern allein vom Schöpfer erhalten habe.” Berlin, 1766.

319 Farrar, Origin of Language, p. 10; Grimm, Ursprung der Sprache, s. 32. The word βεκός, which these children are reported to have uttered, and which, in the Phrygian language, meant bread, thus proving, it was supposed, that the Phrygian was the primitive language of mankind, is derived from the same root which exists in the English, to bake. How these unfortunate children came by the idea of baked bread, involving the ideas of corn, mill, oven, fire, &c., seems never to have struck the ancient sages of Egypt.

320 “L’usage de la main, la marche à deux pieds, la ressemblance, quoique grossière, de la face, tous les actes qui peuvent résulter de cette conformité d’organisation, ont fait donner au singe le nom d’_homme sauvage_, par des homines à la vérité qui l’étaient à demi, et qui ne savaient comparer que les rapports extérieurs. Que serait-ce, si, par une combinaison de nature aussi possible que toute autre, le singe eût eu la voix du perroquet, et, comme lui, la faculté de la parole? Le singe parlant eût rendu muette d’étonnement l’espèce humaine entière, et l’aurait séduite au point que le philosophe aurait eu grand’peine à démontrer qu’avec tous ces beaux attributs humains le singe n’en était pas moins une bête. Il est donc heureux, pour notre intelligence, que la nature ait séparé et placé, dans deux espèces très-différentes, l’imitation de la parole et celle de nos gestes.”—_Buffon_, as quoted by Flourens, p. 77.

321 Odyssey, xvii. 300.

322 “The evident marks of reasoning in the other animals,—of reasoning which I cannot but think as unquestionable as the instincts that mingle with it.”—_Brown, Works_, vol. i. p. 446.

323 Flourens, De la Raison, p. 51.

324 To allow that “brutes have certain mental endowments in common with men,” ... “desires, affections, memory, simple imagination, or the power of reproducing the sensible past in mental pictures, and even judgment of the simple or intuition kind;”—that “they compare and judge,” (Mem. Amer. Acad. 8, p. 118,)—is to concede that the intellect of brutes really acts, so far as we know, like human intellect, as far as it goes; for the philosophical logicians tell us that all reasoning is reducible to a series of simple judgments. And Aristotle declares that even reminiscence,—which is, we suppose, “reproducing the sensible past in mental pictures,”—is a sort of reasoning (τὶ ἀναμιμνήσκεσθαί ἐστι οἱον συλλογισμός τισ.) Asa Gray, Natural Selection, &c., p. 58, _note_.

325 Conscience, Boek der Natuer, vi., quoted by Marsh, p. 32.

326 Book ii. chapter xi. § 10.

327 I regret to find that the expressions here used have given offence to several of my reviewers. They were used because the names Onomatopoetic and Interjectional are awkward and not very clear. They were not intended to be disrespectful to those who hold the one or the other theory, some of them scholars for whose achievements in comparative philology I entertain the most sincere respect.

328 A fuller account of the views of Herder and other philosophers on the origin of language may be found in Steinthal’s useful little work, “Der Ursprung der Sprache:” Berlin, 1853.

329 Farrar, p. 74.

330 Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, i. 87; Zeitschrift, iii. 43.

_ 331 Kârava_, explained in Sanskrit by _ku-rava_, having a bad voice, is supposed to be a mere dialectical corruption of _krava_ or _karva_. Κορώνη presupposes κορων = κοροον = _h_(_a_)_raban_. The Sanskrit _kârava_ may, however, be derived from _kâru_, singer; but in that case _kâru_ must not be derived from _kṛi_.

332 See Pictet, Aryas Primitifs, p. 381.

333 In Chinese the number of imitative sounds is very considerable. They are mostly written phonetically, and followed by the determinative sign “mouth.” We give a few, together with the corresponding sounds in Mandshu. The difference between the two will show how differently the same sounds strike different ears, and how differently they are rendered into articulate language:—