■hi '**■ > 1 f s c> V <>, % ^ ./ ,* ^ ^ -» •-> 4 "O *" ' <- A #^ >A o^ XL V 1p /' ^ . •* ^ °0 ■ ^ ^ A.V- «> .&* ^ -\^' a.N "5-. .V : R E M A R K s ON Till. SUBJECT OF LANGUAGE, WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS IN THE FORM OF NOTES, ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE INFORMATION WHICH LANGUAGE MAY AFFORD OE Till HISTORY AND OPINIONS OF MANKIND. BY COLONEL MATTHEW &TEWART -> ■ LONDON: 1850. PRINTED I'.Y RICHARD AND JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. FOR, AND AT THE EXPENSE. OF THE AUTHOR. ONLY TWENTY-FIVE COPIES PRINTED. [ENTERED AI M w ,OM RS' BALJ AS THE ACT DIRECT;., BIT NOT FOR SALE.] ** T II IS W K K is DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER DUG A LI) STEWART, Esquire, () V C \ T R I \ E l'OHMKim PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE COLLEGE OF EDIXM JRGH. TO THE READER. It is necessary to remark, with respect to the nature of the evidence which the following pages afford of the conclusions deduced from them, that the question is not whether these conclusions are in every instance correct, or sufficiently borne out; it would be absurd to suppose that they were: with respect to particulars, (acts unknown to me may exist which would modify or refute the inference. But the question is with respect to general results, whether such a concurrence in different lan-ua-es in different and remote portions of the earth, and at periods of the earliest antiquity, can by possibility be attributed to accident. This is proof, and the only species of proof of which such subjects admit. It has been justly and judiciously remarked by O'Brien, the author of the Irish Dictionary, " That it is a self-evident position that no lan» ua»e can have words significant of any such things, or modes of things, as the people who speak it never had any sort of knowledge of, by being objects either of their senses or their understanding*." The very arbitrary and diversified principles on which the languages of the world have been constructed, and the general coincidence in the signs and things signified, evince the distance of the periods to which these common conceptions of things, and the use of the oral signs for them, are to be referred. The view which I have been able to give of the traces of some of the past events and opinions in the history of the human species, affords a very inadequate idea either of the sufficiency of the evidence (which is chiefly dependent on its consistency) of the * O'Brien, voc. Ojpjijon. b 2 IV extent of the subject, or the magnitude of the revolutions which have modified the sphere in which our lives are spent, and produced the present condition of the world. 1 have bestowed a degree of labour on the investigation much beyond what this work will show, and have in a great proportion of instances, if not in every case, been obliged to abridge the mailer noticed, in order to be able to leave space for a partial notice of others. Compressing the subject as much as possible, five or six volumes, equal in magnitude to this, and a more methodical and consecutive treatment of the truths to be evinced with reference to the connexion between its own parts, than it was possible to observe in notes appended to observations on the subject of language properly so termed, would have been necessary to render it either a matter of interest or of much useful instruction to the reader. Many of the circumstances, however, touched on are valuable, and curious as matter of information, and may at least serve to show how much more it is possible to know. May I be permitted to state the circumstances under which this work has been written, not as an excuse for its defects, but to account for them ; and to prevent the supposition of any want of honesty of purpose, or intention to mislead, if inaccuracy should in any instances appear ? I came to London a little more than a year ago intending to print merely some observations on the subject of language, which I thought I could complete in a few weeks, and bringing with me only the notes which contained the words and references necessary for this purpose, and a few books to which it would be necessary to refer; but finding a printer who possessed a sufficient supply of types and would attend to my directions, I thought it better, while I had health and strength remaining, to do what 1 could than to do nothing. I relied on having the command of the books in the possession of Messrs. Payne and Poss the booksellers (from whom I had for a series of years purchased most of the works I required in these inquiries), who were obliging enough to offer me the use of them. Their quitting their business disconcerted me greatly ; 1 supplied myself with the Hebrew Text of Scripture by Michaelis, Magdeburg, 1720 ; the Syriac of the New Testament, Hamburg, 1667 ; a copy of Constantin's Greek Lexicon, Geneva, 1591 ; Ker's Observations on the Latin Language, London, 1709 ; a Strabo ; a Horace; a Juvenal; Havercamp's Sallust ; an Arrian ; a Mela; the Anonymus of Ravenna; a volume professing to contain the geographical notices of the Latin Poets, 1580 ; the Piiriieo-Maltese Dictionary, by Agius de Soldanis, 1750; Auctores et Fragmenta Velerum Jurisconsultonim, S. Leewio, Lugd. Batav., 1672. A Virgil: Pocock's Porta Mosis ; Hist. Arab. Spec; Sale's Koran; Castel's Lexicon lleptaglolton ; Wilkins'a Sanscrit Roots; his Sanscrit Grammar; Larra- mendi's Spanish and .Basque Dictionary, 1745; Raymond's Caribbean Dictionary, 1665; O'Brien's Irish Dictionary; the Dictionary of the Anam Language; and Marsden's Malayan Dictionary, 1812, I had brought with me ; and with these mean-, and the notes I happened to have, these pages have been written as the work went through the press, the first sheet having been thrown oil November 184'.'. and the last November 1850. 1 cannot in all cases vouch for the accuracy of the references to authorities ; in many instances these are taken from notes intended merely for m\ own convenience in consulting the volume in my own library, and not having the book it was impossible for me to verify them. I have found Borne <>f those in my notes erroneous, and more may possibly be so ; but I hope such errors will not prove numerous. The impossibility of throwing accessory remarks in the notes included in the same pages with the text (of which the greater part of the matter of this work consists into subordinate notes, has added much to the difficulty of composition, and in main instances interrupted the continuity of thought ; and the nece-»it\ of compression requiring the disuse of paragraphs, ha- further tended to involve the -en»e : most of the paragraphs which do occur have been made for the convenience of the printer in the correction of the press, not with reference to the discrimination of subject : with all these disadvantages, however, I hope they will, with a little attention, be sufficiently intelligible. I have to express my regret at not having been able to procure a copy of .Mr. Wilson's Sanscrit Dictionary, and my consequent inability to avail myself of this valuable source of information, which would no doubt have supplied me with additional facts with respect to that language, and would certain Ij have saved me some labour, all mv authorities for Sanscrit words being derived from the works referred to of Mr. Wilkins. The influence due to the marks in modifying the sound of the vowels is so uncertain that 1 have almost invariably expressed them in English by their common value in our alphabet. All these Asiatic vowels seem resolvable into the Sanscrit 3{ A, variously accentuated, bearing, as described by Wilkins, " that obscure short sound which the French give to e in the particle le, and which is very common in our own language, though there be no distinct character for it, as in the words money, honey, and some VI others where it is represented by o ; and in but, shut, &c, where u is the substitute." This, it is apparent, may be considered a medium of all the vocalic sounds produced by expiration, reducing- them to an analogy with the octave, ee, i, ay, 3f aa, oo or u*, w, Gr. ; from the shriller or higher to the graver sound. In the Arabic and Persian words, the vowel sounds (which are marked with infinite care in Castel's Polyglot Dictionary, which, from its date, 1686, are particularly valuable, printing- being unknown in these countries, and the method of pronunciation and orthography sub- ject to fluctuation from inaccuracy and the caprice of fashion) could not be printed owing to want of space between the lines; 1 have expressed the force of those as follows, without attending to more doubtful and evanescent distinctions of niceties, my object being to evince radical affinities of the oral signs : _£ Ma, -p Me (the e as e, T, ay) ; -o M, ^ above like the Sans. ^ below, negativing the vocalic sound, _3 A/a, the vocalic sound; ^ Eh, £ Eht, -& Ehton, final; ^ Mu or Mo, like the Hebrew 0, .a- final On. In almost all cases, not only the radical word, but various oblique applications of it are adduced, that it may be sufficiently clear, that in that particular sense, it is a distinct oral sign belonging- to the form of speech, although a similar word referred by lexicographers to the same root may bear very different imports, being probably either entirely distinct in their derivation, or the intermediate gradations of thought by which their signification has been transferred, lost in the language. Whatever may be the merits or imperfections of the performance, they are due to me alone ; I have never received the slightest aid from any person whatever, nor even had an amanuensis to transcribe for me ; all the knowledge which it was necessary to possess is the acquisition of my own labour, carried on in solitude, without relaxation, without friends, and without a single human creature with whom I could compare a thought. When the spirit of undeserved malevolence shall have ceased to possess an object, and the circulation of the work can no longer be supposed to afford a gratification or an advantage to me, it possibly may hereafter be useful to the country and to the world. That it may not be supposed that any views stated by me are entitled to the weight of a sanction which they do not possess, it is necessary to observe that among- my The English u as in use, and according to its own designation, is manifestly y consonant and U or do. Scotch (as in rude, rood), as in you, and yew. VII lather's papers I found a fragment of an "Elements of Geometry," apparently execu'ed at an early period of his life, in which the properties of figure were treated in a differ- ent manner from that in which they appear in Euclid. The sequence of inference was entirely altered, it contained various new propositions, and simpler demonstrations of several of those which it included ; and in the form of preliminary remark some original views on the nature of mathematical evidence, and the media, or more properly the method, of proof. No part of the opinions ^tutcd by me, p 243, and the note, is derived from them. The nature of my father's ideas on this subject sufficiently appear from the notices in his philosophical writings, and more especiallj his observations with respect to the influence of definitions. In this mathematical fragment he had evidently availed himself of the principle indicated in my grandfather's " Proposition es More Veterum Demonstrate," by which the investigation of geome- trical truth is rendered an analytical process of reasoning, bj assuming the result, and directing- the attention to the conclusions which follow from it; which show cither a solution, or that it is impossible ; a method by which originalit) will always be attained The remarks with respect to the original or intuitive objects of our percipience, and the elements of all our reasoning, such as number and a common measure, &c, are all, to the best of my recollection, pointed out and illustrated by him. The Notes from A. to K. are at the end ; those with upright letters are from references in the notes to the Text ; those with the letters oblique from a referenre in a pre- ceding note at the end. The pages in the references to these notes, to which a letter is prefixed, are numbered from first to last separately from the pages of the text. The references to pages and notes apply to the body of the work. The remarks which I stated my intention to oiler on the discriminating evidence lines three and four, Note, /or Caus fils Dendan read Til Dendan (JjJ lil, Feel, Arab., Elephas, an Elephant; Jjj Peel, Pers., id. ; QTf^ P'hal, and Cfjo^ P'hayl, Sans, roots, move, go). These are not supposed to be the only Errata which tin reader is requested to cornet, but an noticed as immediately affecting the sense. REMARKS ON TIIK SUBJECT OF LANGUAGE. M. du Ponceau has, I think, remarked that he was at first disposed to attribute to the Basque an affinity with the American languages*, but afterwards found reason to abandon the opionion : I confess that it appears to me, in so far as the genius and structure of the forms of speech are concerned, his first impression was correct, and that a similar analogy seems to subsist with the American languages in the Tagala of the Manilla Islands. In all the languages which specifically belong to this class, it is the primary significant elements, or sounds which express an idea or convey an import, which are to be considered words, and not the compound oral signs, indicative of a complex, or descriptive quality, appellation, or action, although these may be pro- per names and inflected by the rules for the declension of nouns, or adjectives, or verbs. These are rather forms of locution than words, or signs denoting a simple idea, whether an objector affection of the mind. Upon principles entirely different from those of the Basque, the Tagala, or American languages, Hie Sanscrit carries the com- position of words to 152 syllables, or ad libitum {vide A. R., 1, 360), and admits of more exiension than any other form of speechf. But although the term polysynthetic may * Humboldt observes that "in the Aztek language the letters B, D. F, and G are wanting; and in the Biscayan we do not find the letter F, and there is no word which begins with an R. However distinct certain languages appear at first sight,— however extraordinary their caprices or idioms, all have an analogy with each other ; and their multifarious relations will be perceived in proportion as the philosophic history of nations and the study of languages, which are at once the production and the expression of the individual character of man, shall be brought to perfection." — (vol. iv. p. 246.) The affinity in the deficiency of the literal sounds of the Basque is immaterial; but he possibly had re- cognised stronger grounds of resemblance. The rest of the reflection is just and judicious; consi- dering that the organs of utterance, (viz. the lips, the tongue, and the breath) the faculties of the mind, the senses, and the powers of the limbs, the passions, motives, and wants of all mankind are alike by nature. The differences of speech are more a matter of astonishment than such analogy, as is discoverable in all of them. t In the Inscription at Tanna, printed in the Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 361, may be seen a Sanscrit compound word, applied as an epithet, consisting of 152 syllables, and many others B uiili propriety be applied to all languages admitting- an accumulation of idea in one com- pound expression, ihere is a great diversity between those which admit of it and those which are expressive in that way, and in that way only, — as the Basque, Tagala, and Ame- rican languages. Languages of this description, when they come to be analysed and arranged by grammarians by the help of written characters, would appear in their e/e- ments monosyllabic, or nearly so, — such as all the Celtic and Chaldaic languages are, or have been. In all these locutions there is a cardinal word, which, by the aid of sundry particles, prefixed, and affixed, and inserted, is varied in its signification, in away which renders it nearly impossible for a foreigner to detect the radical sign which is the key to the expression; as for example: — "Nondom, Entends (Fr.), n'ouandomonadjin, toutes /( s /bis qu'ils entendent." — Du Ponceau, 233. " Nindagenondanabon, j'avais, ouj'eus pu entendre" — Id. 231, 232. In an account of the Tagala language by Dr. Leyden, (A. R., 10, p. 213,) (who does not appear to have been aware of the genius of the Ame- rican tongues,) he gives as an instance the word Buhat, to lift, which it is necessary to recognise in such compounds as pinamuhat, pinamamuhat, pamumuhaten. "The formed on the same supposed principle for rendering language emphatic. The Christian Rhetori- cians and Grammarians, to which pursuit the learned of the religion betook themselves, after a stop was put to the Philosophical discussions which disturbed the earlier ages of the church, appear to have applied themselves to try the powers of the Greek in this way. Fabricius (vol. xiii. p. 474,) observes, — "Antequam a Neandro abeam, cujus plures hactenus collectiones retuli, apponam ex ejus erotematibus Graecae Linguae." (p. 399.) " Dodechachon in Christianos constans ex audaciore sed ingeniosa compositione vocum in hanc sententiam " : among which are — ^o^apBo^Kpeaia^oivey- ■^eaiirvpaohLw — which word is rendered Bombardagladiofunhastaflammipetiti ; 'Ziccopo-7ro\ocr'7raTi\7]- rrvpadr]K07rpoKavKaaaTaL — Latrinifaethirocomephitistercorolentes. — Ibid. torn. 13, 476. The portentous word, as Vincent calls it, which occurs in Arrian's Periplus, and which has per- plexed all the critics, is of this composite nature, and is not Greek, but Coptic or Egyptian, and describes the gulf or straits of Madagascar below the Promontorium Prasum. The word as it occurs in Greek is 6iTr]vr)8i,(D/u,jjLevov6eaia&.&0*X(Jd Sinus, cjji^-1 extensus, longi- tudo, UJiH shie longitude This fabrication of significant words by the combination of syllables seems to have been a regular art. The Syrian toord |i* ^oiio Mehagina is explained, docens coagmen- tationem syllabarum. — Castel, 803. The island of Manuthias (Menuthias), Madagascar, which Vin- cent justly recognised in this diction, is of the same origin, viz. the island of the place of the gulf or straits, — or which formed the gulf or straits. * Ch. Gutt. as Arab. _i or i-. addition," he observes "of a greater number of particles would still produce a consi- derable number of additional metamorphoses, in which it would be very difficult to re- cognise the original radical buhat." — A. R., 10,213. In the ordinary Basque verb, us exhibited by Larramendi, {El arl< del Bascuenze, p. 77) the radical part of the locution or the root of the verb is kept distinct, and the particles compounded independent of its inflexions, exhibiting- the genius of the European languages, and the discrimination of grammarians, an art early cultivated in Spain ; but in some of the irregular verbs the involution of the root is as remarkable as in the American or Tagala: — janai, follow; janaitu, to follow; guenaiztzuten, nosotros, etc. sequamoa aquellos. — Larra- mendi., Did., vol. ii., 278. There is no doubt that a compound oral sign of this description, like a hieroglyphic, crowding upon (he apprehension a number of conceptions at once, is calculated to Stir the mind of the hearer more vigorously than one more tardv in the communica- tion of images and of import ; but they lose immensely in perspicuity and precision, the cardinal, because (he most useful virtue of language, and as a means for the commu- nication of knowledge, or the operation of conviction by reason, bv enabling the mind of the hearer to apprehend distinctly each proposition presented for his consideration and assent. It is not at all wonderful if no affinity should be discoverable in the import of the elementary oral sounds. Language, whilst not fixed by writing and the authority of dictionaries, is in a state of perpetual fluctuation with the condition of a population. The Latin of the Twelve Tables was hardly intelligible at Home, in theage of Cicero; and in these complex locutions, where an expression has losl its compound import, aiu' being fixed as a name for an object, .suggesting only the conception of the thing signi- fied, there is a constant tendency to abbreviation by the amalgamation of particles, originally descriptive of the object they indicated. The genius of a language, and the affinity of analogy in those principles of the association of thought which led to their formation, is a sufficient test of original connexion in those who formed (hem, though no common terms should be detected. Dr. Leyden, who asserts that Tagala means the Gala language (./. /?., 10, 207), states that "the principal particles employed in modifying the Tagala verbs, are also common to the Malayan language," {A. /?., I 10, 212) a fact, which if certain, would esta- blish an original affinity between those forms of speech, and afford a strong presumption that the Tagala was the primitive. The Malay has long been a sort of lingua franca among the maritime nations of the East, and has borrowed words from all sources — so that the significance of the particles by which their import is affected, is the discri- minating circumstance of the form of speech. The term Malay in India, I believe, is understood to mean a wanderer or rover (although I do not find the word with this import in Mr. Shakespeare's Dictionary). The extensive intercourse and naval power of the people, and their want of any corresponding* reference to a country or territory, affords some colour for this assertion. It is not impossible that it may be allied to the b2 Arabic _1U Mallahh, a mariner; ^nIL, Mallahhi, navigation, seamanship (Shake- speare, 1666.) D»nb& Malahhim, nautae ; Heb. (Ezek. 27, 29); arte, Malohhoa, nauta, Prov. 23, 34. It is the genius of the Malay language to soften all aspirates so systematically, that it has been designated the Italian of the East; the word probably primarily means a liver upon salt meat; H7D malahh, sale condivit; u'j Thamalahh, Arab., salitio, conditura marina (Castel. 2070), which all imply the roving or traversing the ocean ; ^X^Galal, Syr., ductus, unda (a billoio) ; JU. Gal, Arab., velum, navis, a sail {sailor) ; elm, ft, chi, ft cha, ft, che, ftchy, ftcho; + corresponds to the Heb. p, or the Latin K with the vowel A, and is affected thus, + ka, ka, ils en ont qui marquent lour age, leur poil, leur qualites bonnes ou mauvaises. Voulez vous dire qu'un chien a le poil, des oreilles et de la queue fort long et bien fourni, le mot Taipa suffit ; qu'il a le museau long- et gros, la queue de meme, les oreilles grandes, les levies pendantes, le seul mot Yolo dit tout cela. Que si ce chien s'ac- couple avec une chienne ordinaire, qui n'ait aucune de ces qualites, le petit qui en nattra s'appelle Pesari." In this way they have specific appellations for a dog- with marks on the eye-brows; for a spotted dog-; for a dog with a muzzle of a different colour from the body ; for a dog- with a white neck ; a dog with hairs on the back of his head ; with the pupil of his eye not of a uniform colour ; for a stout short-legged dog ; and so forth. The generic name is Indagon ; of a female, Nequen ; whelps till seven months old, Niapa ; from thence to eleven months, Nouquere ; and after sixteen months they are dogs — Indagon. For the horse they have twenty times more names than for the dog — all denoting his different qualities. — Lettres Edif. et Cur. 10, 280. With this prodigious multiplicity of underived nouns, it is a singular circumstance that this language seems to have no common terms with that of the Mogul Tartars. — "Us ont a l'occident les Tartares Mongols, et dans ces deux il n'y a gueres que sept ou huit mots semblables. On ne peut dire meme a qui ils appartiennent originairement." — Lettres Edif. et Cur. 10, 282. Languages of this description defy altogether an ar- rangement of words by an etymological reference to a classification of roots, and can never be fixed but by the authority of the standard of classical writers. General Val- iancy, in a paper published in the Transactions of the Antiquarian Society, has noticed this affinity, in the method of writing the Mantchoux Tartar with the characters of the Ogham, and surmised, if I recollect right, that the Ogham might have been written with the connecting line perpendicular ; but this does not seem to me the case. The line of the Ogham is like the head-line of the Sanscrit, or the lines on which learners write, and possibly by the relative position of the letters denoted accent, or a grave or acuter sound ; all the characters being formed of the single element of the straight line without the admission of any curve. It may be noticed, that the Sanscrit root U?) a man ; Voc. O man ; Abl. with, from, in, or by, a man ; and these particles suffice for all the cases of every noun, singular or plural. These languages, which avail themselves of the principle of inflecting the sign which serves as the nominative case of the noun, generally vary the termination, as in the Latin; — the simplest of those which essentially exhibit this structure, and which has most ex- tensively affected the various dialects of Europe : thus, — Nom. Homo, a man ; Gen. homi-nis, of a man ; Dat. Homi-ni, to a man ; Ace. Homi-nem, a man ; Voc. Homo, O man; Abl. Homi-ne, with, from, in, or by, a man. These inflections are entirely different for the plural. Nom. Homi-nes, the men ; Gen. Homi-num, of the men ; Dat. Homi-nibus, to the men ; Voc. Homi-nes, O men ; Abl. Homi-nibus, with, from, in, or by, the men. These inflections vary according to the forms of five modes of declension, according to the termination of the nominative in every declension, and according to the gender of a noun, masculine, feminine, or neuter; so that the signs for the several cases of the noun are rendered very numerous. The same principle of diversifying the primary word extends to the several cases of the adjective, which must correspond in case with the substantive it qualifies; and to all the moods, tenses, and persons of the verbs, active and passive. In the Greek and Sanscrit, and other languages, where the moods of the verb are extremely multiplied, corresponding with the various senses in which the verb is used, the signs of these several ideas become in a corresponding degree complex. Many languages do not inflect the primary signs nor supply particles to denote the cases of the nouns, and trust entirely to an arbitrary rule of collocation to express the relation in which words stand to each other, and affect each others' import, as for example, in some of the languages of the Indo-Chinese nations. Dr. Leyden gives the following account of the Thay.— " Its construction is simple and inartificial, depending almost solely on the principle of juxta-position. Relative pronouns are not in the language; the nominative regularly precedes the verb, and the verb precedes the case which it governs. When two substantives come together, the last of them is for the most part supposed to be in (he genitive. This idiom is consonant to the Malavu, though not to the Barma, or Rukheng (language of Arracan), in which, as in English, the first substantive has a possessive signification ; thus the phrase, 'a man's head' is expressed in Barma, and Rukheng, by Lu-K'haung, which is literally, man head ; but in Siamese, it is Kua-Khon, and in Malavu, Kapala Orang, both of which are, literally, head man. A similar difference occurs in the position of the accusative, with an active verb; which case, in Barma and iMalayu, generally precedes the verb, as Tummain" Cha, literally, rice eat ; but in Siamese follows it, as Ken Kaw, literally, eat rice, which corresponds to the Malayu, Makan Nasi. The adjective generally follows the sub- stantive, and the adverb the word which it modifies, whether adjective or verb." .... " In the position of the adverbial particle, the Malavu often differs from the Siamese; as Mana-Pangi, literally, where go ; but in Siamese, Pai llnei, go where."— J. R., 10, 245; videlbld.266. These devices evince an extreme poverty and deficiency in language, and resemble the first efforts of children to express themselves before the\ have learnt to discriminate or arrange their thoughts ; su( h languages, in order to give precision to the expression of their ideas, are in consequence reduced to have recourse to auxiliary oral signs, which are not. susceptible of orthography ; and accordingly all these languages resort to accentuation, on which both the force and the euphony of the sentence depend. "The Siamese composition is also like that of the Banna, a species of measured prose regulated solely by the accent, and the parallelism of the members of the sentence." — A. R., 10, 245. These accents are incapable of expression or appreciation by any other means than a species of musical notation. The language of Anam maybe considered one of the most perfect examples of a lan- guage, merely monosyllabic. Father de Rhodes, the Jesuit, states, in his grammar affixed to his Dictionary, « that the method of learning it is very different from that for acquiring ours. It has properly no declensions, nor numbers, nor conjugations, nor tenses, nor moods, but these are all expressed either by the addition of certain particles, or are so connected by antecedence or consequence, that a person versed in the lan- guage sufficiently apprehends both the tense, the mood, and the number, which is ex- pressed by the speaker ; nay, the very same word has the import of the noun or the verb, and from the adjuncts may easily be distinguished, whether it is used as noun or verb." — De Rhodes, Lingua Annamitka Declaratio, p. I. The immense influence of accentuation as an element of speech in such languages is rendered evident by his ac- count of the matter. As man, says he, " is composed of a body and soul, so this idiom consists of the characters in which 1 write it, and of the tones and accents by which it is marked and pronounced."— Id. ibid. These accents or intonations are reduced to six, so that every word, without exception, is referable to one or other of those accents : "Ita ut omnes prorsus dictiones hujus idiomatis ad aliquam ex his sex classibus seu c 10 touts perlineantj nulla voce prorsus excepta." These accents are not intended for the purpose of euphony, but are essentially significant elements of speech. Thus, Ba with the lii -i accent means three ; with the second accent it means a concubine of the king ; with the third accent it signifies grandmother or lady ; with the fourth colaphus, or co- lapkizare, a cuff, or to cuff; with the fifth it signifies a thing left behind; with the sixth it signifies a certain silk stuff used by the Anamese, of a yellow or clay colour*. — Id. ibid. p. 8. These six accents, he says, might be so adjusted to our musical tones as to bear to them a certain proportion. Every word and every syllable are not susceptible of all these six accents, but it is rare that any word does not admit of several accents with different significations. Besides the influence of these accents, vowels are to be- pronounced more or less ob- scurely, longer or shorter in point of quantity, and the terminal sound — all affecting the import of the syllabic sound.' — Id. ibid. The effect of this resource in speech, and the impossibility of fixing it otherwise than by use, is such, that in several of the countries on the outskirts or borders of China, the inhabitants of one district are unable to comprehend those of the most adjacent, though both speaking a common mono- syllabic language. This is a very different effect from the provincial accents, which distinguish the inhabitants of the different parts of this country. Herodotus mentions the troglodyte ^Ethiopians who were hunted (as the Papuas now are) by the Gara- mantes, as speaking a language bearing no affinity to that of other nations, and which resembled the chirping of bats. — Herod .4, § 183, p. 362. Pliny says of them, — "Stridor, non vox; adeo sermonis commercio carent." A variety of proofs may be adduced of the extensive application of this inflexion of the voice, or intonation as a significant species of utterance, both in the old world and These various applications in this language of the same monosyllabic elements do not appear to be unconnected by a certain affinity of transitive import, though following entirely a peculiar asso- ciating principle of thought. Thus the primary or radical import of Ba, with the first accent, is three ; with the second accent, a concubine of the king, i.e. a third to the king and the queen ; with the third, a grandmother or lady, i.e. the third generation ascending, a great mother, or great woman, or a lady ; with the fourth (which is described as a circumflex), to cuff, or strike, or the act of stri- king, i.e. two persons, and one acting upon the other, as in the phrase of scripture, to join battle, and as we speak of two substances, which enter into chemical union, forming a tertium quid ; with the fifth, a thing left behind, — number one means oneself, what a person has with him is an adjunct, or two ; what he has not with him or has left behind, is a third ; with the sixth, a yellow, cfe?/-coloured silk used by the Anamese (the royal colour of China and all these countries) denotes the earth, — the third world. Universally in the east they reckon three worlds, proceeding upwards — " earth, sky, and heaven." This is not heaven, earth, and hell, or the abyss,— but earth, and heaven, and what is between them. The earth or lower of these three worlds is always denoted by the yellow colour. A Hindu priest, in performing his religious rites, is directed to make a yellow line to represent the earth. Hence the yellow or royal colour of China, which claims the sovereignty of all beneath the heavens, (or to be the celestial empire, whose umbrella or canopy is the firmament,) is, as we should say in our heraldry,— a scutcheon of pretence to universal empire, the sovereignty of the world. 11 new ; and if a conjecture may be formed from the general character of the Celtic and Chaldaic tongues — those properly such seem all originally to have been monosyllabic — and (heir signification probably powerfully affected by diversity of accentuation. The great variety of imports in which the same monosyllabic element is understood in the same or different dialects, makes it evident that a difference of accentuation or utter- ance must have determined its particular application. It is only necessary to notice, in illustration of this remark, the monosyllabic words, bet, ben, and ber, under the single consonant l> and vowel K in Hullet's Celtic Dictionary. The first he represents as equivalent to twenty seven different words, without any variation of orthography ; the second to eighteen, and the third to thirty-one*. These remarks seem to confirm Mr. Bryant's opinion, that the fiepotrec avOpwirot of Homer were not intended to denote the general faculty of speech which is charac- teristic of the species, but a peculiar race who spoke distinctly, — and these appear to have been the merchants, tradesmen, and artificers. " Formerly," says Hector, " articulate speaking men universally mentioned the city of Priam as rich in gold and rich in brass; now indeed there have disappeared from the houses, the beautiful things preserved as precious, — many of the objects in Phrygia and the pleasant Maeonia which constituted our wealth, acquired Inj purchase i. e. not by conquest) — have departed since the mighty Jupiter became incensed." — Iliad. 18, v 2Ss. It does not appear, however, to have been characteristic of all the inhabitants of Troy. Homer describes Diomed as slaying the two sons — MepoTroc IJepKwoiov, — of Percosius, who spoke distinctly, who beyond all others was skilled in the arts of vaticination, and had in vain endeavoured to prevent their going to the homicidal warf. — //. 11, 329. * The importance attached to accent in the ancient languages as matter of correct pronunciation, and in some of the modern, confirms the supposition that they had originally served in some degree, as in the Anam, as an essential and significant element of speech : " accentus namque est," says Priscian, " certa lex et regnla ad elevandum ct deprimendum syllabam uniuscuj usque particular orationis." These accents he distributes into three classes, and enumerates ten marks for them, which he thought deserving of notice in his grammatical treatise. — Putschius, \2^~ . t His two sons were Adrastus and Amphius. These names seem all Pictish. Percosius, Fergu- sius, Adrastus, Dresh, Dadrest, Amphius, Fivaid, wid. vaid. Ivie., (vid. Jameson, xxx\ ii. ike.) ; if Amphius is not Amhicht, or Ambact, a serf. TJ'g' Path, Sans., speak articulately, read. {D/iatm, 83.) This appears opposed to hieroglyphic writing, and seems to have some affinity with Pets or Picts — Patois (Fr.), provincial dialects. (Vide note A, notes at the end, page I.) These people when con- quered were compelled to relinquish the use of orthography, and to use hieroglyphics. By looking at the Syrian alphabets in Castel's Lexicon, any body may see that the most expanded or least con- tracted form of these letters represents artificers' tools ; and thus, while apparently using the repre- sentatives of things, they retained the representatives of sounds. These letters are called Estr-Angelae, which I apprehend, is the East Angles, or Inglis; a circumstance, which, with others, contributes to show that these people were carried into captivity from West to East. [Vide note I, page 35.) Strabo mentions that the fire temples of the Guebres were most prevalent in Cappadocia. These Cappadocians were the Lcuco-Syri or white Syrians. St. George, the slayer of the Dragon 9 12 The word Merops maybe understood as referring to the mere articulate discrimina- tion of syllabic sounds ; but it is a language alone which, like the English, refers each Bense to a corresponding sign, that deserves the name of Meropian or distributive, or analytical, — distributive to wit ofthe import,— such a distribution being impossible with- out an analysis, both of the elementary distinctions of thought, and a discrimination and appropriation of signs, to express the various parts of speech fitted to represent them and to denote their several combinations. All languages (as I have before remarked) recog- nise and express what are called by Grammarians the various parts of speech, and the numbers, moods, and tenses, &c. ; though by artifices very different, and evincing in the trainers of the system of oral signs, in very different degrees, a clear perception of the object to be accomplished in this respect. The analytical discrimination of the relations among things, and the attribution of a separate sign to denote them, is much more perfect in the English or Pictish Scotch, than in any language ancient or modern. Every verb, for example, signifies either, to be, to act, or to be acted upon, or the object of of Wantley, the Patron Saint of England and of Cappadocia, is, as may be sufficiently shown, Sifftirdi, the slayer of the serpent, Fafner the artificer, of the Northern Mythology. These conquered people were the Hindu Suras ; those who conquered them, the Asuras ; both were confounded by the Greeks and Romans, who knew only of the mixed people ; " Irak, id appellabant veteres Persse Suristan." — Reiske ad Abulf'ed. 1, Notes, p. 107. Irak is from Sans. 3fP3ljqr7 Aaryyak (Gram. 599), respectable, and is equivalent to Aria Verta, translated by Sir W. Jones, land inhabited by respectable men; all others they considered Mlecbas, barbarians, and speakers of a barbarous tongue. An ex- amination of the Syrian language will show a much greater number of words approaching the Gothic, Greek, and Sanscrit, than any other Chaldaic tongue. The identity of Irak and Aaryak appears by the use of the word in other languages ; j.r Eerak, Arab., terram coluit ; /p^-e Eeraikon, terra tranquilla, tuta ; ~\ - Eerakon, Babylonia, Chaldsea (Heb. "ptf Erech) (Dan. 1, 2 ; Gen. 11, 2), duse ejus urbes Basra et Cufa; plumae pars vacua, a quill (Castel, 2923) ; ""py Eerach, Heb., ordinavit, instruxit, par, acqualis, similis fuit. This notion of Peers or equals seems universally to have distinguished this race ; \£z±' r \ Arachata, artifex, Syr. [Castel, 227) ; l^V Eerech, Heb., ordo, aestimatio, Chald. Id. — Castel, 2409. This is the word Erich for a man's were-gild, composition for murder, the price of blood with the Arabs. They divide this Irak into Irak al Ajem, Persian Irak, and Irak al Arabi, Arabian Irak; but the Arabians of Irak are the same with Ajem Arabians, the Arabian inhabitants of cities. Castel accordingly renders the word c-^c Orbon, sicut D^V Ajem, Asjamon et Osjamon, gens Arabum pec. quae incolit urbes, ut itt"iyN aaarab, campestres. — Castel, Ar. 4, 2890. In fact all the Arabian race, as all the real Jews, belonged to this industrious and mercantile description of mankind, as I will further show in another note, and are the very same people originally with the Taats or Tajics. The Osmanlis, the Turks of Constantinople, derive their designation from these Osjamons, the dwellers in houses, and are the Cathaians. By their own tradition they supposed themselves allied to one of the Franc races, the followers of Frigga, the Picts or Ambichts, ?<\v Eerak (Samarit.),"Ambis regnum Josepho."— Castel, 2921. « i^fj Thurcha, Pers. (Turkey), nomen regionis Chataeorum et Chinensium ; item ubi nunc imperii Tatarii sedes. Incolse istarum regionum ita dicuntur, atque hi omnes Scythae et Tatari." — Castel, 2, 179. Fringhee or Feringhee is the uni- versa lterm for a European in the East; Frag, Irish, a hand; Frag, a woman or wife. — O'Br ten. 1 ° III another's action ; as, 1 am, I strike, I am struck, I think or am thinking, I love or am loved. Time admits only of three modifications, the past, the present, and the future, — I was, I am, I shall or will be ; I struck, I strike, I shall or will strike. These, with the pronouns, 1, thou, he, we, ye, they, express all the persons of every tense of the verb. The subjunctive or conditional mood is effected by the aid of the verbal signs separately significant, can, may, might, could, should, would ; and so with all the rest. These, all denoting the condition of the agent, express much more precisely the conditional qualifications which affect the action than all the multiplication of tenses and inflec- tions in the Greek and Sanscrit; and if the verb in (he*-e languages admits of some delicacies of distinction, which those words do not express, the evanescence of the shades obscures the line of demarcation between the ideas, and renders the language proportionately less perspicuous and precise, as the means for communication of thought. The English language affords a means of exposition by which all doubtful or ambiguous meaning may be avoided. The words which are radical in this form of speech, and not derived to it from the Latin or other languages (as great part of the modern tongue is), rarely admit of compo- sition*. The termination of (he English adverb, ///, truly, correctly, is the Scotch tins Maist-lins, most-ly, Blind-lins, blind ly, SgC. This particle has originally signified separately, approaching towards ; West-tVw.s, Scotch, towards the west ; Eng., wester!) f, * The degrees of comparison are effected by augmentative particles, er and est, which seem com- mon to this language with the Sanscrit, and more precisely retained : Mekyl, Mekyler, Mykelest, — by syncopy, Mekyl, Mair, Maist. The superlative particle pTEJ" Tarn of the Sanscrit, raro<; Greek, seems in the Scotch the particle dom, implying the possession, or prevalence, or superlative degree of the quality of the adjective, — " Mekil-dom is nae virtue " (Jameson), or its active or intensitive presence; Domless, Scotch, (less is privative) inactive, in a state of lassitude. — Id. In this sense it is also English ; whoredom, the practice of fornication ; thraldom, state of slavery ; kingdom, state of having a king. The English is, I apprehend, the original ; the Tepo? and Taro? of the Greek, prT" Tar, for comparative, and cf3T Tam, for the superlative, Sans. ; the effect of the improvements of the constructors of language by synthesis. Besides those in the Sanscrit, Mr. Wilkius states there are two others which serve to exalt the intensity of adjectives to which they are affixed : T3JH Eeyas, and ^ Isht ; Ex. ^\\\ Sadh, thick, or solid ; ^J^jq^r Sadeeyas ; SrfitE' Sadisht, very, or more thick, thickest. — Gram. 519. These seem slightly altered in import from our young-isA and young-es^, strong-isA and strong-^, &c. The word Sadh is also Scotch in the same sense ; to Sad, to thicken, consolidate, harden. <7^J Laghu (ffutt.), light ; ^^pr^J^r Laghee- yas and ^f^fg" Laghisht, more, or very light, the lightest. — Gram., ibid. The affinity of the word with our word light, Scotch, licht (i as in Lift, and strong guttural), is also apparent. The Greek TaTo^ seems the particle, tude, Lat. tudo, magnitude, vicissitude, rectitude, nearly synonymous with dom. f The Scotch word, Aib/iws, possibly, perhaps, particularly shows this ; nearly able, not com- pletely, or certainly within our power or ability, but not impossible. Abl, Welch, sufficiens ; Arm. id. • — Davies. 14 westwardly. In proportion as a language thus presents separate signs, correspond- ing to our several perceptions of objects or their qualities, and their relations and affections, and to the natural tenor of our thoughts in our processes of reasoning, it ma\ be considered as approaching to perfection. The remark, that Caesar not only wrote his mother tongue correctly, but also spoke it correctly, is a decisive condemna- tion of the merits of the language,— as is the remark of Larramendi with respect to the Basque ; that " there is no other language more artificial, nor more susceptible of beautiful rules." — El Arte de Bascuenze, 58. Languages which are only capable of conect application with time and reflection, and elaborate composition, are those least conducive either to the purposes of thought or its ready expression. In consequence of the superior degree in which the English has retained this original simplicity of analytical structure, it is more subservient to every useful purpose than any language. Its poetical composition in blank verse or rhyme will stand a comparison with any ancient or modern ; — in historical composition, in argument, in debate ; in elo- quence, — in the pulpit, — the forum, — or the Senate, the force and precision with which it communicates gradations of conception, amply compensates in effect any deficiencies in sonorous cadence, or delicacies of phraseology, which other languages may supply; and as an instrument of thought, whether in mathematical reasonings, where the num- ber of words required is the least, or in metaphysical speculation, where the deficien- cies of ordinary language are most sensibly felt, it is alike capable of precision and of elegance. The elementary English oral signs, like the Sanscrit roots, are either verb or noun, and are either distinguished by some slight variation of sound, or by the verbal prefix which qualifies the action, and the article which serves as the sign of the noun : I strike, a stroke ; to walk, a walk ; to give, a gift ; to reply, a reply ; to rent, a rent ; to repel, a repulse ; to record, a record, &c. Several writers have remarked the affinity of many English and Persian words. As far as I know, it was first noticed by Walton, in his Prolegomena to his Polyglott Bible, cap. 6, p. 101, published in 1657, where he gives a list of fifteen words, Persian and English, nearly the same ; and the number might be greatly extended. It is pointed out by Notamanus, the translator of the Seir Mutaquerien, in his letter to Mr. Armstrong, dated Calcutta, 1790, printed as an Appendix to the second volume of his translation, where he has produced several, and says that he had collected ninety-seven (Append, p. 35). Mr. Weston also published in London "a specimen of the conformity of the European languages, particularly the English, with the Oriental languages, especially the Persian"; the second edition of which is dated 1803. What however is surprising, is that the affinity with the Persian, which is a language almost entirely formed of Zend and Pehlavi roots, the former Sanscrit, the latter Chaldaic, is primarily with the Zend and Sanscrit, and suggests the supposition that this was the language on which the complex system of inflexions was reared ; and that the Pracrits, or imperfectly formed dialects of the Sanscrit, are less to be considered a depravation of that form of speech 15 than the remains of the primitive tongue, or the relapse of the people into the vulgar speech*, to which the Pracrit described as "the youthful speech of their goddess of eloquence/' (a term analogous to that of the Pueritia Lingua Latince) on the banks of the river Saraswati, is probably the nearest approach. ^TT» Sarah, is explained by Wilkins (Dhatus, 163) strength, essence; mT; Sarah {Gram. 615), the essential part of any thing ; and STJ"^ Sara, spelled with a different S (Gram, 517), * ^"r^R Valk, Sans, root, speak; synon., *fp^"07 Bhashanay, speak. — Dhatus, 126. It appears from Dr. Leyden's observations in the tenth volume of the Asiatic Researches, that the Pali, which is the Pracrit current among the Indo-Chinese races, and probably the same with the Magadhi, supposed by Mr. Colebrooke the same with the Pali of Ceylon, is the Bahlika Basha. This Bahlika Basha is, I apprehend, the Valika Basha (Basha, a language), viz. the spoken language, and the lan- guage of Valkh or Balkh Bamian, the mother of cities ; cfFcft; Valkah, bark, and qfr^i^: Valkalah, skin, rind, bark (Dhatus; 12G), — the materials on which this race continued to write after their reduction to slavery. This word is so nearly allied to English and Scotch folk, Latin, vulgus, and the common expression, Vulgar tongue, that it does not seem improbable that it denotes the vulgar or spoken language, that in the months of the people or serfs. The word ifjrrj Bhasha alone implies as much ; speech, language, the spoken language of a country, the vulgar language.— Dhatus, 97. The variety of ways and instruments with which writing is practised in the countries of the East and in India, several of which arc noticed in Dr. Leyden's paper already referred to, Bhows the com- pulsory influence of authoritative regulation. The nature of these Pahluwans and devastators may be collected from the import of the Sanscrit roots ^J Bal, oppose (the growth of) corn ; ^"f^" Bal, kill, fix, establish ; ^"^fff Balati, he opposes (the growth of) corn, he lives [Dhatus, 9 '3) ; (the growth of is a gloss). These were the opponents and enslavers of the corn-eaters. ^"^JrT Balat, by force, forcibly, by main strength; ^"^q - ^ Balavat, by force, forcibly.— Gram. 552. These were the holders by seizure instead of right, and who suffered none to live who would not join them. The account given of the distinction between Sanscrit and Pracrit by Mr. Wilkins by no means implies a priority in the Sanscrit, or that these languages are corruptions of the former. "The term Sanskrita, which is a compound participle from Sam., altogether (entirely), and Krita, done, Lat. confectus, a perfectly formed language, in its common signification, formed by art, adorned, embellished, purified, polished, highly cultivated, and is applied to this language to distinguish it from the vulgar dialects called Prakrita ; the Sanscrita implying elegance and perfection, and the latter the contrary. In the Drama of Sakuntala, the Brahmans and those of the court are made to speak Sanskrita, while the common people converse in Prakrita." — Wilkins 9 Grammar, p. 1. This ornamenting of language, as I will afterwards notice, was an art apparently universally practised to discriminate the high from the low. The Oordoo Bolee, high or court language, is the term commonly applied in India to that form of Hindustanee, composed of Hindee, Arabic, Mogul, and Persian, which was current in the court of Delhi, from Sanscrit, ZTgf Oordwa, above, or on high ; the same with Ar-duus, Latin ; Ard, Celtic, Arta, in Melech-Arta (vide notes p. 19, note E) ; Ard, Irish, high, mighty, great, noble ; Arda, high, haughty ; Ardanac, proud, high-minded.— O'Brien. From this word Oordwa it appears the learned Hindus derive ^ffedT^' Ushnik, a particular kind of verse used in the Veda (Grammar, 4G0), sublime, heroic verse, the l/^o? of Longinus. The court lan- guage of Java, called Basa Krama (Vide Baffles' Vocabularies), a formed or improved Basha, is also distinguished from the vulgar. 16 a reed\ so that the derivation assigned to the first seat of this goddess of eloquence would seem to imply the substance of this form of speech, and that it was written with the Calamus*. The Zend would appear to be the earliest element of the Persian language, as seems sufficiently evinced by the fact, that the original of the Guebre work attributed to Zoroaster is written in Zend ; the commentary on it in Pehlavi, as a less obsolete and more intelligible languagef. It is also remarked (I think by Malcolm) * The paper reeds by the brooks of Egypt. The reeds and flags which Isaiah (19, 7) foretells were to wither and be no more, probably refer to the same origin (though I am far from supposing that the Nile of Egypt is the Saraswati). The expression of Baruch, " I wrote (the words of Jeremiah) with ink in the book " (Jerem. 36, 18), the use of this term Masi or ink, as the source of subsistence of the Jaina writer's caste, shows its antiquity. ^JJ Sara, motion, movement, from H Sry, go, move (Gram. 476) ; $TTH Saras, a pond. — Gram. 584. Notwithstanding the difference in the form of the S, or sibilant, with which these words are written, and the different roots to which the gramma- rians or fabricators of language have referred them, they seem all attributable to one radical idea, videlicet, the reed of which they made pens and arrows. The arrow is the symbol of motion in all the parts of Asia. The river we call Tigris is Digelis, which means an arrow, to denote the rapidity of its course compared with that of the Euphrates. The ponds in like manner are so called from their abounding in reeds ; and the essence or substance of a thing from its being preserved by the reed, the instrument of writing. Of the formation of such words as Saraswati, Mr. Wilkins says " The Sanscrit word Yatu is used to form proper names in the feminine gender, denoting the places where the things expressed by the primitive are produced or abound; Padma, a lotus; TJfQ Padma vatee, a place abounding with water lilies ; SJT Sara, a species of reeds of which they make arrows ; S[TT"T^"ffj Sara vatee, a place abounding with such reeds." — Gram. 533-534. These words have not the S in Saraswati, and would rather seem to mean, immediately, the river of many ponds ; though the cultivation of language be due to the reed. This seems confirmed by the import of the word in other languages; UJ44 Sarara, iEth., volavit, to soare (Castel, 2608) ; ^UJ^"^ Syryty, volatus sagittae (the flight of an arrow) ; $}C, Syry, altitudo (Castel, ibid) ; both these imports would equally apply to the pen. The feather on the arrow was called the grey goose wing. " The grey goose wing was wetted in his blood" (ballad of Chevy Chase). The feather is in many countries the symbol of speed — as in China. One of the Jesuit missionaries mentions, with respect to an imperial mandate requiring in its transmission urgent despatch, that the Emperor ordered the feather to be attached to it : viz. to denote that it was to be carried with the speed of flight. t The Zend or Zund is the name of the original work attributed to Zoroaster, as well as of the lan- guage in which it was written, and seems, from the Sanscrit root SJU Sundh, purify (Dhatus, 144), o "^ i. e. the pure or uncorrupted speech ; the Zendavesta, the Pehlivi commentary on that work. " \x^j\ Abestha, Pers., exegesis libri ~Uf Zind, dicta quo religionis magicse s. colendi ignis prsecepta tradidit Zo- roastres; in Gilean est, DDDHN Abestak, liber sacer ad Abrahamum Patriarchum demissus, vel potius ejus explicatio" — Castel, 2. 6. The Pehlavi seems to be undoubtedly the language spoken by these Heroe conquerors, the Equites or Horsemen. These are the people who coalesced with the con- quered Serfs, the same with the Cambri ; " ^L. 1 Pahlui, Pers., juxta, secus ; item Persse antiqui ; qui cum Arabicis non commiscetur (that is the ancient Arabian race, the Adites, who are the same with the Taats or Tajics) ; cum ]NIli Zaban (Pers. lingua), lingua Persarum antiqua (prope Cameram: it is to be observed that Camber is the name given by the Shy a Mahomedans to All's Dog), (vide note C, 17 that the dialects of all the Taats or Tajic tribes approach to the Persian and not the Arabic, which latter is a form of the Pehlivi*, and the affinity thus noticed is therefore referable to the Zend. In the following list of words a comparison of the first column and the last will sufficiently show that the affinity of the English with the Per- sian is entirely with (he Zend and not with the Pehlivi, although it invariably happens that languages spoken by different parts of the population of the same country borrow words from each other. Many of the words contained in the Celtic dictionaries, especially the Welsh and Irish, are Gothic or Pictish ; many of the Scotch and English borrowed from the Celtic. Zend. Pehlivi. French. Englith. meete padomane mesure to mete. {many. In a variety of languages the super- lative degree is equivalent to all, or very many. neomehe nohem neuvieme nine. vashte vasteng habit vesture, a vest. veheschetehe feraroun pur washed. veete schakobaud il creuse, il ren verse . he voids. veem rouman moi « c vekio gogah bruit, clameur .... a wakr. vakodee gobeschne parler, cri ( aWake ' a Watch ; P ako ' vcrbum ' I' akat ' H ui > I Lapland, speak (spak, Scotch); spoke Eng. v « rakom vous you {Lot. vos). hckhte akllt gland ak-corn, an oak (seed). jetha edoun maintcnant yet, as yet. jare sanat annee year. pesano sineh poitrine bosom. P esanm P eser enfant a child at the breast or bosom, a suckling. peooroie pescr devant fore, afore, before. peese peschame front face. petho rah chemin path. peretosch, or peresa . poul pont bridge. P ade lagreman pied ... foot, inde pedlar, Scotch pedder. oim jek un one. thre se trois three. thretim sediguer troisieme third. note ' p. 12.) ; qs. heroica s. heroum, et ]NV2 Mogan s. moganorum, qui nunc in mapalibus degunt circa Xirwan, quae olitn in Persia ante earn quae nunc est obtinuit ab athletis heroicis, i. e. re°ibus suis." — Caste/, 2, 154. It would seem probable that these heroes had proscribed the Zend : l.ll Pahluwan, bellicosus, strenuus pugil, heros, fortis, athleta, luctator, pivetor, dux exercitus, et impera- tor; nomen urbis in Persia: al. ]NTK "HttP Shaher Airan (Aria, not Balkh Baniian), solus equitans sine comite (the knight errant) ; jl^j Pahlu, audax, strenuus, robur, nomen civitatis, |NTN (name of the city of Aria).— Castel, 2, 154. * In Arabia the language of the Pahluans or Celts seems entirely., or nearly entirely, to have superseded that of the industrious race, and fixed the character of the form of speech. D 18 Zend. Pehliri. French. English. thrwtem rag trente thirty, (thretty Scotch). frrrit khosaeschne nourrir to put down the throat, deglutition. thnanm rag toi thou. eot£ varman Ini ne - varmouschen eux they. t,i u tarpad, dozda grand voleur thief. dogde bonteman nlle daughter ; Scotch, dochter (ch strong guttur.). fedre abider pere father ; Fayther, Scotch. rhit djinak agin r scaur, quelquefois 1 J wench (the G is in English universally khen S he ( doghde .... J I nlle / I converted into W). efetio na, affineschne non, aneantie effete. zes te jedensans main {hence) gesture, gesticulate. za damih terre soil, sand. singham lokham parole sing, song, say. ted edoun maintenant tide, time, Whitsun-tide. tedjao, or tedjerem . tedjera, zari fleuve, courant a tide. beretebio dadrouneschne porter to bear. bereete dadrouneschne il porte, il execute. . he bears. bade bastan vieux passS we say a bad coat for one worn out. berezete beland eleve, haut burig, spire, aspire. staranni setaran les etoiles stars. scheeto sehadeh heureux, brillant . . shine ; we speak of a sheet of light. {site (of a house), sit, seat, settled ; the Siths TV J. or ricts. fransch penadj large frank (open, expanded). tatche zakedje ce that, this, thus. frem doust ami friend. mesch koboud beaucoup much. seeded vesakh dur to sad ; Scotch, to harden. veso kameh desir, soin to wish. • qui va, (agit) mainte {uui va, yuuiii uuaiuue--\ ' , \ attorney, an age nant (nom general > . . . * ° I ciating priest.* des pretres Parses ). J I attorney, an agent, doer; hence, an offi- des pretres Parses). J * These Zend and Pehlivi vocabularies, printed by Anquetil du Perron, contain a very limited portion of the words of these languages, and the whole dictionary of the Zend would doubtless supply a much greater number of coincidences ; neither do these words comprise all the instances of affinity which these vocabularies afford. It is to be borne in mind, that these words printed above are as written by a French author, and the letters to be pronounced with the powers they possess in that language. This word Atheorono, rendered by Anquetil du Perron, qui va (agit) maintenant, who moves (acts) immediately, implies the agent, the minister, political or religious : " Le roi, le juste juge, le grand, l'Athorne, le premier des Athornes" (Zendav., 3, 146, 147) ; and is nearly equivalent to Heb. \r\D Cohen, dicitur tam de officio politico quam ecclesiastico (Castel, 1690) ? Tartar, Khan, Eng. King. As an order in the state it denoted the priests : " Les etats, l'athorne, le militaire, le laboureur, source de bien, et celui de l'ouvrier." — Zendav., 2, 141. It is to be noticed that the artificer is placed below the cultivator in the scale of society. There is great appearance that the root of this word attorney, agent, or minister, or doer, is Irish ; dae, Irish, a hand, — hence to do ; dae, a man ; Dorn, 19 Many of the Sanscrit Dhatus or radical oral sounds might nearly as well be con- sidered as the roots of English or Scotch words : with this remarkable affinity Mr. Wilkins appears to have been struck, from the number of instances in w hich he explains the import by the allied English word. I am not aware that he has stated the remark (Vide Appendix at the end). It is to be remarked, that the word Dhatu, used to denote the verbal roots, does not imply the source of germination, but the crude material comprehending that elaborated, as the metal exists in the ore. tlfFf Dhatu, ore of metal, a verbal root. — Gram. 485. The remarks contained in the notes will suffice to show that this affinity is not confined to a mere coincidence of words significant of Irish, the fist (O'Brien) (this I believe is the root of the Dorian or Doric Greeks) ; Dearna, the palm of the hand. — O'Brien. It is from these that the English word to darn, for to repair or weave by hand, comes; Dearnad and Dearnaim, to act or do {<)' lirieri) ; Dearnaite, chiromancy, pal- mistry (O'Brien) ; Darn, PL, a school (O'Brien); Atliraw and Athro, Welsh, preceptor, magister, institutor. — Davics. In like manner, from Deas. the right hand, Lat. dexter, dextra manus (by which the Irish language, as the Sanscrit, Hindec, and Hebrew, &c, denotes the south); Deacta dictates, doctrine, instruction (whence Latin doctus) ; Deactaigte, taught, instructed; Deactoir, a dictator, a teacher (whence doctor): Deact, divinity. — 0*Brien. Chafu, Pers., vola, manus ; *£D Chafi, Heb., hands (Gen. 31, 42). Under the Brehon law I include all the traces of the ancient law of these countries : "Tanaiste, a lord, or Dynast, a governor of a country. This word among the old Irish signified the presumptive and apparent heir to the reigning prince, being always the oldest and most experienced of the family to command ; Tanaistreact, Thanistry, or the Thanistic law of regal succession formerly observed in Ireland, by virtue of which the oldest and most experienced of the family was entitled to succeed to the sovereignty or lordship immediately after the reigning prince or lord, in whose life-time the Thanistl was commander and chief, general of the forces." It is otherwise called Dlige tanaiste (O'Brien), dlige, a law or ordinance ; dligid, perfect, excellent ; dligteac, lawful, just. — O'Brien. The possession of the office of commander-in-chief was probably a later custom. The principle of the law is exactly that of the Hindu, " the eldest by birth or excellence ;" in both cases, I apprehend, a departure by the influence of the priests from the primitive law, which, in all cases of inheritance, recognised the principle of primogeniture as a distinction made by nature ; with respect to property, giving the eldest son a larger share and a certain superiority as head of the family ; and in heredi- tary stations, placing him exclusively in loco parentis. Damna, Irish, like Sanscrit Dhatu, means the matter out of which anything is formed. — O'Brien. Riog darirha, a fit successor or presumptive heir to the crown among the Irish ( O'Brien) ; the presumptive and designated successor to the kingdom is also a condition recognised by the Hindu law. In both cases, however, the Riog Damna appears to have included " every one of the family " who might have a pretension to the crown. — O'Brien, Voc. Damna. These Ceards (Kerds), or artificers who earned their bread by their labour and skill, considered it, and justly, a grievous wrong to be enslaved and compelled to labour without remuneration, and accordingly appear to have very generally fled from their oppressors, and travelled from country to country in quest of employment. Traces of this appear in the Welsh laws under the head of Car departures and Car returnings. These are the tinkers, " Caird, Scotch, a gipsy, one who lives by stealing, a travelling tinker, a sturdy beggar, a sorner, a scold." — Jamieson. As I before remarked (Vide note D, page 17), the Awazan, or people of the goose, seem to denote the Bame people: \.\ Awaz, Chorasmiorum lingua, Turcice plfrO charachan, dexter, ingeniosus, agilis in operando.— Castel, 2, 62. These are the same people with the wandering Curds, who live in 23 further evinced by the degree in which it appears to embrace many of the particles which, as prefixes, infixes, and affixes, have contributed to the formation and structure of these complicated forms of locution, which, by the system of different grammarians, have been compiled from its materials. These particles are the efficient part of this language, and express all the relations which the words denoting things, qualities, action or passion, bear to each other. The analogy of the language appears also in some degree to have suggested the application of iliese particles, though they would seem in some cases to have reversed the position of the particle, placing that as an affix, which, in our form of speech, precedes the word which it affects, and giving to a particle, which denotes a particular application of the word, a more general or more limited, or different signification of the same kind. The sign of the English infinitive seems to be the verb do, denoting the use of the root in the sense of action : I wish to strike ; I wish do strike ; 1 am to go to morrow , tents, with respect to whom some curious particulars may he Been in the work of Ibn Haukul. translated by Sir Gore Ouscley. Castel correctly supposes them to be the Edomitea or Esawites, the proper and elder stirp of the Jews and of all the bearded race of mankind : the same with the people of Ilaman. The Targum on the Hook of Esther represents Mordecai as reproaching Hainan with the sale of his primogeniture by his patriarch for a mess of pottage : to this mesa of pottaiM the Jacobites appear universally to have reduced the operatives, the original source of law, justice, civil government, and civil magistracy, or kiiiy/i/ poircr, the executive minister of the state : " Non enim lure PultiphagUS opera fecit harharus." Plautm, Mostcllnrhis. Act .;. Sc. 2, v. 1 1.5. " Pultifagus opifcx ; intelligo Pocnum; hi enim lignario opere clarucrunt, unde niulta fabricse lignea opera nominata, ut lecti Punici (Plin. lib. 33,11), fenestra Punicana Varronia, ct torculare Punicum ejusdem; et coagmenta Punicana,quac fideliter bserebant nee hiascebant." — Salinas. VwcLWelsh Eng. food), puis, pulmentum (Davies) ; Parret, Lapland, edere, comedere; Parratjet. edere ; Parrets, t bra (D. L. 303) (a borer), a tool; Paritch, Scotch, food of the labouring people of all the Lowlands of Scotland (Jamieson) ; porridge, English. ^J\ ahan, Persian, ferrum. iron, pronounced in Scotch. Ayrn ; \^->\ ^ Ahanghar, Persian, faber ferrarius ; ^J\ Ahan, pulticula ex farina et aqua. This is what the Scotch call Crowdy, which is, I apprehend, from the Cruitnich, the grain-eaters, as well as Crovvder, a harper. 5TT5T Yush, Sans., serve ( D/ia fits, 1 70) ; 3JEf Yooshan, pottage. — Gram. 615. The weavers and cultivators seem the same people ; ^"TJ Yap, Sanscrit root, sow seed, weave Scotch, wab), weft; Scotch, wabster, a weaver ; "$TJi Uptah, Sans., woven (Dhatus, ibid. ; Vide note A, p. 2) ; — possibly from the resemblance of the throwing of the shuttle to the throw ing of the seed. The paritch was so universally the food of the Scotch (distinguished from the Celts), that till a comparatively modern period it continued to be the breakfast of all ranks and conditions of the people. There is an estate in Galloway supposed to produce very superior oats, formerly the property of the Earls of Selkirk, now, I believe, in the possession of the Earls of Galloway, which holds of the Crown by the duty of furnishing annually a certain number of bolls of oatmeal, " for the King's aine paritch." SFJrfrj Satt'huh, flour, meal, Sans. (Gram. 4S5), the Siths. There seems almost a universal concurrence of import in the name of this people with grain. 24 1 am do go to morrow ; it is impossible for me to come ; it is impossible for me do come, &c. These are equivalent to 1 cannot, I am not able to do — do do, do act, or to do. The Bame analogy seems to exist in the infinitives of most other European languages, and in the Latin by the affixed particles Er and Re ; both these particles occur in this MMise in the Egyptian, although they do not constitute in that language the sign of the infinitive or of the imperative, which Scholtz denominates nudus infinitivus; ep (Er) facere (DC. 17) ; p«L (Ra) facere (D.C. 76) ; lpi Iri, actio, facere, which is the sign of the infinitive of the passive form of the Latin verb. In the Egyptian the infinitive is the root of the verb, and does not vary. — Scholtz, Gram. 99. These circumstances tend (o show the extensive influence on language generally of these and other particles which seem to have borne the same or an allied import in the primitive form of analy- tical speech, and are, in fact, much less disguised in these different languages than the prefixes, infixes, and affixes, in their several combinations in the same language — Ame- rican, Tagala, or Basque. In most languages the root of the verb is used imperatively without addition : strike, go, do ; Lat. Fac, do ; Face-re, to do ; Ama, love ; Ama-re, to love ; Lege, read ; Lege-re, to read. In the Spanish, Portuguese, and French they have generally substituted the Er for the Re or Ra : Hac-er, Span. ; Faz-e?*, Port. Fa-tre, French, to do ; Ama-r, Span., Port. id. ; Aim-er, French, to love; Le-er, Span. Le-r, Port. ; Li-?'e, French, to read ; Ambula-re, Lat. ; And-^r, Span., Port., id. March-er, French, to walk, &c. The English language makes use of these particles as significant of action, not as denoting the verb, but the activity of the agent: the person who does — the do-er, or the act of doing — thus, walk-er, ride-er, strike-er, fly-er, wrestle-er, promote-er, love-er, &c, and the doing of the thing; revel-n/, harlot-n/, falcon-ry, witche-ry, mason-rj/, carpent-rj/, &c. This import of action is retained by this oral sound in the Sanscrit M~ Ri, go, move (Dhatus, 112); "^ Ree, conceive in the womb (quicken); f^TT Rig, go, move (Dhatus, 113) ; "f^yfr/l Riganari, walking like an infant (wriggling*); JJJ\ Ran, go (English, run ; Ra, Irish, going or moving; Rai, motion (O'Brien) ; Ire, Lat., to go) (Dhatus, 115); ^ Tra and ~$^ Itra are two * This word Rig, Sans., is the root, or from the root, of Hebrew, Chald., Sam., Arab., 7J"1 Ragl, Pes, the foot of man or beast; D'/Jl Raglim, pudenda (whence Lat. inire) [Isaiah 7, 20; Gen. 49, 10??; Deuteron. 28-57??; Cast el, 3515) ; *7JH7 L'ragli, propter me: — "Mos hominum est dicere, pes faustus est tali, benedictionem secum affert in domum." — (Vide note G, p. 24) ; Castel, ibid. This notion is a superstition of the Scotch, who considered it matter of importance who was the first foot at the commencement of the new year, which gave rise to the custom of the children of a family awakening their parents at 12 o'clock on the last night of the year, and presenting them with what was called a het (hot) pint or vessel of warm spiced wine, with eggs beat up in it, theirs being considered the most fortunate of all feet; " 7,31 fcwJH Rigla regel, festum majus et solennius, qua- tria erant ; dicuntur DvJH Ragelim, quia oinnes masculi tenebantur ascendere ad ea pedibus SU18 ; Ji-, 11 Al Ragl, Arab., is the dwarf, the Bahman of the third Avatar, who at three steps tra- versed the universe ; \)^ Raglach, a foot-scraper, ante synagogas ferrum muro infixum in quo calceos purgant antequam synagogam ingrediuntur." — Castel, 3515. 25 terminations put after roots to form nouns expressive of the instrument, implement, utensil, or vessel, with which any act is accomplished (Gram. 454j (means of doing) ;