UC-NRLF 253 * - LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIFT OK Received Accession No.b . Ctes LATH PRONUNCIATION AND THE LATIN ALPHABET DK^LEOISTAKD TAFEL, OP PHILADELPHIA. PEOP. EUDOLPH L. TAFEL, A.M. ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, ANNAPOLIS. PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHORS, BY I. KOHLER, No. 202 NORTH FOURTH STREET. NEW YORK: B. WBSTERMANN & CO., 440 BROADWAY. 1860. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by DR. LEONARD TAFEL, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. INTRODUCTION 3 LATIN ALPHABET 5 GUTTURALS, C 16 " K 20 " Q 20 " G 21 " H 22 LABIALS, P 25 " B 26 " F 28 DENTALS OR LINGUALS, T , 30 D , 32 LIQUIDS, L 36 " R 39 " N 42 " M 47 SIBILANTS, S 51 " Z 57 " X 58 SEMI- VOWELS, J 59 " V 62 VOWELS, A 65 " E 72 " I 74 " 83 " U 87 (1) 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE. DIPHTHONGS 94 DIPHTHONGS, An 98 " Ou 100 Eu 102 Ai 103 " Oi 110 " Ei 118 DEGENERATION OP GREEK DIPHTHONGS 132 METHODS OP PRONOUNCING LATIN 134 THE ROMAN METHOD 135 THE ENGLISH METHOD 138 THE SCOTCH METHOD , 144 THE MODIFIED ENGLISH METHOD 146 THE CONTINENTAL METHOD 147 CONCERNING THE RE-INTRODUCTION OP THE ROMAN METHOD 149 THE PRACTICAL ROMAN METHOD 152 INTERROGATORIES PROPOUNDED TO ALL LOVERS OF CLASSICAL EDUCATION. 153 CONCLUDING REMARKS 154 APPENDIX : ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE GREEK AND LATIN Z 157 INTRODUCTION. WITHIN the last twenty or thirty years great pro- gress has been made in the dominion of language as well as in all the departments of the arts and sciences. Before this time, the classical languages were a separate branch of study and of learned investigation, but by the efforts of Prof. F. Bopp and his school, they are now acknowledged to be members of one large family, the organic forms of which mutually supply and explain each other. Most idioms of Italy, even, are shown to be members of one common stock, by the important labors of Aufrecht, Kirchhoff, Mommsen, and other learned men, and the Latin itself, far from being any longer regarded as a mere mongrel composition of Greek and barbarian elements, is now universally admitted, by the learned, to be of the same independent growth among the other Italic dialects, as the Hebrew among the Semitic. Highly important results, more- over, have been attained by the critical examination of Latin texts made by Eitschl, Lachmann, Fleckeisen, and others, while floods of light have been shed on the whole history of the development of the Latin lan- guage, by the investigations of Diez, Fuchs, and other philologists, who, starting with the Latin in the latest stages of its existence, have traced from it the begin- nings of the modern Komance tongues. Yet, with all 1* (3) 4 INTEODUCTION. this mass of new information, as our oldest Latin manuscripts were mere amended* copies, dating from the times after Christ, many questions concerning the original orthography and pronunciation of the Latin remained still unsettled. New means were therefore devised by our scholars to supply these deficiencies. A great number of inscriptions were collected, from the early times of the republic to the latest times of the empire, and, by subjecting them to a most minute analysis, and comparing them with each other, they were made to yield up the desired information. This was done in the form of moiiographies by Ritschl, a. o. The final work, however, of reducing these manifold results into one harmonious whole, and of solving, by their means, the problem of the pronunciation of the Latin among the Eomans, was accomplished in a most satisfactory and skilful manner by Prof. W. Corssen, in a prize-essay, " On the Pronunciation, Vowel-system, and Accentuation of the Latin Language"* which was crowned by the Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Our object, in these pages has been to review this important work at full length, and, at the same time, to give to the English students who have no access to the original work, a clear and succinct statement of all the results at which Mr. Corssen has arrived, so far as they have reference to the language itself, and excluding the part on quantity. At the close of our work, we institute a comparison between the Latin language, as pronounced by the Eomans themselves, and our Latin scholars in America and Great Britain. * Ueber Aussprache, Vokalismus und Betonung der lateinischen Sprache. Von der koniglichen Akadenaie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin gekronte Preisschrift von W. Corsxen. Zwei Bande. Leipzig, Druck und Verlag von Teubner. 1858. LATIN ALPHABET* All Italic alphabets according to Mr. CORSSEN, with the exception of the Latin, appear to have taken their origin from an older Greek alphabet, in which there were two characters for the sibilant "s," viz:^ f the Phenician Shin, and the Doric San, and M, the Phenician Samech and Ionic Sigma, but where of the marks of the guttural smooth, viz.: Kappa and Koppa K and 9, the latter had been lost. Among the alphabets, descended from this Greek alphabet, we find first the Sabellian. The two principal inscriptions of this idiom, viz., on the stones of Crecchio and Cupra are written in a sort of serpentine line, uninterruptedly continued This mode of writing is older than the usual Bustrophedon, and is only found in old Corcyrian and Peloponnesian inscrip- tions. In these two inscriptions, the vowels O and Y (u) are distinguished, which distinction has been lost in other Italic alphabets and dialects. [From the fact, that only one sign was used in the other Italic alphabets for the representation of the vowels o and u, viz , Y, it does not follow that the former was also wanting in the pronunciation ; as is illustrated by the Arabic, where they have one single character for the representation of these * N. B. The substance of the following pages, where not expressly stated otherwise, is entirely derived from Prof. Corssen's work ; our own additions we either distinctly state to be such, or else we enclose them in brackets, [ ]. (5) 6 LATIN ALPHABET. two sounds. Or, supposing that the vowel o was really wanting in the pronunciation of these dialects, Mr. Corssen's assertion that it had previously existed therein, but was sub- sequently lost, is entirely unwarrantable ; for it is more probable that it did not exist therein originally, but was afterwards developed . from u.~\ In the Sabellian alphabet, however, we find the two characters for the sibilant " s," vit. : island M. Secondly, the North- Etruscan Alphabets, which hive lately been discovered north of the Apennine, beyond *-ho proper boundaries of the Etruscan language, as far as the alpine valleys of Tessin, Tyrol, Provence, Grisons and Styria Of these inscriptions some are written in a serpentine line, others in the usual Bustrophedon, running from right to left, and backward from left to right. All of these alphabets have the characters ^ and M for the sibilants, some few hav^ both vowel-signs O and V, and others only O or V. Ye?f nearly related to these North-Etruscan alphabets is thirdly, the Etruscan alphabet proper , which has originated imirjs- diately from the Greek alphabet and the syllabariums, found in the graves of Caere and Colle, near Siena. This al^hubet exhibits the twenty-two Old-Phenician letters, and the four letters which had been invented, at an early time, in Greece, viz. : , |, y, x- It has both marks of the sibilant \1 (for M) and , but not the letter , P, it has adopted a later form R, ?, by which it is distinguished from all the other alphabets of Italy. The fact that this alphabet has been written, from the most ancient times, from left to right, that it has preserved the Old-Phenician letter 9, that it has abandoned the cha- racter M in favor of s, moreover that it used the sign p instead of the Etruscan sign 8, for the Italic consonant f, and has adopted a new sign for the letter r, proves sufficiently, according to Mr. Corssen, that the Latin alphabet has not descended from the Etruscan, but from the more recent one of Cumae, with which Rome, during the time of the Tar- quinii, was intimately connected. Of the twenty-four letters of this Greek alphabet the Latin has cancelled the three aspirates 0=, 0=^, Vx, because these sounds were not in the langaage, and in order to express the Italic consonant f, it used the character F. The Latin alphabet, in the most ancient inscriptions, thus consists of the following twenty-one letters : . LATIN ALPHABET. 1. a. A, A, A, A. 11. 1. U, A, L. 2. b. B, B. 12. m. M, W, A/V, Mil. 3. c. <, C, C. 13. n. N, N. 4. d. D. 14. o. O O, O, o. 5. e. E, II. 15. p P, P. 6. f I'. , p. 16. q Q. 7. z. Z. 17 r. P, "R. 8. h. H. 18. s. ^ ^, S. 9. i. I. 19. t. T. T. 10. k. K. (fc ) 20. v, (11). V. 21. x. X- The fact that the letter Z was part of this old alphabet, is proved by its appearance in the Carmen Saliare (Yel. Long. p. 2217. P.) and in a fragment in Yarro. The letter X also belonged to it, since it is found in the oldest monuments which we possess. According to Priscian it was nevertheless adopted at a little later period, and therefore was placed at the end of the alphabet of that time. The oldest document in which it is found is the " Senatusconsultum de Baccha- nalibus," 186 before Christ. Nigidius Figulus, the learned contemporary of Yarro, objected to its use, and the latter, also, was not willing to acknowledge it as an independent letter. According to Mr. Corssen, the letter x was intro- duced in the time intervening between the legislature of the Decemviri and the downfall of Yeji. After the time of the Gracchi xs was also written instead, and even in inscriptions, as late as the time of the empire, we occasionally find it spelled l cs, J (ucsori, lucserunt, bicsit) ; and the character x itself is held by some to be an amalgamation of an inverted c and s, viz. : os. The Umbrians and Oscans, also, invariably wrote ks instead of x, see Mommsen, p. 31. As regards the sound represented by c, it does, indeed, occupy the place of the Greek Gamma, in the alphabet, thus of the guttural middle ; but from ttoe time, when our inscrip- tions begin, to the time of the first Punic war, it is also used for the guttural smooth, whose sign K had become obsolete LATIN ALPHABET. 9 If Mr. Corssen, (together with Mr. Mommsen, see "Unter- italische Dialecte," page 31 and 32,) from the above fact concludes, that the Latin language, after adopting the Doric alphabet, in the course of its development, entered upon a stage in which its pronunciation became deteriorated, and the Romans lost the delicate power of distinguishing between these several sounds, during which stage the guttural smooth became so much softened as to sound like the middle g, he evidently confounds the written character of the letter with its sound ; neither does he assign any reason whatever for this assertion. Mr. Mommsen feels the want of such a reason, and in the passage above quoted says : " Among the twenty-one letters of the oldest Latin alphabet, the letter k has preserved itself in common use only in a few abbrevia- tions and in the alphabet, and in consequence of its disuse, the letter c has ceased to represent the guttural middle, and has taken its place. The fact, that the letter c was used in the oldest Latin alphabet for the middle, and the letter k for the smooth, is proved by the " Notae," in which K represents the smooth and c in Gains and Gneius, the middle, (Mar. Yict. p. 2469, P.) Afterwards, very likely owing to Etrus- can influence, as Miiller II., 312, correctly observes, perhaps in consequence of the overpowering immigration of large bodies of Tuscans, (" massenhafte Einwanderung von Tus- kern,") into Rome, the middle no longer was distinguished from the smooth, and the latter only was pronounced. The reason, again, why the letter c was chosen to represent it in writing, can only be explained by Tuscan influence, where, not in the older, but in the later alphabet, the letter c desig^ riated the smooth. In this manner they wrote at Rome at the time, when the XII tables were composed and the " leges regiae" were written : hence appears, that at that period a considerable time had already elapsed after the first stage of the Tuscan and Latin alphabets, and that the time, when it was agreed that the letter c was to represent the sound of g in Gaius, and K that of, the guttural smooth, in Kaeso, 10 LATIN ALPHABET. Kalendae, Karthago, kalumnia, kaput, dates long before the year 300, A. U. C. When, subsequently, the Latin element again rose, and, after the expulsion of the Tuscans, the Roman system of sounds again became prevalent, the want was felt of expressing the middle as well as the smooth c." If Mr. Mommsen bases his theory on an immigration of large bodies of Etruscans, we fear that it rests on a rather precarious foundation, since history does not warrant any such statement.* The Luceres of Romulus, in case they ever existed, do not seem to have been so very numerous. And as regards the intimations of the emperor Claudius, that king Servius was of Etruscan descent, they lack sufficient confir- mation ; and when the Romans, upon making peace with Porsena, returned to him that part of the Etruscan territory which they had conquered, it scarcely amounted to more than one-third of their dominions, at the utmost valuation. More- over, since no traces whatever are discovered in the Latin language of the Etruscan element, it can scarcely be imagined that the Etruscan language ever exerted such a powerful influence upon the Latin, as to change the pronunciation of any of its sounds. Now, by disproving the fact, that the Latin language ever became impeded by the Etruscan, the whole theory of Messrs. Corssen and Mommsen falls to the ground, and we have to admit, either that the Latin member of the Indo-European chain of languages had originally only the hard guttural sound, viz.: the guttural smooth, which * Schwegler, Romische Geschichte, 1853, Vol. I., pag. 273-278. Lange. Romische Alterthiimer, Vol. I., pag. 55. 1856, where he says : " The influence of Etruria on Latium, and particularly upon Rome, has been overrated for a time, but in modern times it has very justly been discredited." Even Mommsen himself, in his Roman History, published four years after his " UnteritalischeDialecte," 1854, says, Vol. I., page 86 : " As much as we can see, during the entire period, when Rome was under the government of kings, Etruria did not exercise any essential influemr either on the language or the customs of Rome, and much less has it interrupted the symmetrical develop- ment of the Roman state and the Latin alliances." LATIN ALPHABET. 11 was afterwards, in a certain number of stems, softened into the middle, (which hypothesis is not at all improbable,) or, we must suppose, that it had originally a guttural middle, which, in former times, shared its character with the guttural smooth k, until the Romans invented a new sign for it. In favor of the first hypothesis, we may say that the stronger sound is usually the older, and not vice versa, e. g., in one of the oldest words, the personal pronoun of the first person, viz. : Goth., ik, Saxon, ic, Dutch, ik t Scand. jag, (jah), jeg, (jeh), Germ, ich, Suabian, ih, Eugl. 7, and again Lat. ego, French, je, Ital. lo for ejo, (eyo,) Span, yo for eyo, iyo, Port. eu for ehu or eyu, Greek, eyw, Aeol. tw. As regards the other hypothesis, we have repeated proofs, in various languages, that several sounds are expressed by one written character, e. g., in English, each of the vowel- signs represents two or three different sounds, the letter g is pronounced differently in geese and genitive, in giver and giant ; in German, "ch" is pronounced like k before s, (as in Fuchs, fox, ochs, ox,) and yet it is spelled ch, and the vowel e in legen, weit and Leute, is pronounced quite differently in leben, breit, Freude. Although the French have a guttural middle character, they still pronounce universally (according to Du Yivier, in his " Grammaire des Grammaires,") the letter c in second, like g, which word is spelled segundo both by the Spaniards and the Portuguese. The Greek translation of the septuagint, in the proper nouns, shows that the Hebrew Am, like the Ararnean (cfr. y in y-\ # and p-) ft, earth,) and the Arabic, had several pronunciations ; and the Arabs also, if they would follow the advice of Mr. Wallin, (Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandisehen Gesellschaft,) would have to invent several new signs. Rather than admit such a temporary deterioration of the Latin, we would regard the letter c as an abbreviation of the x\ letter k or kappa K, C C where all we want to make it look like c is to drop the perpendicular line on the left, which has been done in some of the alphabets, see Mommscn, pages 2 12 LATIN ALPHABET. 6, 7. Since the Italian nations were no learned grammarians, they contented themselves with the letters of the alphabet as they found them, even when the sounds therein represented did not altogether coincide with their own ; we need but remind our readers of the promiscuous use of the short e and i, and the dropping and retaining of the final m and s, sometimes in words of the same inscriptions. At the time of the first Punic war, a new letter, g, was invented for the guttural middle, and by a manumitted slave of Sp. Carvilius Ruga, (who held school in Rome, and first used it in writing,) was inserted in the alphabet between P and H, in the place of the letter Z, which had become obsolete and was deemed unnecessary. At the time of Cicero the Greek, v (y) was adopted for foreign words, especially for Greek ; about the same time also, the Greek aspirates , - The first and last of these three characters are, accordingly, often found in inscriptions, dating from this time. The spellings of ai instead of ae, and of oi for 03, which appear in the same inscriptions, are, no doubt, inno- < ~" vations caused by him ; but they perished at the same time with their originator. Since the Latin consonants in the beginning and middle of words were usually pronounced stronger, fuller and heavier, they were generally not sharpened in the old Latin by ^ doubling ; hence, also, they very seldom appear doubled in inscriptions before the times of Ennius ; but by his example from the time of the second Macedonian war, this mode of sharpening or strengthening became generally prevalent, and has been universally adopted after the times of the Gracchi. (Ritschl Tit. Mumm., p. 4 ; Mon. Epigr. tria, pag. 10, 32, tit. Aletrin. IV., VI. ; Rhein. Mus. IX. 12, 13.) Instead of doubling the Sicilians, also, was sometimes employed ; Mar. Victor., p. 2456, " Antiqui supra litteram quam geminari oportebat scilicet Sicilicum imponebant, cujus figura haec est 3 , quod erat signum geminandi, sicut appa- ret in multis adhuc veteribus ita scriptis libris. (Isidor. Origg. I. 26.) " Ubi litterae consonantes geminabantur, sicilicum superponebant id sefa, ser*a, as*eres." This mode of writing, however, became soon obsolete, and is never found in inscriptions. In order to express the long vowels a, e, u, in writing, the tragedian Accius, according to Yel. Long., proposed to double them. " Accius geminatis vocalibus scribi natura longas syllabas voluit, cum alioquin adjecto vel sublato apice longitudinis et brevitatis nota posset ostendi." Ac- cording to Ritschl, this mode of writing is found in inscrip- tions from the time of the Gracchi to the Consulship of Cicero, e. g., Albaana, Vaarus, paastores, haace, Maarco, Maarcium, Feelix, luuci, Muucio, pequlatuu, uutei, leege, 14 LATIN ALPHABET. seedes, ee, leegei. The vowel o Accius did not double, because it was not done in the Oscan language ; nor the Towel I, because E I was used instead at his time ; still, this mode of spelling was never generally adopted. The double I = II could not be used to express the long I, because it was frequently put instead of E ; see Mommsen, Rhein. Mus. X., 142; wherefore, in olden times, El was not only written in the place of the intermediate sound between e and I, but also for the proper sound of I. Besides the digraph El, as early as the time of the Gracchi, a tall letter I likewise, extending above the rest, was used for this purpose ; see Ritschl, Rhein. Mus. VIII. 494; Mommsen, Rhein. Mus. X. 142. Thus we find, Popllius, Calld., qulnque, Qulnctilio, llctor, trlstior, etc. When, at the time of Augustus, the spelling of E I became obsolete, the use of the tall I became more general, and it is found in the very best and most complete monuments of the times of Augustus, as in the inscriptions of the obelisks, in the cenotaphs of Pisa, the two funeral orations, and generally, in the inscriptions dating from the times of the early emperors, while the other long vowels were marked by the apex which was placed over them. For, since the time of Augustus, a third mode of pointing out the long vowels was introduced, viz., by placing an apex over the vowels. From Weil's and Benloew's " Theorie generate de PAccentuation Latine," Chapt. XII. , des inscriptions accen- tuees, p. 293-348, it appears that this apex (Quint. I, T, 2. I. 4, 10; Vel. Long., p. 2220; Ter. Scaur., p. 2253,) in inscriptions had usually the form _>_, seldom the form J_ ^, and in manuscripts also, the form (Isid. Origg. I. 4, 18.) The apex replaced the second of the two vowel-signs by which Accius expressed the long vowels, and, as the apo- strophe indicates the place of a vowel which is omitted, so also the apex shows that a vowel is long. Mr. Corssen says, that the placing of the apex is most carefully observed in the monuments handed down to us from the times of Augustus to Claudius, particularly in public documents, and in other LATIN ALPHABET. 15 similar writings which required to be written carefully. la most of these writings the tall letter I, also, is used to express the long I. From the examples given by Mr. Corssen, we select the following where the vowel is not generally supposed to be long, viz., dctus, exactus, red i eta, dtri, Mdrtio, trans- lata, venins, r j gni, nolens, notcsceret, defici6ns, ctfnsto, c nsecrat, bdsque, ornamentum, ornatissima, clnsecuta, debeo, jus, lucti, justi, ulli, tissu, (assimil. for utsu), ultra, sejunctum. Still, however little we find of strict regularity in the inscriptions, as regards orthography, we find just as little in the marking of long vowels by the apex ; indeed, there is scarcely a single inscription, where the apex is em- ployed throughout and in the right place. Subsequently to the third century after Christ especially, when the common people were no longer conscious which of the vowels were short and which long, it was to be expected that the mark, expressing the length of the vowels, would be either frequently omitted or wrongly used. The fact that the quantity, in in- scriptions of the best times, is expressed by the apex, furnishes us with a clear proof that the accent of a word was never expressed in the Latin by the marks _L _L ::_, which were employed for this purpose in Greek ; for in the Latin lan- guage they were used to express the quantity, and there is no trace of any sign whatever, marking the accent, either in inscriptions or manuscripts. Mr. Corssen, in closing this subject makes the following remark : " Since the place of the accent in Latin words was much more definite and dependent upon quantity, than in the Greek, it was at once known, which syllable had the accent, by pointing out which vowel in the word was long, inasmuch as the end-syllables were always unaccented, and, therefore, the Latins could much better dis- pense with a sign for the accent, than the Greeks, in whose language the laws of accentuation were more various and less limited." 2* 16 CONSONANTS. CONSONANTS. Gutturals. C. Before entering with Mr. Corssen upon a discussion of the pronunciation of each of the Roman letters, we must remind our readers that we cannot expect the uneducated Romans to have been as punctiliously correct in penning their inscriptions and other writings, as learned grammarians would have been ; that there is a possibility, consequently, that, in writing down sounds, they at times used letters, strictly representative of other sounds, to which, however, they have a resemblance ; and that this might have been the case, even supposing the Romans to have been very particular in representing each sound of their language by a corresponding letter. We must, therefore, admit the possibility that, at a time, when the letter b still sounded quite differently from the letter v, bicsit may have been written instead of vicsit or vixit, Burrus instead of Pyrrhus, that the Greek word ^pta^jS?, may have been spelled in Latin triampe, the Greek letter

ae (Ritschl, de fict. litt. Lat. antiqu. p. 17), and dekem [bres~] instead of Decembres, in the very ancient inscription of the Columbarium of Somaschi; 2. by the Greeks, when they commenced to transfer Latin words into their own language and to spell them with their own letters, always expressing the letter c by k, even before the vowels e and i ; as is shown in the following examples which are selected by Mr. C. from among many others, e. g. Kvjvaov, censum, K<-v*piWj, centuriones, (Polyb.) Kpn t axn"tiva, (Dio Cassius), jtoirtlyixf.s, (Dion. Halic.), itpiyxlitia,, (Plut.) GUTTUBALS. 17 3. by the Romans, as soon as they commenced to spell Greek words in their own language, always using the letter c to express the Greek letter x, e. g. Cecrops, Cilix, Cybele, cedrinus, Cimon, cygnus, cera, cerasus, cithara, Cyprus, cetus, etc. ; 4. by those Latin words which in the time of the empire were received in the Gothic tongue, and in other German dialects, and in which the letter c was invariably rendered by the letter k. , Gothic. Latin. Mod. German. Latin. aikeits, acetum, Kaiser, Caesar, aurkeis, urceus, Keller, cellarium, karkara, career, Kerker, career, lukarn lucerna Kerbel, cerefolium, Kirsche, cerasus, Kicher, cicer ; 5. by the fact that the letters c, g, k and q are used indis- ^ criminately in inscriptions from the most ancient to the latest times, while the letter c still preserved its guttural sound before the vowels e and i, e. g. Ceminius (Geminius), cenialis (genialis), Primicenius (primigenius), Vercilia (Yirgilia), Cintus (Quintus), liquebit (licebit), requiesquet (requiescit), quaesquenti (quiescenti), quesquit (quiescitj, cesquet (quiescit), sici-s (siquis) ; 6. by the writing of Latin words with Greek characters in documents of the sixth and seventh centuries after Christ, e. g., Sfxti,, Sfxip, for decem; ij,vo^ for vicedominus ; xipetats, for civitate ; 7. by the Roman grammarians of the fourth and fifth centuries declaring the two letters c and k to be so perfectly identical, as to be inclined to regard one of the two as super- fluous ; also by their never mentioning any different pronun- ciation of the letter c before any of the vowels This statement TV? 18 CONSONANTS. is made by Diez, in his " Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen," I. 197, and Mr. Corssen is right in endorsing it. The case is different, however, with the sound of the letter c, when followed by two vowels ia, ie, and io, in which case a wavering i*s observed, in the inscriptions, even in the second century after Christ, between the spelling of ci and ti, and as the same thing is observed in the manuscripts, we must con- clude, that this tendency towards an interchange between ci and ti dates to a somewhat earlier period in the history of the Roman language, and that it, in the course of time, developed itself still more. Again, as it is a thing unheard of in the Latin language, that the guttural smooth changes into the dental or lingual t, or vice versa, when they are placed between two vowels, Mr. Corssen concludes further, that the ground of this development of the same pronuncia- tion in two consonants which are originally entirely distinct from each other, is to be sought for in the combination of the vowels ia, io, iu, ie, when they are preceded by the consonants t and c. Mr. Corssen's* idea is, that the vowel i was first changed into the serai-vowel j, which is equivalent to the English y in year, you, etc. This semi-vowel is very nearly allied to the sibilant letter s, and when it is pronounced rapidly before another vowel, and is at the same time preceded by the consonants c or t, it very easily passes over into this sibilant letter. After the vowel i has by this means become sibilant, it afterwards assimilates or " assibilates" the preced- ing guttural letter. This process can be traced in the Um- brian, Volscian and Oscan languages, as well as in the Greek, viz., juaxuov, juacrorcoi', o&tyt'tM', oXt^wi/, rta#uof, Ttatfffwv, (^xt'cov,) vjoaw, ra^uot/, ^aflaiov. This sibilation, which at first was quite weak, in the course of time extended itself to the syllables ce and ci, when not followed by any other vowel. To this we would add, that in the sibilation of the letter c * In conformity with Mr. A. SCHLEICHER in his ' ' Sprachvergleichende Untersuchungen, " etc., Bonn, 1848. GUTTUKALS. 19 before e and i, we may distinguish in the Romaneeidioms, several stages cff. development. In the first stage it sounded like ts or like the German arid Italian letter Z ;* this we find illustrated by the Latin words, transferred into the Greek language in the sixth and seventh eenturie^in which the Lati letter c is no longer regularly expressed by the Greek *, but by the letters t ?, e. g. r^'pra, ivfjep-rof, incertos (in the Basilics ;) it is further illustrated by the Latin words, received at that time, in the German language, e. g. Zelle, Zirkel, Zither, also by the pronunciation of the letter c in the Spanish language, before e and i, where it sounds very much like the sibilant letter th of the English ; but above all, by many words in the Old Italian language, when it first began to develop itself from the Latin. In these words the Latin letter c is expressed by the Italian letter z = ts, e. g. offizio, uffizio, giudizio, ( judicium), zeppa, (cippus,) calza, (calcea) ; subsequently, in the modern Italian language, (and the North Walachian, Diez., II. p. 233,) when the letter c, before e and i, entered upon its second state of sibilation, the original letter c was again restored, but was weakened into tsh, e. g. officio, giudicio The letter c is also preserved in its first stage of sibilation in some South Walachian words, as atze (acies), atzet (acetum), and in Germany it is still universally so pro- nounced. In the modern Italian and the North Walachian languages we find the letter c in its second stage of sibilation, when it sounds like tsh ; and in the other Roman languages of the West, finally, and also in the English, in its third stage, where it acquires the sound of the sharp s or sh. One peculiarity of the guttural smooth, in the Latin lan- guage, is noted by Mr. Corssen, viz. that it is lost before the letters n and t, and the liquids r and 1, when followed by t and s, viz. aranea (apa^^), deni (decem), lana (xa^i/^), quini * Still now-a-days in the South Walachian and in some Italian and Portuguese dialects, cfr. Diez, Gr. d. R., Spr. pp. 232, 233. 20 CONSONANTS. (quinque), luna (luceo), artus (arceo), fartus (farcire), tor- tus (torqueo), parsimonia (parco), cortis/fifyxos), mulsi, mulsum (mulceo), etc. (fy K. The letter K had precisely the same sound and signification as the letter C, but from the most ancient times it was pre- served only, when the words Kaeso, Kalendae, Kalumnia, Kaput, were written with capital letters, as may also appear from Quint. I. 4, 9 ; Yel. Long., p. 2218 ; Terent. Scaur., p. 2252 ; Ter. Maur., p. 2400 ; likewise, in the ancient inscription of the columbarium of the Yigna Somaschi, the abbreviation dekem. occurs instead of Decembres. Some grammarians recommended to write k instead of c, whenever it is followed by the vowel a. This theory, also, is found confirmed by many inscriptions in which we find the following words : Karissimo, Karissimae, Karo, arkarei, arkarius, Kristus, but it has never been generally adopted. Q. The Latin letter Q took its origin from the Doric Koppa of the Cuman alphabet, but it developed itself in a manner of its own, in the Latin language. It is one letter, represent- ing a single sound, generated in a regular manner from the guttural smooth k or c. The letter v or u by which it is followed, neither represents a full vowel nor consonant, but describes a sort of vocal-labial after-sound, which before the vowel a sounded like w, before the vowels se, e and i like a mute v, and when it was followed by u, coalesced with it in a simple u, so that in olden times, especially since the time of Accius, QY was written and pronounced instead of QYY, and in later times CY. Hence, QY is the point of transition, where the guttural smooth k passes into the labial p, as is shown by Mr. Corssen in the following scheme. GUTTURALS. 21 K. Qu. P- Sanscr. kis, Latin. quis, Umbr. ) Sab. r . Osc. ) " kirn, quera, Osc. pirn, 41 kat, quod, pi pod, n kam, quam, " pam, pan, Umbr. pa, Latin. cujus > " quojus, Osc. pieis, " cui, quoiei, " piei, 11 cum, " quom, " pon, ii cumque, H quomque, *' punipe, cunque, Greek. x6*,',] Umbr. up, Sanscr. upa ; sub f Gr. v*o, 26 CONSONANTS. Sanscr. upa. [In the Spanish and Portuguese languages the letter p before r is changed into b, and in the Italian and French into v, e. g. pauper and super, Sp. and Port. pobre, sobre, Ital. and French pauvre, pnvero, sovra and sopra.~] Before the sharp letters s and t this letter b is again changed into^>; and this mode of writing prevailed in the two last centuries of the republic ; for instance, apstulit optinebit, supstituta, opscurus. The grammarians some- times followed the pronunciation, and sometimes the ety- mology, regarding the forms ab, ob, sub, as the primitive forms in their language. Quintilian affirms in the following words that the letter b was pronounced like p before t, " Cum dico obtinuit secundam b literam ratio poscit, aures magis audiunt p." Yarro and Priscian in the words urbs, trabs, etc., followed the etymology, and thus this remained the prevailing orthography of the grammarians. In the oldest manuscripts of Plautus and Yirgil, and also in the book of Cicero " de republica," the spelling of ps and pt, according to the pronunciation, is much more frequent than in the later manuscripts ; so also in the Gajus manuscript at Yerona, and in the oldest Cicero manuscripts in general. In the old Latin language the letter p is moreover aspirated and becomes f in of, whenever it is placed at the end of a word ; it is pre- served, however, in Plautus in the form of voliip, instead of volupe. In a sort of mediating capacity the letter p is placed between the letter m and a following dental, as em-p-tus, sum-p-si, hiem-p-s. It is wrongly placed in temptare, instead of ten- tare, because originally there is no letter m in the word : see Corssen, page 54-5T. B. During the better times of the Latin language, that is, until the fourth century after Christ, when the vulgar tongue was fast breaking up, the middle labial letter b was sounded pre- cisely as it now is among the Teutonic nations. Mr. C says, LABIALS. 27 among the Teutonic and Roman nations, but we know that among the Spaniards and Portuguese the letter b is sounded more softly, and, on this account, is often confounded with v ; in the Danish language also, the letter b sounds more softly like v, when it is placed between two vowels. The letter b was hardened from v, after the dental middle was destroyed, e. g. bellum for dvellum (duellum), bellicus for duellicus, Bellius forDuellius, bis for duis, bonorum for duonoro : see Corssen, p. 58. The fact that the Latin letter b had the usual sound of the labial middle, that is, a sound akin to the Greek it, is proved by the circumstance, that the Romans, at the time of Fabri- cius and Curius Dentatus, and Scipio Africanus and Ennius, said Burrus instead of nv/3/.oj, and that in the " Carmen Ar- vale," the Greek word S^appe is spelled triampe, and the Greek words xdpjtaao$, 7tv%o$, Ttvpyoj, are spelled in Latin, carbasus, buxus, Buxentum, and burgus ; moreover, that in the Old Latin we find the forms poplico and poublicus used simultaneously, and in the " Senatusconsult. de Bacchan.,"the an te Augustan form hapeat, together with habuisse, scapil- lum with scabillum, and scapres with scabres. In addition to this we have the fact, that the letter b, before the sharp sounds s and t, was invariably changed into p, which fact was ignored by Yarro and other grammarians after him, because they thought, that they must follow the etymology, and, in obedience to its laws, retain the letter b before s in some cases ; while other grammarians, unmindful of etymology, arid strictly adhering to the pronunciation, in all cases wrote p before s. Hence the difference of spelling in the words plebs, urbs, ccelebs, trabs, which are also frequently written pleps, urps, cceleps, traps, while, on the other hand, no one objected to the verbal forms scripsi, nupsi, lapsus, scrip- turns, nupturus, etc., and the prepositions ab, ob and sub have obtained their original sound of ap, op, and sup, when followed by the letters t and s. It is nevertheless true, that, at the time of the later empc- 3* 28 CONSONANTS. rors (after the third century) the sound of the middle 6, was softened into that of v, i. e. into one resembling the sound of the modern Greek j3. f We, hence, find in inscriptions, dating from that time, many words like the following, cibes for cives, 344, A. D., fabente for favente, 3C7 p. Chr., Balenti for Yalenti, 368 p. Chr., vibi for vivi, 386 p. Chr., atabis for atavis, bixit instead of vixit, 409 p. Chr. Maborti for Ma- vorti, 528 p. Chr. ; see Corssen pp. 58-63. F. The peculiar Italic sound /, which was expressed by the Umbrians, Oscans and Etruscans by the letter 8, is repre- sented in the Latin by the Aeolic Digamma, but it has nothing at all to do with the sound of this letter. It is true that we find the Latin letter /in words of the same root, where in the Greek we find ^, e. g. fama yrw, fari, u, fero, ^ipw, fuga, ^^f rater, ^pa-rpa ; but the difference between the two sounds must have been very striking, since Cicero charged a Greek with not being able to pronounce the first letter of the name Fundanius, Quint. I. 4, 14. Quintilian, XII. 10, 19, finds the Latin sounds of /and v (u) rough and uncouth, when compared with the Greek

, for he says, "Hoc tantum scire debemus, quod non fixis labris est pronuntianda / quomodo ph, atque hoc solum interest." Mr. Corssen observes, that, if in pro- nouncing the labial aspirate we do not press the lower lip firmly against the upper lip and the upper teeth, a strong, thick breathing issues from the teeth and lips. That such is the position of the organs of speech in sounding/ is shown LABIALS. 29 by Quintilian's declaration "inter discrimina dentiumefflanda, est," and by Priscian's testimony, " non fixis labris est pro- nuntianda." Terentius Scaurus says concerning h and /, " utraque ut flatus est," and on account of this strong breathing a part of the grammarians regarded the letter / as a semi-vowel, Corssen, pp. 63 and 64. , On page 68, Mr. Corssen continues, "The Italic letter f was originally the aspirated letter bh ; but the breathing of this aspirated middle was so marked in pronunciation, that the letter / became very much like the breathing sound h. Hence, also its labial ingredient was sometimes entirely lost in the beginning and middle of words, and nothing remained but the mere breathing sound h ; and, on the other hand, the breathing sound of the letter/ was sometimes lost in the middle of Latin words, so that the mere labial b was left." The reason why the Greeks in transferring Latin words into their own language, expressed the Latin /by the Greek }, Cretan ytopti, Horn, torqueo, rpertw, tarpezita, tpdrtt a ; tertius, 1ST. The liquid N had a three-fold sound ; 1. a sharp, firm, dental or lingual sound in the beginning of words, and in the middle of them, between two vowels, and also before the dental or lingual mutes, with the exception of the later vulgar tongue ; 2. a weak and obscure sound, (like the Sanscrit anuswara and the provincial (Suab.) German n in Gans, Zins, Sens, etc.,) in the middle of words before the letter s, and in compounds also, before the semi-vowels j, (Engl. y conson.,) and v and the strong labial breathing/*, likewise after m, and at the end of words where it corresponds to the provincial (Suab. Bavar. Austr., etc.,) German n, at the end of words ; 3. a guttural sound before the gutturals c, q, g, ch, x. This sound the Romans also attempted to represent by g, nc, or c, LIQUIDS. 43 or else not to express it at all. It corresponds to the French nasal n, and the guttural n of the English in thank, bring, sing, etc. We shall now see, how Mr. Corssen establishes these points in detail. That the letter n had a sharply intonated and firmly ex- pressed sound in the beginning of a word, is proved by its never interchanging there with any other sound. It had the same strong sound in the middle of words, where it replaced the letter 771 before the dentals d and t, and, in general, wherever it preceded these two letters, see Corssen, I., 94, e. g. eorun- dem, eandem, septendecim, pessundo, verunlamen, dun- taxat, septentrio ; or, whenever in the middle of words it was placed between two vowels ; hence, the frequent wavering in the spelling of inscriptions between a single and a double n, in this connection, e. g., Caecina and Caecinna, Sabina and Sabinna, Munius and Munnius, Porsena and For senna. In the oldest manuscripts of Plautus we also meet sometimes with a single n where etymolgy requires a double one, as co- nectere, conexus, conubium, pinula, anulus. That the letter n at the close of words, sounded more softly, is proved by its frequent dropping in the nominative case of Latin stems ending in or, as cardo for cardon, homo for homon, nemo for nemon, etc.; likewise at the end of the forms ceteroqui instead of ceteroquin, alioqui instead of alio- quin. It frequently disappears, also, at the close of syllables, in the middle of words, when they are followed by the softest and most vowel-like of sounds, the breathing sound h, the semi-vowels j and v, and the sibilant s, this, however, is only the case with the two prepositions con (instead of com or cum) and in, before h, in cohaerere, cohere*)- cohibere, cohors, co- hortari ; before j, in coicere, together with conicere and connicere, in cojunx, cojugi, and cojuci, together with conjunx, conjugi, and conjuci in epitaphs during the time of the empire (in a 44 CONSONANTS. similar manner we obtain from conjuncti, through the mediate form cojuncti, after the elision of j, council or cuncti) ; before v, in coventionid (Senatusc. de Bacc.) from which we have countionid and hence contione. The dropping of n, in compositions with con and in, before the letter s, is a very common feature in the Latin language, not only during the time of the empire, but also in the ante- Augustan age, e. g. cosoleretur (Senatusc. de Bacchan.) cosol (Scipio), costitutio, costanti, (313 p, Chr.) In Plautus we find isculponeae, istega from insculpo, instega. This elision is especially frequent in the present participle, both in manu- scripts and in inscriptions, e. g. animas for animans, doles for dolens, dormies for dormiens, in/as for infans, praegnas for praegnans ; in the suffix iens, e. g toties for totiens, quin- quies for quinqmens, quadragies for quadragiens ; in the suffix of the ordinal numbers esimus instead of ensumus, e. g. vicesimam for vicensumam, duodevicesimum for duodevi- censumum, quadragesimum for quadragensimum ; likewise in the suffix, iensi, ensi in the proper-nouns of inhabitants, e. g. Alliesis for Alliensis, Pisaurese for Pisaurense. The Latin suffix oso had an older form onso, thus formosus is written instead of formonsus, grammosis for grammonsis ; onso is in the place of onto, Gr. /* Sanscr. vant. The letter n is also dropped before s in the stems of words, thus cesor for censor, meses and mesibus for menses and mensi- bus, mesura for mensura, mostrum for monstrum, prasus for pransus, etc. In other passages, again, the letter n, in- stead of being dropped entirely, is assimilated to s ; thus we find messor for mensor, formossa for formonsa, infessus for infensus. Since the combinations ens and es were not clearly distinguished, we need not wonder at the Romans writing' [erroneously] sometimes thensaurus for ^cravpos, Onensimus, etc., see Corssen, I., 100. The letter n was dropped more rarely before t, and very rarely before d, e. g. regnate, con- stati, testameto, faciedos, Kax^gaj, Corssen, I., 100. 101. It is established by the unequivocal testimony of the LIQUIDS. 45 ancients, by the orthography of Latin words in Greek, and the marking of the apex, that all vowels were pronounced long before ns and nf, thus before n when followed by the sibilant or the strong labial breathing. Cicero has said this expressly with regard to con and in (Orat. c. 48,) ut lndoc- tus 1 dicimus brevi prima littera, 'insanus' producta, ' inhumanus' breviy'infelix' longa^et ne multis . quibus in verbis eae prime? litter ae , quae in ' sapiente' et l felice\ producte dicitur 'in, J in ceteris omnibus breviter. Item- que ' conposuit, concrepuit, c&nsue-vit."* As by the words confecit, infelix, consuetus, constituit, msanus, etc., in Cicero, it is also proved by the spelling of Latin words with Greek characters, that the vowel is long before ns, e. g. Kvtfo$, Kwvflffai'rtj/oj, see Corssen, L, 101 ; also by the placing the apex over the vowel, e g. in cdnsecrat, consult, etc., see Corssen, I., 101. 102. The vowel e was long before ns in the participle, as is shown by ytotyvs, Plut. Num. 9 ; aujt^vf, Plut. Tib. Gracch. 8 ; and also by the position of the apex in diffidens, dejiciens, veniens, moreover it was long in other nominatives ending in ns, as dens, also in fons, etc. The remark of Valerius Probus, " nam correpta ante ns nullum nomen reperitur" applies also to the adverbs of number Miens, sexicns, etc., and to the proper names of inhabitants and nations ending in iensi, and ensi, which are always spelled yvai,, both in manuscripts and inscriptions, e. g. Iltx^crt-ofc, 'Axovr^biot, etc. ; compare also aft'^voot)?, as well as in Gellius, pensus, and pensito, but pmdeo, p. 103. Further, when a syllable ending in m receives the stress, the letter n beginning the following syllable is pronounced very weakly, e. g amnis, condemno, omnis, autumnus, solemnis, scam- num, Corssen, I., 103, [compare also the English condemn, solemn, autumn, but the reverse in French, in which the m is dropped.] The letter n becomes guttural, whenever it is followed by a * Cfr. Gell. II., 17 ; IV., 17. .Max. Victorin, p. 1954. Diomed. p. 428. Serg. p. 1855. 46 CONSONANTS. guttural, as in Greek and German, and is almost pronounced like the nasal n of the French. In this respect Priscian says, " Sequente g vel c pro ea (n) g scribunt Graeci et quidam tamen vetustissimi auctores Eomanorum euphoniae causa bene hoc facientes, ut 'Agchises, agceps, aggulus, aggens,' quod ostendit Varro, in primo de origine linguae Latinae his verbis : ut Ion scribit, quinta et vicesima est liter a, quam vocant agma, cujus forma nulla est, et vox communis est Graecis et Latinis, ut his verbis 'aggulus, aggens, agguilla, iggerunt.' In ejusmodi Graeci et Accius noster bina g scribunt, alii n et g, quod in hoc veritatem videre facile non est, similiter 'agceps, agchora.'" The second important passage in reference to this point, Mr. Corssen observes, Gellius has extracted entire from the work of Nigidius Figu- lus, " Inter literam n et g est alia vis, ut in nomine ' anguis' et ' angari' et 'increpat' et 'incurrit' et ' ingenuus.' In omnibus his non verum n, sed adulterinum positum. Nam n non esse lingua indicio est ; nam si ea liter a esset, lingua palatum tangeret." As regards the sounds of this 'n adul terinum j Mar. Victor, says, "won inter m et n medium sonat ' unquam 1 et ' nonnunquam' et similia, sed inter n et g. 11 This sound of n was represented by Accius by the letter g, but his annotation has never been generally adopted, as little as the doubling of the vowels, to express, that they are long. Marius Yictorinus defines this sound as an interme- diate one between n and g, just as we represent the French nasal n by rig for beginners. In inscriptions of the latest times we find the words pricipi, coque [rendos], where the non-expression of the guttural nasal sound indicates, that the ear no longer recognized in it the proper sound of the letter n. The same sound before g and x (c s), is found expressed by nc in inscriptions dating from the time of the empire, e. g. conjunct, juncxit, extincxit, nuncquam ; and in a still later inscription by the letter c alone, in nucquam. Finally, as the nasal guttural n before c, g and q, had been LIQUIDS. 47 perfectly developed in the Latin language, at an early period, as well as Aecius' mode of spelling it, Mr. Corssen explains by this, ecce for en-ce, ec-quis for en-quis, ec-quando for en-quando t as we find nucquam for nunquam. M. The fact that the labial M in different parts of the word was pronounced differently, is told us by Priscian in the following words : " M obscurum in extremitate dictionum sonat ut " templum," apertum in principio ut " magnus," mediocre in mediis ut "umbra." Hence, in the beginning of words the letter m had the same strong and decided sound, with which the labial liquid is pronounced in all cognate languages. The reason why it sounded weaker in the middle of words before labials, is because the following stronger sound, pronounced in the same part of the mouth, predominated over the weaker liquid. The letter m was moreover weakened in the middle of words, when it was changed into a guttural n, before the gut- tural c, g, q, and into a lingual or dental n before the dentals d and t ; further, when it turned into the obscure semi-vowel sound of n before s, f, j, and, finally, when it was lost entirely before vowels in the words cum or com and circum. Examples of this weakening process we find in the following words, anceps, for amceps, ambceps, ambiceps, anquiro for ambiquiro t conger -o, tantundem, veruntamen, consul and cosol, confisus, conjux and cojux ; coventionid and conventione, circuago t circuire, coagulum, coactus, coaptare, coimere t coemptio, cooptare, etc., see Corssen, I., lOt. The only words where the letter m remained, are comes, comitium, and comitari. According to the testimonies of Cicero and Quintiliau, the letter m in cum (com) was also weakened into n at the end of words, in the connection of speech, as in cun nobis. According to Yelius Longinus also in etian nunc instead of etiam nunc; still others say that Cato wrote an terminum instead of ambi (a^i) terminum (compare anceps for ambi-. 5 48 CONSONANTS. ceps). In inscriptions, also, we find per decen dies, tan Concorde, which tan was afterwards adopted in the Spanish language ; and in inscriptions of the latest times, con quo, con qua, con que, con quern, con cojugi. Sometimes Mr. Corssen, on the strength of the material immediately before him, raises theories which he finds it afterwards necessary to modify. For instance, he notices that Cato and other early writers (according to Yerrius Flaccus,) use in the subjunctive mood attinge[m] forattingam, diceim'] for dicam, ostende\_m~\ for ostendam, recipie\_m~\ for recipiam, and on the strength of this he asserts that we have certain proofs, that in the Old-Latin the dropping of the sign of the person affected also the first person singular, while this evidence only proves that the letter ra was dropped in spelling, but not necessarily in pronunciation ; while he says in another place, the letter m may have been pronounced imperfectly, arid hence deemed unnecessary to be expressed in writing. As regards the letter e of the subjunctive mood, in the above words, we do not regard it as being weakened from a, since such a thing is nowhere found, either in the Italian, Spanish or Portuguese languages, but we think it identical with the older so-called future form dicem, faciem. With respect to the theory of Mr. Bopp, concerning the original formation of the verbs, which is assumed as correct by Mr. Corssen (I. 109), we do not agree with him, but we hope to prove on some future occasion, that this theory, embraced by him in opposition to the Indian grammarians, who must be con- sidered as having been more intimately acquainted with the original state of the stem-language of the Indo-European race, is not true, viz. that the letter a of the first person, arid the corresponding letter o in the Greek, Latin and Old- Slavonic languages, are no part of the pronoun, but mere copulative vowels. Thus much, we think, is already proved, that the termination pi of the first person is a mere secondary and sectional formation among the Indo-European languages, for it only occurs in the Sanscrit and Zend, and in a limited LIQUIDS. 49 number of verbs in the Greek and Slavonic, while no trace of it is discovered in the Latin and German ; also that it is a later formation, because it is only found in the present tense, and the present tense is by no means the first tense which originated in language. In the inscriptions dating from the time of the Punic war Mr. Corssen still observes the same wavering between the retaining and dropping of m at the end of words ; but from the time of the " Senatusconsult. de Bacchanal.," he finds it generally written and dropped only in a few cases, whence he concludes rightly, that from the time of the Macedonian and Syrian wars, and therefore from the time when the Romans had frequent intercourse with the Greeks, the pronunciation of the letter m became more marked ; and to this we would add, that in the same degree in which the nation became more refined, and this refinement penetrated to the lower strata of the nation, all the forms of the language became more clearly defined, for language is the truest index of a nation's culture. But, in the third century after Christ, when the active politi- cal life of the Romans ceased, and in consequence of some radical changes in the Christian Church, which had become universally prevalent at that time, the whole Roman empire, both mentally and morally declined, this process was also reflected in the language of the people, and manifested itself first of all in the dropping of the letter m in the accusative case, which is proved by Mr. Corssen, L, 112, by a multitude of examples. From that time the letter m began also to dis- appear at the close of other words, and, we may add, to be more slighted in pronunciation, e. g. mecu was written for mecum, septe for septem, dece for decem, ante for autem, nunqua for nunquam, pride for pridem, ide for idem, passi for passim, oli for olim. How much of it still sounded in the popular mouth, we are unable to say, but from the mere fact of a grammarian of the fourth century opposing the use of the accusative and other forms without m, and condemning it as faulty, we are not prepared, with Mr. Corssen, to assert 50 CONSONANTS. that it ceased altogether to be heard. And as regards his remarks (I., 113,) that the fact of the stone-cutters no longer knowing whether the letter m, which they found in the older inscriptions, belonged to the accusative or ablative case, and, because that letter was void of sound and meaning to them, the fact of their using it indiscriminately for both cases (in proof of which Mr. C. adduces twenty accusatives), is a sure sign of the letter m being no longer heard after the close of the third century, it is our opinion that Mr. Corssen does the poor stone-cutters manifest injustice, for he has not only, thus far, regarded them as trustworthy authorities, but seems also to have forgotten that they generally only furnished the hands, while wiser heads furnished the words. We are rather inclined to believe that the stone-cutters were perfectly right in giving this preference to the accusative, for it had gradually become the general case for all the oblique forms, and, finally, after the nominative had lost its own s it was even used for this case, see Diez, " Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen," II., 12, where, among other examples from the collections of Gruter and Orelli, he mentions the following : a latus, ab aedem, ab Isem, cum quern, cum conjugem suam, pieta- tem causa, pro salutem, furcepem for forceps, in curiam, for in curia, quern instead of cui, in sinu mare (for mares and this for maris). In the Latin translation of Dositheus we find in urbanam milita, in libertatem morari, etc. The same thing is shown in the daughter-languages of the Latin, and even in the modern Greek. In the Provenzale language we find los paires, las maires, in Spanish, los padres, las madres, where the accusative form of the article los and las is used both for the nominative and the accusative case, and when preceded by a preposition for all other cases ; in mo- dern Greek we find *? &*&*, the hope, o Ttat Ipaj, the father (compare also Corssen, L, 270). SIBILANTS. 61 Sibilants. S. The Latin Alphabet received its letter s from the Doric ,.* alphabet of Cumae. It was pronounced sharp in the beginning of words, and in the middle of words when preceded or followed by another consonant, with the exception of n, as it is still pronounced in the Romance languages. It had a soft sound in the middle of words between two vowels (as is still the case in the same idioms) and when followed by the weak n ; and an obscure and indistinct sound at the end of words in the vulgar tongue, where it gradually disappeared, and whence, on this account, it was not transmitted into the Romance languages. Mr. Gorssen says, that it had this last sound, at the end of words, in the first and last periods of the vulgar tongue ; but as long as we have no precise historical date concerning this point, we doubt very much whether this peculiar sound was ever completely lost in the vulgar tongue, if, as the history of -language teaches us, the educated portion of the Romans pronounced it, during the time of their bloom, and even at a later period. The letter s was pronounced sharp in the middle of a word, when it was preceded or followed by another consonant, be- cause the middle is changed into the smooth before s as in nubo, nupsi, labor, lapsus, and the letter s is only preserved in the word before sharp sounds, while it is thrown out before /, m, n, and also d, e. g. ca(s)-mena, po(s)-no, corpu(s)-lentus, m(s)-dex, di(s)-duco, tri(s)-remis, tre(s)-decim, etc., or else is changed into r, e. g., carmen, ornare for osnare, diurnus for diusnus, hodiernus for hodiesnus. The letter s, on ac- count of its sharp sound, agreed as little with these sounds, as in the beginning of words it did with a following/, e. g." fallo for cj^axxw, fungus .for 0?>oyyo$, funda for ays V&QVH, fidis (chord) for aytfy. 5* 52 CONSONANTS. As the letter s sounded softly between two vowels, it easily passed over in this case into r, e. g. asa into ara, speres for spescs, or else it was dropped, e. g. Titles for Titieses, JRamnes for Ramneses, etc. Whenever Mr. Corssen, in the middle of a word, between two vowels, finds a double s after a long vowel or a diphthong, he very justly separates those cases where the double s remains in the daughter-languages of the Latin from those where they are reduced there into a simple s and thus proves that they were originally pronounced softly. According to Quintilian, at the time of Cicero and even later, they spelled a double s even after a long vowel, for the sake of etymology, e. g. caussa for cautsa from cautia, cassus for cadsus, divissiones for dividsiones. Marius Yictorinus moreover mentions aussus for audsus, fussus for fudsus, odiossus for odionsus, ussus for utsus, russum for rursum. Since the time of Quintilian these words were spelled with a single s. Since the letter s at the end of words, from the oldest times, was pronounced weakly, and hence, was frequently not ex- pressed in writing, Mr. Corssen, assumes with Mr. Bopp that an original letter s was dropped in words like Numa, poeta, puer, vigil. It is a mooted point, however, whether words like poeta, l^Ttota, etc., are not original stems, in which the ending a is a sort of article On the other hand, although it cannot be denied that the ending er of the o-declension (II. declension) is shortened from rus, it nevertheless appears as if the final r in puer was formed of s, and as if the vowel i on account of the following r was changed into e, so as to seem like to the Doric rfotp, for 7tai$. The letter s was also dropped, at an early period, in the second person singular of the present and imperfect tense of deponent and passive verbs, e. g. loquere for loqueris, loquere, loquebare, loquerere. When the Romans by the wars which they carried on in the east, came into closer contact with the Greeks, that part of the nation who were nearest to them and were more imme- diately influenced by them began to pay more attention to the SIBILANTS. 53 forms of their language and to pronounce the letter s of the nominative case more strongly, but this innovation never , penetrated deeply among the population inhabiting the country. As regards the dropping of it in the genitive of the A-and 0-(first and second) declensions, we agree with Mr Oorssen, but remark at the same time that this theory is not yet generally adopted, for Mr. Bopp even in the new edition of his comparative grammar, pages 184, 200, still gives the preference to the old idea of the locative taking the place of the genitive. Mr. Corssen, I., 119, concludes trom the old form pro- spices th&t the imperative mood originally ended in s, because it was formed of the present tense both of these points we deny positively. We do not pretend to pass any judgment in matters connected with the first formations of the languages of the primeval people, because many centuries must have elapsed, during which these languages were continually forming, before any of their written documents could appear in the light of history, but there are, nevertheless, certain points which, we think, no unbiased mind will deny. As far as we can see, language like everything else, in the beginning was simple, and as it unfolded itself, in the course of time, ^. became more perfect and as it were articulated. This point we ought to hold fast and not to yield up to any authority, howsoever weighty. If Mr. Ewald tells us that the imperative mood in the Semitic languages is formed of the future tense, and Mr. Bopp, that in the Indo-European languages it originates in the present tense, by dropping in the active voice the personal ending, we think we are fully justified in asking them : Gentlemen, who has told you so ? Do not the first monuments of language rather teach us otherwise ? The first form of the verb was undoubtedly the aorist, present- ing to the mind the idea of some fact or some act completed. The second form of the verb, required by language, was that which demanded the doing or repeating of such an act or fact. As this form, in the first place, referred to single, concrete 54: CONSONANTS. cases, it had necessarily to be short, and as the person was present, it did not need any mark for the person ; hence the imperative mood of the Semitic languages, of the Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic and Hebrew is the shortest form of the verb, and in the second person which we consider the primitive formation is found without any mark of the person ; the same is the case with the German, Persian, Old-Slavonic and Latin, and the greater part of the Greek, Sanscrit and Zend, so that the endings s, ^ and di wherever they may be found, must be regarded as later additions, and mere sectional formations. Mr. Bopp says, 718 of his Comparative Grammar, that the second person singular of the Imperative mood in the first gene- ral conjugation of the Sancrit language (which corresponds to the Greek conjugation in w, to the four Latin, and the strong conjugation in the Germanic tongues), differs from the second general conjugation (which corresponds to the Greek in /tt}, by losing the sign of the person in the active voice, so that, for instance, the verb bara, to bear (Zend bara) closes with the characteristic letter of the class to which it belongs, viz., a. He furthermore says, that this loss of the sign of the person seems to date to the remotest antiquity, inasmuch as in Greek, too, we find [0x]w, Aa[/t]j3[ai/]w, co-gno\_sc~\o, fi[ n ^9} ru[m}po t clar\_esc~\o. From what we have advanced above, it certainly appears, that without even relying upon the logical improbability of a primary formation of the present tense, we are not authorized to maintain that the imperative mood has been formed by dropping the personal ending of the present tense, inasmuch as in the majority of the original for- mations of the stem-languages of the Indo-European race the personal suffixes are almost entirely wanting in this mood ; although we are perfectly willing to admit that after the present tense had once been formed, a later form of the imperative mood in later ages, was really obtained from it, as in the French, where together with the original form parle, va, etc., in the imperative mood, we find likewise paries-en, parles-y, vas-en, vas-y ; which forms are obtained from tu paries and tu vas. The letter s in these forms is usually regarded by the grammarians as an addition for the sake of euphony, but we do not think so, since the letter in the above cases is embodied in the verb itself, and not separated from it by a trait -d'union as in parle-t-il ; however, the very letter t in this last form was originally a part of the termination of the verb. As regards the word prospices itself, which caused this digression, it does not at all follow that it is found in the imperative mood, for it may just as well be the second person singular of the future tense, used as an imperative, without the suffix i; and MR. CORSSEN, himself, (II., 147,) shows that this suffix i has been omitted in other instances, viz., conven- at for conveniat, even-at for eveniat, pervenam for perveni- 56 CONSONANTS. am, and perven-at for 'perveniat. Thus even in the first conjugation we find lav ere for lav-\_a~]-ere, and more so in the second as terg-o, terg-e-o. In monuments, from the oldest times to those of Cicero and Catullus, we meet with elisions of the letter s in the nomi- native case, Mr. Corsseri, therefore is perfectly right in saying, that if the oldest poets neither pronounced nor wrote the final s as a full consonant, and denied its right to make a vowel long by position, when followed by another consonant in the beginning of the next word, they did not take a poetical license but followed the general pronunciation of the people ; and Cicero himself who calls this elision of the final s before an initial consonant of the next word subrusticum, softens his remark by the prefix " sub." To this we add, that in the in- scriptions of the later times of the empire, when the culture and refinement of the town people was on its wane, and they gradu- ally sank down to the level of the rustic population, the letter s of o-stems, in many cases began no longer to be expressed in writing, as in the old Latin, for instance in Jlliu for filius, Longinu for Longinus, Sepiu, Mariu, positu, etc. ; (compare the dialect of the Sardinian island.) This furnishes a proof that in the later vulgar tongue the final s was no longer heard like the final m. Only in inscriptions dating from the latest times of the empire, the letter s ceased to be expressed also in cases other than the nominative of o-stems, as in securitati for securitatis, incomparabili for incomparabilis, Jovi for Jo vis, nepoti for nepotis, aetati for aetatis, Isidi for Isidis, religioni for religionis, Nicomedi for Nicomedis, creati for creatis, qui for quis, ani for anis, anni for annis, saltuosa for saltuosas, (I., 120.) Still, even in inscriptions of these latest times, the letter s of the genitive singular continued to be written Gaesares for Caesaris, campestres for campestris, and some other forms, and thus Mr. Corssen concludes that these sounds had not yet altogether disappeared from the mouth of the people. The Umbrian language goes still farther than the Latin in casting off the final s, for it rejects it in almost all SIBILANTS. 57 cases except in the genitive singular and in the nominative, dative and ablative plural of the a-declension, and in the dative and ablative of the consonant (third) declension, where the preceding vowels a, e and u seem to retain the letter ,s v , (I., 121,) if we do not prefer to suppose, that it originally had not an s in these cases. Z. The letter ^according to Yarro and Yelius Longinus was found in the oldest Latin alphabet and in the Carmen Saliare. The precise time when it became obsolete, is not known, nor can we positively say, how it originally sounded.* In the Umbrian idiom z had two different sounds, a compound or double one = ts, at the end of the words, as in pihaz Lat. piatus, and a medial or soft one as in menzarum, Lat. men- sarum, (cfr. Aufrecht and Kirchhof U. Sp. I, p. 108.) After the letter n it has according to Mr. Corssen, the same soft sibilant sound, which we have found above in Latin s after n. In the Oscan, it sounds at the end of the words like ts, as in horz, Lat. hortus (Mommsen, U. D., p. 128, 139, 140.) In the middle of the words it was, like the Umbrian, a soft sibilant, and expressed a transition from the soft s to r in the genitive plural of the A-stems [1 declension]-amm= asum, Lat. arum. Which of these two different sounds of the Italic dialects the Latin z originally had, we cannot positively decide, but it is very likely, that it had the simple and soft, not the double one of the Greek, since it had separated from its sister-idiom, before this underwent its zetacistic changes and con- tinued for many centuries without exhibiting traces of similar alterations. We know, that the Latins in the times of Plautus * For we have no more right to presume from the identity of the sign of the Greek and the Latin z the identity of their sound than we have to claim for the Latin / the sound of the Greek digamma, because the Latins have adopted the Greek sign for their peculiar Italic sound. 58 CONSONANTS. and Pacuvius expressed the Greek by s in the beginning, and by 'ss > in the middle of words after a short vowel, as Sagun- tum, sona for zona, badissas, malacisso, Atticisso, comissor, cyathisso, and even at a period still later we meet with ss in the place of J in patrisso, pytisso, massa, crotalisso, hilarisso, (Schneider Lat. Gr. L, 385, and according to this analogy- are formed Graecisso, tablisso. From the fact that the single s in the beginning and the double s in the middle of the words expressed the same sharp sibilant, Mr. Corssen con- cludes, that to the ear of the ancient Romans the sound of the Greek J came nearest to their own sharp sibilant. But when the sign of the z at the time of Cicero was re-introduced into the Latin alphabet, it was only employed in foreign and mostly Greek words, and it was not until the later empire that the assibilated d, t, c, g, and j were expressed by the sign of the z. See our excursus on the zetacism and the pro- nunciation of the Greek and Latin z, in the appendix. X. The letter X is included by Mr. Corssen among the sibil- ants, because in the course of time it entirely degenerated into them. We have seen above, in our article on the alpha- bet, that after the time of the Gracchi xs was sometimes written instead of x. This mode of spelling x although it never became prevalent, still shows that the sibilant was the predominating element ; hence before consonants, the guttural element of x was entirely lost, and nothing remained but the sibilant s, e. g. sescent[_as~\ for sexcentas, Sestius for Sextius, praetestati for praetextati ; and the remaining sibilant itself was dropped before those consonants with which it did not agree, viz., before d, n, m, v, as in sedecim for sexdecim, se-ni for sexni, se-mestris for sexmestris, se-vir for sexvir. This explanation Mr. Corssen finds confirmed by the subsequent history of the letter x in the mouth of the Roman people, for in inscriptions dating from the beginning of the fifth century SEMI-VOWELS. we find visit, bissitj bisit and viset for vixil, unsit for unxit, obstrinserit for obstrinxerit, coins for cojux, etc. From these examples we see, that at this time the guttural element of x had entirely disappeared from the popular pronunciation, in the middle of a word, and was reduced to s and ss, so that the letters x and s were no longer accurately distinguished, and frequent mistakes were made in their use. So we find xancto for sancto, milex for miles, tigrix for tigris, and on the other hand frassinus for fraxinus, tossicum for toxicum, trissago for trixago, cossim for coxim. [In the daughter- idioms of the Latin, we either find the letter x retained, as in French, or else changed into the guttural aspirate, as in the Spanish. In the Portuguese it remained in Latin words, but was changed into ss in Greek ; moreover, as an initial, in some words not Latin it is pronounced sh, and as a final, in some Latin words, fs, e. g. calix=fs (pro- nounce califs']. In the Italian language we find everywhere s or ss for x, e. g. saggio for exagium, massimo for maxima, spiegare for explicare, straneo for extraneus, vissifor vixi, esempio forexemplum, sasso for saxum. In some instances it is entirely dropped, as ia tela for texela, ala for axilla, mala for maxilla. Semi-Vowels. I or J. The letter / in the Latin language was either a vowel or a ) consonant. The consonant 1 we write now with the distinc- j tive sign J. As an initial, before a vowel, it was a consonant, e. g. in Juno, Jupiter, (Prise. 1, 18), and also as a medial in compounds, e. g. in abjudico, adjungo, conjectus. Some- times the semi-vowel j" is dropped before i, as in abicit for abjicit, obicit for objicit, and subicit for subjicit ; but this is only done in order to avoid the meeting of two similar sounds. The simple sound of j also remains in compounds, where the prefix ends in a vowel, as in ejuro, ejectus, dijudico, pejero 6 60 SEMI-VOWELS. for perjuro, etc., but it is rejected when followed by i, as in eicit t reicit, proicit, coicit. As regards the quantity of the vowel before j it remains short as before any other consonant, e. g. bijugus, quadrijugus, trijugus, altijugus. As a medial, in uncornpounded words between two vowels, where, according to Quintilian, Cicero wrote a double i, the semi-vowel j must have had a different and indeed a sharper sound, for Priscian says VII., 19, " Solebant illi non solum in principio, sed etiam in fine syllabae ponere i loco con- sonantis, idque in vetustissimis invenies scripturis, quo- tiens inter duas vocales ponitur ut l eiius, Pompeiius, Vtdteiius, Gaiius J quod etiam omnes, qui de litera curi- osius scripserunt, affirmant." The method of writing I I was thus customary, according to Priscian, in the oldest manuscripts, and, moreover, was approved by Cicero and all other authorities in grammar ; hence also it is found in in- scriptions, as in Pompeiius, Opetreiiae, Sabineiius. In the Spanish inscriptions of Salpensa and Malacca we, likewise, find eiius together with elus, eilusdem, cuilus, cuilusque. and mailorum together with maloris and ma I or em, with this exception that in the place of the second i is written the tali /. According to Mr. Aufrecht, wherever there is found, in the middle of a word, before J a long vowel, it is either long by nature, or else it was made long by the rejection of a con- sonant, as in Acteius (L, 129). The original form of this suffix in the Italic tongues was aijo ; from this, by the blending of the diphthong, were obtained aejo, eijo, ejo, Ijo, and by the dropping of j, aio, aeo, eo, w, L'o. Thus we find the Osc. Pompaiians, Lat. Annaeius, Pompeiia, and Osc. vereiiai, and the Latin Anneius, Osc. vereias, Umbr. Muse ate, Kureiate, and the Lat. Opetreius, Sabineus. According to Mr. Gorssen, the long vowel before the genitive ending ius in ejus, hujus must be explained likewise, either by the blending of two consonants, or the rejection of a consonant. Still as these forms can also be explained some other way, and neither is perfectly clear, he leaves this question undecided, (L, 129). SEMI-VOWELS. 61 According to Mr. Corssen (L, 130,) the preceding syllable is made long by the elision of g, in major, majus for magius, Majus for Magius, pulejum for pulegium, aio for agio (Sanscr. ah, dicere), mejo for migio, (mingo, fyu'*ea), Seja for Segia (comp. seges) ; by the elision of v before j, in Gdjus for Gavius, Osc. Gaaviis ; by the elision of r in pejero for perjero (comp. perjurium) ; by the elision of a simple s, or of an s with a preceding n, in dijudico for disjudico, trajicio for transjicio ; by the elision of x or cs, in sejugis for sexjugis. Thus, according to Mr. Corssen, we would also, have to give up the idea, that in the words bajalus, Bojae, cajare, jejunus, Majalis, pejor, Trajanus, the preceding vowel was made long by the letter,/. As regards the sound of j in uncompounded words, between two vowels, Yelius Long, says, " Atqueipsa natura j literae est, ut interjecta vocalibus latins enuntietur, dum et prior earn asserit et sequens sibi vindicat." It was thus a leng- thened sound, which, on this very account, was pronounced more softly and more like a vowel, and which, by the Greek, was represented by a simple i as in ratoi, Tpaia^o?, Mctforou&qtai', noprfqui, etc., (I. 131). Greek words which became domesti- cated in the Latin language, were pronounced with the soft, broad or lengthened i, as Achaja, Ajax, Grajus, Maja, while others that only occurred in the higher poetry of the Romans, retained the sharper Greek pronunciation, as Aglaia, Ceius, Laius, Naias, Pleias, Teius. The letter j, as an initial, in simple words, and in the second member of compounds, according to Mr. Corssen (I., 132), was pronounced like the German j [in Jahr, or y in year~\ ; but, inasmuch as by virtue of the position of the organs of speech in its pronunciation, especially of the tongue, it is very nearly related to the rough sibilant (sh), it had in the beginning [?] a sibilant admixture, which, at an early season, assibilated the letters c and /, and afterwards d 52 SEMI-VOWELS. and g. Moreover, it exercised on all preceding consonants a dissolving and annihilating influence. Thus, in Jo vis instead of Diovis, and Janus instead of Dianus, it destroyed the letter d, in major and ajo the letter g, in Gajus the letter v, in pejero the letter r, in dijudico the letter s, and in sejugis the letter #, and [we may add, by the preparative intermediate sound of ds, ts, z, as in xoov for cujus, and Zesu for Jesu, it was changed in the Italian into the double sound dsh t which, in the French and Portuguese languages was reduced into sh, while in the Spanish it was only weakened into the guttural aspirate.] Y. Cicero classes the semi-vowel v among the labial conso- nants, and Priscian says, " Van id est digamma." In the older Greek writings the Oscan v was represented by F, but in the later writing, in proper nouns, partly by B and partly by Ov, and sometimes by both at the same time, and in Latin appellatives by 6 only, e. g. Ovdfyw and Ba/3jW for Varro, Ovd^ys and Bca?7? for Vales, Ovafovtta and Bax^ru* for Valen- tia, OvfpytVtoj, Bfpyau* and BtpytAta for Virgil, etc. ; M^ovjStai-oj for Mevianus, and j3lpva for verna, (ylp/3o$ for servus, fieatidpiov for vestiarium, xopfitvtos for oonvenlus, etc.-, (I., 133.) As an initial, v or F was preserved in the Latin, whilst it was lost in the Greek, e. g. vomo and IUE'W, voco and lrtu>, volvo and ?uo, vinum and o^oj, vzoZa and lov, vitulus and traTioj, ver and j?p, vespera and Icy^fpa, Vesta and Itrrta, vestis and Jor^j, etc. On the other hand, it was elided before con- sonants in the Latin language, while the Greeks, in the Aeolic and Doric dialects, according to Messrs. Ahrens and Diet- rich, preserved it in ]3 which was put in the place of the digamma, e. g. radix and /3pia, rosa and /3po6o*> ; rigo and |3pl^w, rugio and /3pv^ao^at, (I., 134.) As a medial, it throws off a preceding d and #, as in bellum for dvellum, duellum, bis for I'i's from cZuis, viginti for SEMI-VOWELS. 63 ginti, fiver e for figvere, figere, etc. With regard to Mr. Corssen's theory that the letter v casts off also a preceding / in the perfect tense, thus that proba-vi stands for proba-fui and mon-ui for mone-fui, we cannot agree with him, as there is not the slightest occasion of such a supposition ; for in the Urabrian language we find/ between two vowels in the place of the Latin v, also in other words. Moreover, the letter u infui docs not at all express the past tense, as has been very justly observed by Prof. Harrison, and we may add, that even, if the termination vi or ui is derived from the older form/uw, the syllable vi in this word is as much a perfect- ending, as in the word flevi, and its origin is thus by no means solved ; this we shall endeavor to do in some other place. Mr. Corssen continues, (I, 134), the reduction of v into u, after consonants, is of very old date ; thus we find tui and tuus for Saner, tvam, sui and suus for Sanscr. svas, suavis for Sanscr. svadus [as Germ, suss for Engl. sweet.] Thus also vo is changed into uo in vacuus for vacvus, perpetuus for perpetvus, relicuus for relicvus, assiduus for assidvus, perspicuus for perspicvus, farther in caeduus, exiguus, vidua, fatuus, mortuus, ingenuus, while it is retained after r and I in alvus, arvum, calvus, larva, salvus, ervum, malva, acervus, silva, urvus, ulvus, curvus. Hence Mr. Corssen holds that resolutions such as dissoluo, evoluam, siliia, lariia, miliios, are artificial productions of higher poetry, which did not take their origin in the language of the people. Lastly the letter v is even elided after d, t and s, as has been done in most ancient times after t and s in te and tibi together with genitive tui, Sanscr. tvam, in se and sibi together with sui, Sanscr. svas ; just as in Greek the digamma is re- jected after , xv, %v, /ia$ for fyta^, (a is changed into i before n, v into i,) together with or forms legiminor, read yourselves, v/taj avt-sj, which is even more used in this connexion, than savtus. This final os became oi, ei, i in the present, and thus in all other tenses. Of. Benfey, Sanscr. Grammar, p. 124; Bopp, Vergleich. Gr. II., 123. We deem ourselves just as much at liberty, in elaborating this present theory, to dive into ante-historical ages, as the originator of the former one.^ There also exists an affinity between the linguals or dentals d and t, and the vowel i, but this did not manifest itself so decidedly in the oldest times, as we frequently find e in ante- Augustan inscriptions, where afterwards we find i, e.-g. mereto and meretod for merito, apparetoris for apparitoris, habeta- batur for habitabatur, inter cedeto for interceded (I, 290). According to Mr. Corssen, the characteristic vowel a of the a-conjugation, and the vowel e of the e-conjugation are frequently not only shortened into e, but by the influence of the following t, also changed into i, e. g. habitum, habitus for habetum, habitus ; exercitum, exercitus, exercitium for exercetum, exercetus, exercetium, etc. (I, 291). I also appears instead of e before d, in the adjectives which are derived from verbs of the e-conjugation, and from nouns of the a and u-declension, while in the popular pronunciation the letter e seems to have remained, e. g. in pavidus from paveo, albidus from albeo, viridis for viridus from vireo, frigidus from frigeo, herbidus from herba, gelidus from gelu, etc. (L, 292). On the other hand, we find soledus for solidus in an inscription, dating from the time of the Gracchi, and in the provincial Latin, at the time of the empire, we fine" Caledius, Muredius, Veibedius, Calvedius, Sultedius, Vet- tedius. Still more, we not only find it before d, but likewise, 82 VOWELS. before other consonants, as in menus for minus, menester for minister, fescu for fiscu, senu for sinu, dulcessima for dulcissima, lecuerunt for licuerunt, oreginem for oriyinem, etc. ; while in the provincial Latin of Southern Italy, i is found, where in the cultivated Roman e is retained, e. g. rim for rem, ist for est, dibito for debito, sedito for sedeto, fru- minto for frumento, sinatum for senatum, cinsum for censum, cinsuerint for censuerint, habibit for habebit, venirandae for venerandae, ditulit for detulit, cinerim for cinerem, sicundo for secundo (L, 297). Traces of this more modern t are also found in the later vulgar tongue, outside of Southern Italy, as in rinovato for renovato, dipositus for depositus. Mr. Corssen is perfectly right in citing both long and short vowels, to which prosody, at one time, attributes one, and, at another, two lengths ; and, also, in declaring, that in a living language Jihere are sounds, which cannot be strictly said, either to possess one, or two lengths, and which, when mea- sured by this scale, are found to be either a fraction too long or too short, just as in music, where besides the regular whole, half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes, there are also other intermediate ones between each of these, which cannot be absolutely measured, that is, which are irrational. He, moreover, says that before a long vowel, measuring two lengths, is completely reduced to a short vowel, measuring one, it first passes through an intermediate state in which it is neither long nor short; and, that before a short vowel, which measures one length, is rendered perfectly inaudible, it first shrivels up into a fraction of a length, and often con- tinues for a long time in this crippled state, before it finally expires. These fragments of vowels he compares with the Shevas in the Semitic languages, which present a great variety of shades, as regards their pronunciation. This comparison we find excellent, but we believe that the Sheva is not always the fragment of a vowel, but in many cases, both in nouns and in verbs, the embryo from which in the originally mono- VOWELS. 83 syllabic words of the Semitic languages, in the course of time, a full vowel was developed, forming a new syllable, e. g. (he reigned) Aram, m'lakh, Hebr. malakh, Arab. malakha ; (king) Syr. and Chald. m'lakh, Hebr. melekh, Arabic malkhon, malikhon. 0. In the pronunciation of the vowel o the lips are contracted into somewhat of a circular form, and the anterior part of the tongue is depressed, so that the breath, ejected from the wind-pipe, resounds through the round cavity of the mouth ; 1 cavo ore ' as Quintilian has it. As a general thing the vowel o was pronounced, as in all other cognate tongues. / Only the o contracted from au, according to Mr. Corssen, sounded less clear, but more full than the ordinary o in poto, dono, honore. The Romans, like the Oscans, did not dis- tinguish the long and short o in writing ; but their quantity was sometimes indicated by the apex (I., 9--11). The short o, as can be proved, in most cases arose from an original a, and it manifests, especially, a great attraction for v and u, before and after which letters it even remained in after-times, when it ordinarily passed off into u, i or e, (I., 233-235). Compare the following scheme. Lat. pars, Lat. portio, Lat. impertio, Sanscr. aw, " ovi, [Engl. ewe,'] " navas, " novus, Gr. vFs, Germ, neu, [Engl. new~\. " 6attvdras t " quatuor, Gr. " vaeas, " vox, " " vat, " voc-o, " 11 vam " vom-o, " Lat. vacuus, " vocuus, vocivus, vocatio, Sanscr. baranti, " veivont,vivunt* [Span, viven,'] * " Carmen Saliare," tremonti [Gr. fpefiorn, rp^wwJfor tremunt. 84 VOWELS. Lat. vaster, Lat. vester, " vorto, " verto, " voto, " veto, Sanscr. pad, Gr. *o$, Lat. compos, compes, [Engl. sang past, Engl. song, sung, Engl. sing, present primitive form, first derivative, second derivative], Sanscr. ganitar, Gr. y), contracted from au, compare octauus. The o long of the original suffix on was shortened, as in homo, but it generally remained long, until after the time of Augustus (I., 343, 344) ; still, by the arsis it can be made long again. The same, also, applies to the ending o in the first person sing, of verbs, e. g. in eo, ago, void, scio, sino, nego, dabo, ero, etc., (I., 345-347), and to the ending o of the imperative mood, e. g., ddto, esto, respondeto, (I., 347). The vowel o, is dropped in the formation of feminines, as in actrix, (actorix, acterix,^) from actor, accusatrix, (accu- satorix, accusaterix,*) from accusator, genitrix from genitor. Mr. Corssen says (II. , 4), that after the suffix ic, was added to the masculine victor, etc., the vowel o, in the penult was shortened, because an unaccented penult cannot continue long, when the stress or ictus is on the antepenult. Subse- quently, the letter o in victorix was elided, after it had very likely been first reduced into e, as in temperi, pigneri, instead of tempori, pignori, etc. It was dropped in a similar manner in textrina, tonstrina, pistrina, latrina, where the suffix tor denotes the acting person, and the suffix ina the place where this person generally performs his actions ; it was likewise dropped in comix from xopwi/^, and in neptis and proneplis, from nepos, after this had first been changed into nepotis, pronepotis, and afterwards into nepUis and pronepitis. The vowel o is rejected at the end of words, e. g. in ab from drfo, sub from vn6, (II., 56) ; at the end of unaccented syllables, as in mdlo for mauolo, Ma-rs from Ma-vors, sur- sum for suvorsum, (II. , 133); further at the end of the first member of compounds, e. g. in rem[o~\igium, un[o~\ocu- lus, (II., 134). The first letter of the second member of compounds disappears before o, as in colescat for coalescat, colescere for coalescere, coluerunt for coaluerunt, and coctus for coactus, (II. , 134, 135). Mr. Qorssen says, (II., 147), that more rarely one of the two unaccented vowels of the two last syllables in a word is elided, of which both belong VOWELS. 87 to the suffix, appended to the stem, as ali-s for ali-os, ali-d for ali-od. The same also sometimes happens before the s of the nominative case in the provincial Latin, as well as in the Oscan and Umbrian, e. g. Prov. Lat. Bruti-s Osc. Heirenni-s Umbr. Trutiti-s " Niumsi-s " Koisi-s U. In the pronunciation of te, the organs of speech occupy the same position as in the pronunciation of o, with this excep- tion that the lips are not only contracted, but also protrude, so that the entrance into the cavity of the mouth is narrowed, by this means, and the sound of u produced. Inasmuch as in the pronunciation of u the lips are princi- pally active, this vowel has a decided affinity for the labials, and Mr. Corssen (I., 149) hence calls it the labial vowel, i the lingual, a the guttural, and e an intermediate vowel between the guttural a and lingual i, and o between the gut- tural a and labial u. We have no objection to Mr. Corssen 's calling i a lingual or dental vowel, and u a labial, for in the former the tongue is prominently active, and in the latter the lips appear to be so, although in reality the vowel u is formed far down in the throat, and, with some practice, can be pro- nounced there, with the mouth wide open. The history of the Latin language, also, furnishes us with clear instances, where these two vowels are influenced by their respective consonants, and manifest a strong affinity for them ; but we do object to his calling the vowel a a guttural vowel, for that part of the mouth, where the guttural consonants are formed, is not any more active in the pronunciation of a, than in that of any other vowels ; moreover, Mr. Corssen does not furnish us with one single instance, where the guttural consonants exert 88 VOWELS. any particular influence over a, or where this vowel manifests any peculiar affinity for them. In some future work, where we shall treat on the formation of the vowels and consonants, we shall enter more fully into this subject. The long u has several origins. It is contracted from au in words like the following, viz. : rudus for raudus, rudus- culum together with rauduscula, adrudus for adraudus, defrudo for defraudo, frustra for fraustera, frudes for fraudes, frudavi for fraudavi, (Plaut.) cludo for claudo ; in the Umbrian, also, we find, uhtur for auctor and turuf for taurus. It is derived from ou in publico, poplicod, poublicom; nuntiuSj nontiata, nountios ; nundinum, nondinfum^, nounas, noundinum ; Nuceriafor Nouceria, (I., 174.) It is very seldom formed from eu in Lucetium for Leucesio (I., 176 )(fc 177), more frequently from oe and oi, as in ludunt, ludeis from loedos, loidos ; unum from oenus, oino ; plures from ploera, ploirume, miinicipium from immoenis, moini- cipium ; utier from oetier, oitile ; curarunt from coeravit, coiravit ; murum from moerum, moiro ; punire from poena, noivri; Punicus from Poenus, Poenicia. The Latin u, when long, generally sounded like u in rule, and when short, like u in put, or oo in book, and Marius Yictorinus is right in saying, " U liter am, quam nisi per ov conjunctam [French ou in jour~], Graeci pronuntiare non possunt." The Latin u, thus sounded like the German u or the English u in rule or put [or ou in should^. The Greeks generally represented it by ov, which corresponds to the above u in rule and put, sometimes by o, and very rarely by v. Mr. Corssen is perfectly right in saying (I., 149), that unless the Greeks marked a very decided distinction between the short Latin u, and the short vowels of their own tongue, in writing Latin words, they would never have represented the short Latin u, in all cases, by the mark of their diphthong ov. The fact that the Latins, in a certain number of words, had an intermediate sound, for which the Emperor Claudius in- VOWELS. 89 vented a peculiar mark, we have noticed above in our article on i. U was weakened from a in the second member of com- pounds, after it had first lost its accent by composition, e. g., occupo, aucupor from capio, where the u remains unaccented and aucupium, mancupium, occupio, where it afterwards re- gained its accent; derupio, surrupio, surruptitiae, surrup- tus, eruptus from rapio, instead of the later forms, deripio, surreptus, etc. ; enubro, from en-habeo, inhibeo ; illumes for inluvium, diluvium, malluvium for manluvium, pellavium all from lavo ; desulio, dissulio, insulio, prosulio, exsulto, desultor from salio, which, at a later period, were partly weakened into dissilio, desilio, prosilio ; conculco from cal- care ; cone utio, concuotio from quatio ; absurdus from sardare. became u, in the o-declension before s and m, in the mouth of the educated, (I., 239, 241), thus tribunus for tri- bunos, Plautius for Plautios, etc., donum for donom, pocu- lam for poculom, (I., 41). In a similar mariner, in the consonantal and the fourth or u-declension, o, at an earlier period, was changed into u, e. g., nominus for nominos, do- muus for domuos, senatuus for senatuos, and this u was afterwards changed into i, e. g., nominis for nominus, sena- tuis for senatuus. The labials b, p, f, m, show a natural affinity for the vowel u, in the pronunciation of which the lips are mostly active (I., 252-254), [compare the Hebrew u instead of ve before b, m, ph~\, for this reason glaucuma was made of yxavxw^a. The original o of the first pers. plur., which in Sanscrit is a, in Greek [and old Sclavonic] o with a nasal sound is obscured into u, but, subsequently, mostly reduced into i, as in sumus [for esomos"], Gr. i \a6^^a ; volumus for votomos, Gr. j3xo/t^a, nolumus for nolomos, malumus for malomos, [quaesumus for quaesomos']. For the same reason u appears, in the old Latin, before suffixes commencing with m, as in decuma f infumum, lacrumas, maritumeis, optuma, probisuma t inaxume, proxumeis. vicensumam, ploirume, facilumed. 90 VOWELS. Thus a and e, before the suffixes monio and mento, passed into u, as in testumonium from testa-, and monumentum and documentum from mone~, and doce. Mr. Corssen, very unnecessarily, it seems to us, derives testimonium from testis as humanus, from huminem, which form is mentioned by Priscian. In the above suffixes, also, the vowel u was after- wards reduced into i. In the latest Latin, we also find o in monomentum (L, 253) which may be a remnant of antiquity in the vulgar tongue. Yery pertinent instances of the sirong affinity existing between ra arid u are the Plautian forms drachuma for fyc^ur, Alcumena for 'A&x/ujf/q, Alcumaeo for ' Ahxpaiw,Tecumessa for Tex^caa: in order to obviate the combination cm, which was not convenient to Roman organs, the vowel-like admixture of m was there developed into a mute u, as that of I in Hercules and Aesculapius (L, 253). In case/ or 6 was the initial of the second member of compounds, ^ was originally, in most cases, made the final of the stem ; nay, it even favored the generation of u in the following syllable. This we see illustrated in the following Plautian forms, viz : sacrufico for sacrifice-, magnujicus for magnificus, fumuficem, signuficem, spurcuficum, pontufex, tnunuficus, opufex, carnufex, carnuficina ; and this u remained in manufestus. We, also, find bubus for bobus, rubeus together with robeus, rubustis with robustis ; Hecuba from an older form Hecoba, Gr. *Exa/3^ ; and ebur together with ebor, robur with robor (comp. marmur for marmor), tubulustrium from tuba. When followed by I, as well in stems, as in the suffixes ulo, bulo, culo and their derivatives, the vowel o of the Old-Latin is obscured into u. In the older inscriptions the original o was frequently preserved, and appears still in some inscriptions during the time of the empire, but in the later inscriptions [after the written language again approximated to the vulgar tongue], it most decidedly came into use again. Some traces of the obscuration of o into u are visible at a very early period, as in Cesula, adulescens, epistula. About the time of Lucilius VOWELS. 91 and Accius a vacillation is seen, in the inscriptions, between o and u, e. g. detulerit and detolerit, tabulas and taboleis, populus and popolus, singulos and singolos, etc., (I., 255). According to Mr. Corssen, the change of o into u before Z, in the classical period of Roman literature, was owing to the affinity between I and u. The letter Z, as we have seen above, as an initial, and after I had a lighter sound, and, in all other cases, one which was fuller and heavier. This latter sound is produced, when, in pronouncing Z, we bend up the tongue towards the palate, as is done in the pronunciation of u [?]. By this means the consonant Z obtains a vowel-like admixture, resembling u, which assimilates all preceding rowels into u. The Greek x,on the other hand, contrary to the Latin, has always the more slender and lighter sound, and hence before the suffix AO it is not only attended by o, v and i, but also by the clear sounding vowels a and *, while the Latin Z, during the classical period of the language and literature, with a few exceptions, only suffered u, unless it was exposed to the influence of a preceding vowel which demanded o. See the following examples. pessulus for rfaaw>^, SCUtuld, " 6xvfd).ri, triobulus " 6j3oXoj, SCOpuluS " 6x6rtf\o$, COnduluS " xovSvXof, spatula " 6*0,1 'a*.*]. Menolaus for Mci/c&aof,, and Patricoles for nat'poxA^ are the only instances which make an exception. When the liquid I is followed by another consonant, the vowels o, a, e, are obscured in a like manner into u. Thus we find multa for molticatod, consultum from consoltu, occulto from oquoltod, culpa from colpa, pulcher from rfoa,v#poo$, cultus from coZo, adultus from adole, stultus from stolidus, ultra from olus (oloes), puls, pulmentum from rtoxroj, sulcus from fax6$, Culchis from bulbus from 0oa,/3o$, imbulbito from /3o?ij3tro/, ^Zrm from pulvis, pollen from *atoj, pulsus, vulsus from 92 VOWELS. vello, perculsus from percello, mulgeo from d/tt^yw, promulco from promellere, remulcare and remeligines, sepulcrum sepultus from sepelio, catapulta from xatartfA?^, fulmen, fulgor \_flamen\ from flagro, fulvus from flavus, tremunt, (Carmen Saliare) tremonti, dederunt from dederont, etc., swr? for sontf, etc., (I., 160, 161). Before other consonants, also, o was obscured into u, as before nt and nd, in nuntius from nontius, etc., Acheruntem from 'A^lpovr'a, frunte, for fronte, Fruntuni from Frontom, funte for fonte, promuntorium for promontorium (I., 262), muntanus for montanus, ^ert-topovrtcp for Septimontio ; also iufaciundam for an old form faciondam, frundes for/ron- c?es, dupundi for dupondi, further Brundusium for Bpvffr, Bruttii for Bplrf tot, Bplrt't-ot. Before rcs, o appears obscured into it in procunsul for j^ro- consul, formunsus for formonsus, formosus,frus (Ennius) for frons ; also before nc in 7z wnc for 7ionc, sescunciam for sesconciam, and in the formations, in which to the first prefix on, ton, a second cwo[a] was appended, as in caruncula from caron, caro ; carbunculus from carbon, carbo ; homun- culus from homon, homo ; avunculus from avon, derived from auo, a-uws by the suffix o?i. In case the diminutive suffix wZo is added to the derivative syllable on, the vowel M of the former is frequently rejected, and the letter n of the latter assimilated to the following I ; the vowel o, however, before u from nZ, is obscured into u, e. g., in lenullus from the stem Zenon, homullus from homon, Catullus from Catonulus, Catonlus, Catollus, Catullus, etc., (I., 263.) In a similar manner ampulla was shortened of amporula from ampora. was, likewise, changed into M, before m with a following consonant, as in umbo, umbilicus from Gr. 6/t^axoj, incum- parabili for incomparabili, triumpe from pxju/3oj, (I., 264).) Into this category, also, belongs, according to Mr. Corssew, the Lat. suffix umno, which corresponds to the Greek par- ticiple ending o^vo, and shows u before mn f e. g., alumnus VOWELS. 93 from alere, auctumnus from auto^t*^, columna from xEMxyuvi?, etc., (I., 164). and e were, also, obscured into u, before r, when followed by n, e. g., eburneus from eboris, nocturnus from vvxi'wp,, diurnus from cfo'es, together with hodiernus. The syllable ^r in diuturnus is the comparative suffix tero, Osc. oro, &ro, Umbr. tru. Gr. *po, Sanscr. tara. In a similar manner we find furnacator and fornacatores, etc., (I., 264. 265). Before re, rt, rv, rm, and s when followed by another conso- nant, we also find u obscured from o, e. g., amurca from d^oppj, furcepem for forcipem, Haburtis for Mavortis Kovpovlvos from Corvinus, furmica for formica, arbustum from arbos, minusculus from minos, aplustre from a?>&aa*oi', (L, 265). 7 arose by assimilation, according to Mr. Corssen, in tugurium for tegurium from fe<70, or togurium from /o^a, (L, 306.) U which was originally long, was shortened before s, as in palus ; but in some passages in Plautus,Virgilius,and Ovidius it is still found long in the verb, as in vtmmus, fatigamiis, negabamus (I., 360). The vowel u was shortened before the m of the Genitive plural, both in consonantal, and also in some i-stems, e. g., matrum, partium ; but it remained long in the genitive plural of o-stems, as in numum, deum, sestertium ; as also the vowel o in the Old-Latin forms Aisermnom, Aisermno, Romano, Suesano, Ladinom, Aquino, Caiatino, Caleno, Corano, Cozano, Paistano, Romano, (I., 367). U is likewise shortened in pusillus from pusus, pusio, in biibus from bubus and in bubulcus, and also in Yirgil in diuturnus from diu (L, 373). Lastly it is shortened when fojfcwed by another vowel, as in acai, tribui, indui, argui, iimui, imbui, exui \_fui for fu^v^i, genui for genuvi~]. Fid was sfeert shortened from/ta* ; fui stands for/ot[?] ; u in foui was hardened into v as is shown in foverint, etc., (II., 159). 94 DIPHTHONG. Diphthongs. After treating of the orthography and development of the gutturals, labials and dentals, as well as of that of the simple vowels, Mr. Corssen shows how the compound vowels or diphthongs took their rise, and, in the course of time, after passing through many changes, dwindled down again into simple vowels. He says, " We cannot follow the Latin into the illustrious time of its youth, when the system of its vowels continued unimpaired. In the third century before Christ, where our knowledge of this language begins, this system waa already on the decline ; diphthongs were losing their original purity, long vowels were shortened and short vowels rejected without leaving any evidence that they ever existed. Indeed, the whole system seems to have been in a state of commotion : older and fuller forms appearing continually among the lighter mass of new formations, until at last, in the classic time of literature, after ridding itself of all the old sounds and forms, the language arrives at a state of rest and solidity. In the written language the system of vowels continues in this state, but in the vulgar tongue it is broken up more and more, until at last it appears in that form in which it is presented by the modern Romance tongues." (I., 154) Mr. Corssen continues (I., 154, 155), " The diphthongs arise in the Indo-Germanic [better, Indo-European] languages principally by an intensifying of the vowels (" Vocal- steigerung"). In the Sanscrit the simple vowels i and u are intensified (" gesteigert ") into e and 6 by the prefixing of the short sound of a, and into ai and au, by the prefixing of a long a. Thus by prefixing a short a before i and u, not two vowels are produced, each of which constitutes a syllable, but one intermediate sound between a and i, and a and u ; and by prefixing a long a a double intermediate sound or a DIPHTHONGS. 95 diphthong, which, likewise, only forms one syllable. Under the same conditions on which the vowels i and u are inten- sified in the above manner, in the Sanscrit, the short a itself, whenever the form of the word requires it, by intensifying, is prolonged into a. In the Greek the diphthongs av and cu arose, likewise, by an intensifying of the vowels ; unless it can be proved that they originated in some other manner ; and as an original a has been frequently weakened into and o, in this language, the vowels * and v by intensifying, also, pro- duced the diphthongs , nd pdc-^ao^o ; frdg-or and suf- frdgium; leg-o sn\dleg-s, lex (leg-is) colleg-a; r&go and reg-s, rex (regis) ; sec-\_ao~\ o and slca ; teg-o and teg-ula ; vac-\ao~] o, vdco and vdg-ina ; i?oc-[ao], voco and voc-s, vox (vdcis)." " The same is done, when verbs are derived from nouns, where frequently the original form of the noun has been lost, e. g. sdg-ax and sdgire, praesdg-us ; pldcidus, pldcere and pldcare ; mdcer and mdcerare ; sopor and sopire." As regards the intensifying of the vowels, which Mr. Corssen has endeavored to establish for the Latin, in the present work, and which (I., 158, 159) he has tried to prove by an additional number of verbal forms, marked with the apex, but which are not acknowledged, to be long by scholars in general, we are inclined to believe that it will not be admitted to the same extent, even by the members of his own school (that of comparative philology), certainly not with regard to the perfect tense. First of all, the question as to the priority of the aorist (perfect), or of the present tense still remains to be decided. We have, above, declared ourselves in favor of the priority of the aorist ; and, if such is the case, the long vowel of the aorist or perfect-stem is not long by intensifying, but long originally, and in the imperative stem with its derivatives this original long vowel has been weakened or shortened. The school of comparative philology teaches, as is well known, that the forms fodi, veni, sedi, legi, must be explained by the reduplicated forms fofodi, vevini, sesidi, leligi, in which the initial consonant of the second syllable is rejected, and the diphthong or double vowel, thus obtained, is con- DIPHTHONGS. 97 traded into a long vowel ; ihusfoodi into fodi, veini into veni, seidi into sedi, leigi into legi* The long vowel, in the above perfect forms, i, therefore, not obtained by intensifying, but by the blending of a diphthong or a double vowel. It is certainly true, that we have not many proofs of this process within the Latin language itself, inasmuch as pegi, pepigi, panxi from pago, panyo is the only form on record, and there the derivation of pegi from pepigi is contested ; but there are striking analogies of this process in the other Indo-European languages ; for instance in the Sanscrit (Bopp II., 482, 605), tenima for tetanima, Old-Germ, fangen (to catch), fi-fang (I caught), ^an^r, fieng ; hangen (to hang), hi-hang (I hung,) hiang, hieng, and in one of the Italic dialects we find fefacust, in which the unaccented a of the second syllable, in the Latin language, would naturally pass into i, so that the conclusion, that the Latin fed is contracted from feici, is not at all im- probable. The long vowel in the words tec-si, texi for teg-si, tcgula ; reg-o [reg-si~], rec-si, rexi, regula, may conse- quently, be explained without any intensifying of the vowel, either by the vowel being originally long, or it having been made long by reduplication and a subsequent blending of the diphthong. The suffix si would have to be regarded, in this latter case, as a later addition to the long syllables reg-, teg from which, also, teg-ula, reg-ula, are derived. An example of an original length is furnished us by the stem leg , where we find leg-i, lec-tum, (I., 159), %/-[s], lex, col-leg-a. We wonder at Mr. Corssen's deriving illicio, lexi and lictor from the same root, since the former word is derived from lac-(lacio) ; from the long e in illexi, we are certainly authorized to suppose a form lee , led, as jeci, fed, cepi, to which, per- haps, at a later period, the suffix si was appended ; compare the forms delcctare, oblectare, which were marked with the apex. As regards the long I in lictor for lig-tor, it is derived from lig-, without the suffix a, as in relig-io (a checking or restraining from doing evil) ; this latter word being formed from the shortened present tense. 98 DIPHTHONGS. [As in the earlier formations of the Latin language, by the rejection of consonants, diphthongs were obtained by prefixes, coalescing into simple vowels, so in the Romance tongues, e. g. the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, suffixes were admitted into the aorist-stems, in order to strengthen them, which, either entirely superseded the stem-vowel, or else formed a diphthong with it, or merged with it into one vowel, or finally constituted an entirely new stem with it, e. g. habere (to have), perfect hab-ui, Span, hube, Port, houve ; the Italian perfect is formed from the vulgar Latin habio (comp. I., 302), instead of habeo ; from habio we have a perfect habii for habui ; by transposing ^ we obtain haibi, hebi, and as the Italians prefer to lengthen their words by position, we get hebbi, ebbij c., venni for veni, from veini for venii ; Lat. sapio, sapui, Span, supe, Port, sube, Ital. instead of sapii, saipi, sepi, seppi, etc. ; Present subjunctive sapiam, Port. saiba, Span, sepa ; primarius, Port, primeiro, Span. primer o~\. Among the diphthongs which arose in a more mechanical way by the addition of suffixes commencing with a vowel, to stems ending in one, we find e. g., vita-is, vitai, vitae (of the life), gnato-is, gnatoi, gnati, or dative plural gnatois gnatis, natis ; re-is, rei, spe-is, spei (of the hope). Diphthongs which arose by composition, e. g., ne-uter, neuter, ne-utiquam, neutiquam ; pious for ploius, eicit for ejicit, reicit for rejicit ; conjuncti, cojuncti, council, cuncti ; Diphthongs, formed by the rejection of v, e. g., Cloelius, Cloilius, Glovilius ; nauta for navita ; naufragus for navi- fragus ; by the rejection of i or e, e. g., noundinum for novendinum, nounai for novenai, Nouceria for Noviceria. An. The diphthong an has been preserved in many cases, so that even, at the present day, it is heard in the mouth of the DIPHTHONGS. 99 Italians. In other cases, however, it commenced early to be blended into o, and more seldom in u. Thus, in an inscrip- tion, dating from the time of the Punic war, we find Pola for Paula, and in another which is among the oldest, Ploti for Plauti, Plotus for Plautus, and semiplotia for semiplautia (I., 163. 164). According to Yerrius Flaccus, the poet Plautus was at first called Plotus, and Cato, in his work on agriculture, uses dehoritOj instead of dehaurito. Dioni p. 378, says, " Au syllaba cum ' o J commercium habet, ut cum dicimus l claustra ' et * clostra,' t cauda ' et ' coda ' et similia." Still, words in au belonged more to the lan- guage of the educated, while those in o belonged to that of the people. Thus Mestrius Florus, according to Sueton., Yespas. c. 22, rated Yespasian on his pronouncing ' plostra J and not ' plaustra ;' and on the next day, the pedantic con- sular was paid back by the witty emperor's addressing him ' Flaurus? instead of ' Floras' (L, 167. 168). From the fact, that in a very old brass tablet of Spoleto we read Aorelius, instead of Aurelius, Mr. Corssen concludes, that before au was blended into o, it passed through an intermediate stage of ao t on account of this latter sound being nearer to a, in its pronunciation, [see our remarks on the pronunciation of the diphthong ou]. As regards Mr. Corssen's observation, that the spelling of ausculari instead of osculari, and of auri- chalcum instead of orichalcum (opst^axxos), could certainly only have been introduced by the learned, we doubt this very much, inasmuch as not a great amount of erudition is required to discover the derivation of osculor from osculum, os ; but we think that it has rather been introduced by the unlearned who, in English, would write and pronounce hof instead of of, and as instead of has and who, in order to be sure that they write the word 'asparagus ' correctly, spell it ' sparrow- grass, 1 in imitation of its popular pronunciation ' spargus ' and * spargrass. J [Concerning the pronunciation of au, see the following article.] 9* 100 DIPHTHONGS. OIL The diphthong ou, according to Mr. Corssen (I., 171-176) arose either (as has been observed above) by an intensifying of the vowel, e. g. Loucina, Loucetios, loumen, poublicom, abdoucit ; or by the rejection of the semi-vowel i OTJ, and a subsequent junction of the final o of the stem, with the vowel u of the comparative suffix, as in pious forplo-ius, plouruma; or by dissolving the semi-vowel v, before a consonant, into u, with which consonant it came into contact by the rejection of e or i, e. g. noundinum for novendinum, Clouli for Clovili, etc. Mr. Ritschl proves from the inscriptions, that the diphthong ou was only in general use, up to the war with the allies, but, in the wordjous and its derivations it remained as late as the servile war and the war against Sertorius, because in law-documents the spelling of jous, joubeatis, joudex,jou~ dido, after the fashion of the ancestors of the Romans was retained ; still, in the very oldest inscriptions, we occasionally meet with ' u* instead of ou. At the time of the Gracchi, the vacillation between the spelling of ou and u began to be general ; for, either u was assimilated to the preceding o and constituted with it a long 6, or else [as a more general thing], o was assimilated to u, and they both formed a long u, e. g. ou. o. u. poublicom poplicod puplico, publico, etc. The diphthong ou, when followed by a vowel, also passed over into ov, and either by the assimilation of o into u, or by the intermediate form uu, was changed into uv, and, thus, finally into u, e. g. ov. uv. u. soveis suvo suo. [With regard to the pronunciation of this diphthong, although this is no matter of great consequence, inasmuch as it has not survived in the classic Latin, we hold, that it was pronounced like the English ou in gout and doubt, or the German au in Saus and Brans, that it thus approximated r DIPHTHONGS. 101 somewhat to the pronunciation of the Latin diphthong au, which, we hold, was pronounced like the English ou in our or ow in howl, and like the German au in Laub. A careful observer will notice that the latter of these sounds, viz., English ou in our or ow in fowl, and German au in Laub, terminates in the vowel o in hole, and the former, viz., Engl. ou in gout and doubt, and Germ, au in Saus and Braus, in the vowel z7 in rwtZe. The Latin diphthong au, consequently, was not composed of the sounds of a in far and u in rude, but of the sounds of a and o in hole, viz., a/i-o. The blend- ing of the diphthong au into o is, therefore, to be understood in this manner, that the first member of the diphthong, viz., a, was absorbed by its second member, viz. o ; and the spelling Aorelius instead of Aurelius shows, that, at the time, from which this spelling dates, the second member of the diphthong already preponderated, so that its true nature, viz. o had become apparent. Before the dental d, au seems to have been pronounced like the diphthong ou, thus like the English ou in gout and doubt, for whenever au is followed by d, as in r audits, fraudo, claudo, it is not blended into o but into u. In the diphthong ou, which really terminated in u in rude, the first member was assimilated into u, and at the time, when the second member of the diphthong began to preponderate, when- ever it was followed by a vowel, its affinity to the semi -vowel v became developed, and it was changed into v, viz., soveis. As regards the blending of ou into 6, which seems to conflict with our theory, we hold, that the absorption of the first member of the diphthong by the second was not effected in an instant, and, thus, for a considerable time after the two con- stituent members of the diphthong had ceased to be pronounced separately, there was a strong admixture of the first member in the sound produced, which was only gradually reduced by the superior power of the second member, and in some diphthongs, as we shall show hereafter, it was never completely overcome : thus, after the diphthong ou in poublicom had coalesced into a simple sound, the mixture produced was at 102 DIPHTHONGS. first very strongly tinctured by 6 in hMe, hence poplicod, but, afterwards, when the mixture had cleared off, we find puplico, piiblico. Moreover, it is to be remarked that such instances where ou appears blended into 6 are very rare, and that the usual form is u.~\ EU. The diphthong eu, according to Mr. Corssen (I., 116, 177), occurs least frequently in the Latin language. Above we have mentioned the form Leucesie, which is found in the ' Carmen Saliare,' (i. e. the old hymn of the Roman priests of Mars, who celebrated the beginning of spring by a pro- cession, with dancing and singing,) and we have stated that it originated from a short u which was intensified into ou and eu. But even the surname Lucius must have originally sounded Leucius, as it is spelled Atvxtoj by the Greeks ; it is, moreover, found in names as Teurano, Teurisci, Leuvius, Teudasio. This diphthong has, also, been formed by composition, as we have seen above, e. g. in ne-uter, ne-utiquam ; and by rejec- tion of the final e, as in neu for n-eve, seu for sive. The remaining words which are spelled with eu, are ceu, heu, eheu, and those originally Greek. [As regards the pronunciation of this diphthong, it, cer- tainly, was not pronounced like the English eu in feud; for this latter sound was expressed in Latin by ju in jus orjudico. It seems to us that it was rather pronounced like the diphthong ei in height, with this difference, however, that instead of terminating in the slender i in machine or caprice, as in height, it ended in the intermediate sound between i and u t which we noticed above, pag. 76, and which, we hold, resembled the French u. In this manner we obtain the sound which is given by the Germans to their diphthong eu in neu, Leute, etc.] DIPHTHONGS. 103 AT. The diphthong ai, as early as the time of the Syrian war, was weakened into ae, and this sound has prevailed in the language since the time of the Gracchi. At an early time, as is shown by Mr. Corssen, this ae was changed in the mouth of the country-people into e {e in then, or a in fate'] ; this was the rustic pronunciation at the times of Lucilius and Yarro, and ever afterwards. This sound of e (a in fate) was developed more and more in the living tongue of the entire people, after the first period of the empire, and, about the third century after Christ, it had become universally domi- nant. In some cases it was, afterwards, obscured into the sound of i inclining to e, which was even shortened into i. The diphthong ai appears both in stems and in suffixes, when the endings of cases, beginning with a vowel, were subjoined to sterns, ending in a vowel. It is found in stems in the following words, dating from the oldest times, which are mentioned by Mr. Corssen, among many others, e. g., praidad for praedd, aidiles for aediles, aire, airid for aere, quaistores for quaestor es, aiquom for aequum, quairatis for quaeratis, Gnaivod for Cnaeus, Caicilio for Caecilio, Aimilius for Aemilius, Aigius for Aegius. The forms conquaeisivei, Caeicius, Caeicianus, Caeicilius, Gaeidia indicate the transition from the full sound of both members of the diphthong to that of ae [e in there or ai in pair~] which as Mr. Corssen has observed above, at an early period, in the mouth of the rustic population passed over into the simple sound of e [d \\\ fdte~\. The diphthong ai appears in the time before Augustus, as the suffix of cases or as a part of it in the genitive, locative and dative of the following words ; in the genitive [for which Mr. Corssen always writes genetive] and in the locative, e. g. fameliai for familiae, Aecetiai for aequitiae, tavernai for tabernae, Belo[n~]ai, Menervai, pulcrai for pulchrae, vitai for vitae, Dvelonai, Feroniai, colonial, restinctai, Appiai 104 DIPHTHONGS. O/illiai, Rufai; in the dative case, e. g. Caesiai, Dianai, Clodiai, Glycerai, Luciai, amantissumai (I., 178, 179). From the times of Augustas and the following emperors, we find the following instances of the genitive and locative [in inscriptions], e. g. patriai, Asiai, Syriai, provincial (Locat ) Romai, Eaitiai, divinaij Nicostratai, Nipiai, Tintorai, viai, Dertosai, (Locat.), Calidiai, Fortunai ; of the dative case, e. g., Agrippai, colonial, Beneventanai, Sentiai, maxsumai, Uttediai, quartai, Antoniai, Augustai, Juliai, Agrippinai, invictai, Picai, reipublicai, Octaviai, Calidiai, Priscai, Bonaij deai, Secundai, Domitiai, Cassiai, Maximal, Statiai, Severaij Sextiliai, Chrestaij Ulpiai, Scitai, Pilumenai, Semproniai, Gallai, Petronai, Tanniai, Pobliciaij Atticai, Rufriai, Exoratai, Manliai, Didiai, Egnatiai, Flaviai, Philuminai, Vitelliai, Siatiai, Cerriai t Magiai, Muniai, Probai, (L, 180, 181). From the verj^ latest times of the empire, even, Mr. Corssen adduces, colonial for the genitive and locative, and Artemai, cojugai, Januariai, Mammulai for the dative (I., 181). Less frequently Mr. Corssen finds the diphthong ai in the ending of the nominative plural of a-stems ; still he mentions haice, tabelai, datai, eai, literaive, in inscriptions from the time of the empire, quai, arai. The spelling ai, however, even from the time of the senatus- consultum de Bacchanalibus, that is from the time of the Syrian war, does not seem to have been the only one in use, but we frequently find with it the spelling ae, not only in the same inscriptions, but even in the same word in different places ; also in inscriptions from the time of the empire. In the law documents from the times of the Gracchi to the end of the republic, the spelling ai occurs only in a few cases, but from the time of Augustus, and, especially of Claudius, it again appears more frequently principally in the dative, less frequently in the genitive, and only very rarely in any other case. From these facts Mr. Corssen concludes (L, 182, 183), DIPHTHONGS. 105 " If since the time of the Macedonian and Syrian war, there is a vacillation in the spelling of ai and ae ; if, from the time of the Gracchi to that of Caesar, the spelling ae prevails in the completest and most important monuments, the Romans must have begun to pronounce ae [e in there and ai in pair~\, as early as the second century before Christ, and this pronun- ciation must have been universally adopted during the rise of the Roman literature. Lucilius, indeed, proposes to write ai in the genitive and dative singular, and ae in the plural, but the above-named law-documents indicate that his proposition was not adopted. It is, however, very evident that, at the time of Lucilius, it was universally pronounced like a in fare or ai in pair, and that he merely wished to establish this dis- tinction for the eye." The same weakening of the diphthong ai into ae is shown in inscriptions in the genitives of female names in aes [first perhaps pronounced ah-es as a diphthong], e. g. Pesceniaes, Liaudicaes, Her aes, Diavaes, Antoniaes, Statiliaes, Octa- viaes, Pylaes, Faeniaes, Secundaes, Juliaes, Flaviaes, Cer- viaes, Corneliaes, Calaes, Agrippinaes, Lepidaes, Musaes, Helenaes, Saturninaes, Midaes, Proculaes, Aquiliaes, Basillaes, Decimiaes, Priscaes, Faustinaes, Liciniaes, Livillaes, Sabidiaes, Sextiliaes. Mr. Corssen explains this genitive in aes, together with that in as which was in use among the oldest poets, and that in ai which we have mentioned above, by saying, that all three were derived from the original form a-is, which consists of the mark of the genitive, viz. : s, affixed to the stem ending in a by means of the copula i. This form a-is, he says, was originally pronounced in two syllables, viz. : a-is, from a-is was first obtained, by the dropping of s, the form ai, which we find in Ennius, Plautus, Terence and Yirgil in words like the following, viz : longdi, aqudi, terrdi, comediai, materidi, aurtii, pictdi, etc , and by their coalition into a diphthong was produced the usual ai, which was afterwards weakened into ae; or else the sign of the genitive, viz. : s was preserved, and 106 DIPHTHONGS. the vowels a~i were blended into ae, so as to form the genitive ending aes ; or, finally, the copula i was rejected, and the genitives in as took their origin, e. g., terras, escas, deivas, Corniscas, monetas, Alcumenas, Latonas, fortunas, vias, and familias [which afterwards, survived in the forms pater- familias, mater -familias, etc.] (I., 184). [We have nothing to say against this explanation of the genitive in as, but we think, that it may just as well have arisen by the simple affixing of the sign of the genitive, viz., s, to the final a of the a-declension which was originally long ; comp. Bopp^ Yergleich. Gramm., 192, p. 392. And as regards the genitive in aes, which, according to our opinion, continued in the mouth of the people, but, like ae in general, was weakened into e (as is shown by inscriptions of the third century after Christ, e. g. provincies, restitutes, Aginees, Brimnes, Julies, Veranilles, Prisces, Selentioses, Victories, Benignes, Egnaties, aeternes, Minerbes, Faustines, L, 188), it may just as well have been a weakened a -form of the Sanscr. dy-ds, e. g. dsvdy-ds, equds (equa-as, equa-es), of the mare.] "Still," Mr. Corssen continues (L, 189), "besides this genitive in aes, we also find, in contemporary inscriptions, forms in ae, and, indeed, when two words agreeing with each other, either in the genitive or dative case, immediately follow one another, we find one written with AE, and the other with E, e. g. in the dative, Vejanae Rumne, Impiae Juste, Caesiae Prime, Munatiae Modestine,filiae dulcissime, Anniae Victorine, Titiae Lucide, bonae femine, Cominiae Felicissime, Pifigiliae Prime, Polliae Prime, Otaciliae sanctissime ; in the genitive, mire sapientiae, Coccejae Severe, Vitae nostre ; in the dative, again, Nepotille filiae, Fructuose filiae, Elate Juliae, Felicule filiae, etc. ; and in the genitive, bone memoriae, Caediciaes Prisces (I., 189), Mr. Corssen says, that in thus retaining ae in one of the two words, they were perhaps [?] actuated by an unconscious desire not to destroy the ending of the case in both words ; DIPHTHONGS. 107 still, this desire, even, in the course of time, was no longer sufficient to preserve ae, as we see from the following ex- amples : in the dative case, Julie felicissime, Luc erine juste, Primille filie, Tulliane Marcelle, Saecidie Fortunate, filie dulcissime, filie benemerentissime, Ulpie Severine, femine dulcissime, Mucassenie pientissime, sanctissime, pientis- sime, pie nate, Decimine alumne, Domine filie, mee pudi- cissime Jovine Domitie, Varene Marcelle. Nevertheless, as late as the time of Constantine the Great, when the diph- thong ai had long passed into e, there were still some people who wrote ai, in the old fashion, as in colonial. In the older Oscan, also, the decided i-sound of the diph- thong was weakened into an intermediate one between e and i, [we deny that the i of the diphthong ai ever had a decided i-sound ; see our remarks on the pronunciation of this diph- thong at the end of this article,] which in the younger Oscan became ae ; Old Osc. Herukinae (Lat. Erycinae), Old Osc. viai, locat. (Lat. viae in via), Old-Osc. mefiai, locat. (Lat mediae = in media), New Osc. Bansae(L&t. Bantiae), New Osc. suae, Old Osc. svai, etc. (I., 191). In the Uin- brian the diphthongs ai, oi, ei, with a few exceptions, have been blended into e, e. g. Umbr. Kvestur, Lat. quaestor, quaistor, Osc. kvaistur ; in the dative singular, Umbr. ase, Lat. arae y etc.; in the ablative plural, Umbr. tekuries, Lat. decuriis. Umbr. asecetes, Lat. insectis, which correspond to the Latin nuyes for nugais ; also, Umbr. pre, Lat. prae, Old-Latin prai, Osc. prae; Umbr. pre-pa, Lat. prae quam ; Urabr. prehabia, Lat. praehibeat, praebeat ; Umbr. sve (Lat. si), New Osc. suae, Old Osc. svai; Umbr. svepis (Lat. siquis), New Osc. suaepis, etc., cfr. Aufrecht and Kirchhoff, Umbr. Sprachdenkm, p. 46. Ill, 114, 115, 161; Corssen, I., 191. In the Yolscan, also, e is found instead of ae, ai, e. g. Yolsc. Vesune, Lat. Vesunae, Vesunai ; Yolsc. se, Umbr. sve, Lat. si, New Osc. suae, Old Osc. svai ; Yolsc. sepis, Umbr. svepis, New Osc. suaepis. The diphthong ai, however, was not only obscured into e 10 108 DIPHTHONGS. but also into i in machine, as in the ablatives of a-stems, e. g. viis for viais ; also in the preposition prae, in which the old form prai was not only obscured into prae and pre, but also into i, e. g. in pri-us for prai-ius, pri-mus for prai-mus, pri-scus for pra-ius-cus, pri-die for prai-die, pri-dem for prai-dem, pri-vus for prai- v us. In compounds the diphthong ai is weakened into i, e. g. collido from Zaecfo (laido), occido from caedo, iniquus from aequus, inquiro from quaero, existumo from aestumo, dis- tisum and pertisum from distaesum and pertaesum (taedet). The sound of this J was the clear sound of t, inclining to e, which in the ante-Augustan age was expressed by ei as in vieis, taboleis, incoleis, causeis (I., 193). Thus the original Italic suffix aijo, which still appears in the Osc. Pompaiians, in Italic names dwindled down to aejo, eijo, ejo, ijo, ijo, as well as to aio, aeo, eo, io, i, e. g. Annaejus, Anaia, Annaeus, Annejus, Anneus, Annius, Annius. So, in the third century after Christ, the same name is written Mamaea, Mammea, Mammia The diphthong ai, therefore, could be reduced even to a short i (L, 193). [As regards the pronunciation of the diphthong ai, it is no matter of immediate importance for us to know it, inasmuch as, in the classic Latin, it has universally passed over into ae or 6, and in a few instances into i, and is only left in ait t ain, etc., where it is no diphthong, but is obtained by the rejection of j or g and pronounced in two syllables. Still, it is our opinion, that it was sounded like the English ai in aisle, and the German ai in Kaiser, while the diphthong ei, so long as it was a diphthong, was probably pronounced like the Greek ft, i. e. like the English ei in height, or like the German ei in Seite. Our grounds for this assumption are these, that in the diphthong ai in aisle, and Germ, ai in Kaiser, the last sound in which the diphthong terminates is not i in machine but e in ell (or a in ale), and the diphthong ai in reality is composed of the two sounds a in far and e in ell, viz. ah-# t although in Latin, Greek and German and in the English DIPHTHONGS. 109 word aisle it is spelled ai; while ei in height really terminates in i in machine or caprice. In taking this view of the matter, we can very readily see, why the diphthong ai in Latin was generally weakened into ae and into e (e in ell and a in ale), and the diphthong ei, probably, into a long I in caprice, and, especially, into the intermediate sound between e and i ; for in both these cases, as in an and ou, the first members of the diphthongs were simply absorbed by their second members. Thus, when the second member of the diphthong ai began to preponderate and to manifest its true nature, viz. e in ell, the Romans no longer spelled it ai but ae, and when the process of absorption was consummated, it was not only spelled ae, but also e. The reason why the Romans still continued to spell it ae, even after the vowel a had been absorbed by e, was this, because in the first period of absorption, in the mouth of the educated, there was still some trace of the original a in far left in the e, which gave to it the peculiar sound of ai in pair and e in there, and distin- guished it from the regular Latin e, which was pronounced like e in ell and then, and a in fate. In the mouth of the common people, however, it turned early into the sound of e in ell and then, or a in fate, and during the decline of the Roman empire, this pronunciation became universal. As regards the diphthong ei, Mr. Corssen has proved conclu- sively (see article on diphthong ei), that, wherever it is found in the inscriptions handed down to us, it is no longer a diphthong, but represents the intermediate sound between e in ell, and i in is ; he expresses a belief, however, that in the oldest times, from which there are no records left, it was certainly a diphthong. This is our belief, and our argument in favor of its having sounded like ei in height is drawn by analogy from the other diphthongs ; for if ae, which is an intermediate sound between a in far and e in ell, is derived from the diphthong ai or rather ah-e, and the fuller and obscure sound of o (by which Mr. Corssen can mean no other than that of o in off, in which there is a slight admixture of a 110 DIPHTHONGS. in far), is that, which is obtained by the absorption of the diphthong au or rather ah-o (see article on o, pag. 83), we conclude that the intermediate sound between e and i, which has subsequently been represented by the sign El, in most cases originated from an absorption of the diphthong ei (Engl. ei in height), and that this very intermediate sound, represented by EI, exhibits the diphthong ei in its first stage of absorption, before the second member, viz. i, had fully gained the ascendency, just as ae represented the diphthong ai in its first stage of absorption, before the second member, viz. e in ell or a in ale had perfectly absorbed the a. After a diphthong had once been reduced to a simple vowel, its sound, like that of any other simple vowel, could be still more modified and obscured ; thus the diphthong ai, after being absorbed by its second member e in ell, could even be obscured into l, as we have seen above.] Oi The diphthong oi was reduced, at an early period, into oe, but it remained still intact at the time from which our oldest inscriptions have been handed down to us. In these inscrip- tions we find the following forms, viz., oino, oina, oenus for unus, oinvorsei for universi, oenigenos for unigenos, noenum (neunum=non)jploirume (plurime),ploera (plura),foide- ratei (foederati), foidere (foedere), moeniundae, moenio (munio), admoenio, conmoenio (communio), comoinem (communem), moinicipieis (municipiis), moinicipiove, im- moenis (immunis), Poinicia, Poenicas (Punicus), poeniceo, poeniceum, oitile (utile,) oisus (usus), oetantur, oeti(uti), oesus (usus) ; coiravit, coeravit, coiraverunt, coerave- runt, coerarunt, coir aver e, coeravere, coir aver, coer- aver., coeret, coeratori, coerandi all from euro; moiro, moiros, moer[um~], moeros, moeris (muris) ; coiperit (coeperit) ; loidos, loedos (ludos) ,* loebertatem (libertatem) ; loebesum (liber urn), Coilius, Coilio, oboedientem. Thus DIPHTHONGS. Ill in very old monuments we even find oe instead of oi. The restorers of the ' Columna Rostrata * of Duellius would cer- tainly not have written Poenicas, unless they had known that at the time of the Punic war it was thus written. On the other hand, the two oldest of the epitaphs of the Scipios and the ' senatusconsultum de Bacchanalibus ' only show oi. After the war of the Cimbri and the time of Marius the spelling oe is also found in law-documents,' superscriptions, epitaphs and other public writings, without superseding, how- ever, entirely the old spelling oi ; for, although this became gradually obsolete, it is still found occasionally in'inscriptions, dating from the time of Caesar. The diphthong oi was there- fore, in stem-syllables, even at the time of the Punic war, so similar to the sound of oe, that people were doubtful whether to write oi or oe. In the vulgar language oe was pronounced. [Mr. Corssen means here the sound of oe in German, which sounds like eu or oeu in French, and somewhat like i . in bird, or u in hurt], while in documents and epitaphs the old-fashioned spelling oi was retained, as is shown in the ' Senatusconsult. de Bacch.,' and the epitaphs of the Scipios. Hence Lucilius wrote noenum, Accius macros, immoenos, oboedire, with respect to this last word, and also, coirare, coerare (curare), see Corssen, I., 197. As regards the diphthong oi, in the terminations of the in- flections, it is preserved to us in the datives populoi [6^ for 6^uwt, 6*7,1*01, ot'xoi for ol'x,] Romanoi, quoi for cui, hoi-ce, hoi-c (huic). By the interpretation of Vahlen, the form Mettoi Fubettoi in Bnnius, is also admitted now as a dative. The oldest form of the ablative and dative plural of o-stems, in the Latin language, is preserved to us in a very old inscription, in cnatois suois. But in the very ancient 'Carmen Saliare we find a nominative plural in oe, viz., " Pilumnoe poploe," which is interpreted, " Eomani pilis assueti ;" there the nominative oi is not only weakened into oe, but it has likewise lost the s of the plural ; we, also, find li Fescemnoe" which according to Festus, means " qui de- 10* 112 DIPHTHONGS. pellere fascinum putabantur ." In another place, moreover, we find oloes for illis, prwicloes for primculis (privis). The weakening of oi into oe in the terminations of inflections thus commenced in the earliest times. But the process of weakening was carried on still further and oi was even ob- scured into u and i (in the suffixes of cases it was weakened into i), e. g. oi. oe. u. loidosj loedos, ludunt, ludeis, oino, oenus, unum, ploirume, ploera, plures, moinicipium, inmoenis, municipiis t oitile, oetier, utier, etc., (I., 199, 200). As early as the time of the Gracchi, we find ludum together with coiravit, but we meet again with loidos and loedus as late as the war of the Cimbri ; in the ' lex Thoria ' we find oincij oitantur, together with unum, unius. In a law of extortion of the same year we read municipii, while the Thorian law has preserved moinicipieis, moinicipiove. In inscriptions dating from the times of the Jugurthan war, we find procurandae, coeraverunt, coiraverunt. On stones of Capua are written murum, and likewise coeraver., loedos; on inscriptions dating from the time of Caesar, ludus, muni- cipio, together with moerum, coeravere,foedere &n&foidere. Hence from the times of the Gracchi u is found together with oi and oe, and at the period of the war with the Cimbri the vacillation has reached its utmost point. Afterwards oi and oe rapidly became obsolete and u is used in their stead ; the sound oe is retained in the classic Latin only in a very few words, e. g. in moenia, together with munire, poena with punire, and also poenire, Poenus and Punicus, etc. The transition of oi into u Mr. Corssen explains by means of the dative-form Janui which was found by Yarro in a law from the time of the kingdom. In this form he regards the final o of the stem as assimilated into u, through the follow- DIPHTHONGS. 113 ing i, because the sound of u, according to the position of the organs of speech is nearer to i than o. In the same manner he holds, hui-c was obtained from hoi-c and cui from quoi. The combination id, afterwards, merged very easily into u : this he proves by the genitives of the u-stems, as victus, gradus, anus, ritus, quaestus, compared with the older forms victuis, graduix, anuis, rituis, quaestuis. Mr. Corssen admits that the weakening of oi into u through the mediate form of ui appears only in the above three forms of the dative, viz., Janui, huic, cui, and that usually before passing into u it is changed into oe, from this into the inter- mediate sound between i and u, viz., French u or Germ, u, and thence finally into u ; but we object to his mode of ex- plaining the transition of oi into oe. Mr. C. says that i in oi, through the influence of the preceding o became assim- ilated into e (Engl. e in ell), because, according to the position of the organs of speech, e in ell is more intimately related to o in hole, than i in is or machine ; and that i in is, after it became thus assimilated to o in hole, became blended with it into the intermediate sound between o in hole and e in ell, viz., Germ, o or French, eu. This explanation sounds plaus- ible, but we object to it on the following grounds : Mr. Corssen, throughout the whole discussion of the diph- thongs, labors under the general disadvantage of regarding the sounds of the vowels by which they are represented in writing, as the constituent elements of the diphthongs them- selves. It is natural to think so, but a careful analysis of the several diphthongs teaches us otherwise, and especially so in the present instance. The vowels o hi hole and i in is, have no share whatever in the sound of the diphthong ex- pressed by oi in toil and oy in boy. The first member of it is a in all or o in off, and the second member e in ell; such is the sound of oi in English, and there is no reason to suppose that it sounded differently in Latin. Now, when, in the course of time, the second member of the diphthong preponderated, it was natural that the Romans should no 114: DIPHTHONGS. longer spell it oi but oe, and after it had entirely absorbed the first member, the spelling oe was retained, in order to show that the sound obtained was not a clear e in ell or a in ale, but still partook somewhat of the nature of its first member, a in all; as has been the case with all the other diphthongs. The sound of oe, which was produced in this manner, was that of the German o, or the French oeu and eu, the nearest approximation to which, in English, is the sound of i in bird arid u in hurt. After continuing for some time in this state, the process of weakening was carried on still further, and oe (Germ. 6, French oeu) was obscured into the intermediate sound between i in is and u in rude, which exists in the French u and Germ. u. This intermediate sound, which could not be well represented by the Romans in writing in all words where oi was weakened into u, was spoken and heard, according to Mr. Corssen, at the time of the Gracchi and the war with the Cimbri ; hence the great confusion of oi, oe, and u, at that time ; even as the Greek v, which had a kindred sound, was not only represented by v or u and i, but also by oe in Hoelas, soenephebis, Froegiae ^p-uyuu. From this intermediate sound which we will represent by the German u, the diphthong oi was finally weakened into u. With regard to the sound of a in all, which we may represent by the Swedish sign a, that of oe (Germ, o, French eu), and u (French u), we may observe that they are related to each other in the same way as a in far, e in ell, and i in is ; and that just as well, as a or ai could be weakened into e and thence into i, so also a or oi, could be obscured into oe or o, and thence into u, from which, finally it passed over into u in rude. The whole process by which the diphthong oi was weak- ened into u, may thus be expressed by the following scheme : ploira, ploera, plura, plura, conf. Ital. plurale, oisus, oesus, usus, usus, " " uso, moiros, moeros, muros, muros, " " muraglia, coiravit, coeravit, curavit, curavit, " " euro. DIPHTHONGS. 115 The diphthong oi, however, was not only weakened into u, but even in the earliest times was reduced to i, e. g. vicus ^ together with olxo$, vinum with olvo$, fidus, Enn. Yarr. foedus, ''" / foidus. The old superlative forms pl-us-ima, pl-is-ima, plo- ur-uma, plo-ir- ume are all descended from the original form, plo-ius-uma ; the form plisima, however, is most immediately derived from ploisima. Moreover, the diphthong oi was ob- scured into i, in the most ancient times, in the cases of the o -declension. Upon old Latin earthen vessels, probably before the first Punic war, we find the genitive forms Saturni, Volcani, Keri, Pomponi; upon the very old inscription of the ' colum- barium' of the Yigna Soraaschi, kaili for coeli, and on the epitaphs of the Scipios, Barbati (I., 202, 203). The letter / of these forms is the intermediate sound between / and JE, which was also rendered by EL This sound, therefore, arose from oi, in all instances, where it occurs in the termination of cases of o-stems, e. g. Gen. Sing, populei, Nona. Plur. oinvorsei, ploirume, plurimi, libereis, Modies, ministris, Dat. Plur. libreis. liberis, Abl. Plur. soveis suis (see diphthong JEi). Compare these cases with those forms, where the original oi was preserved or simply changed into oe, e. g. oi. oe. e. ei. i. Nom. PI. pilumnoe, ploirume, oinvorsei, universi. poploe t modies, libereis, magistris. Dat. & ") . 7 Abl PI \ suols > oioes, soveis, suis, cnatois, privicloes. From these schemes it is made very evident through what changes the declension of o- stems has passed since the most ancient times, before the original Italic forms of the genit. sing, [o-jus, o-jt's] o-is, nom. plur. o-is, dat. & abl. plur. o-is, 116 DIPHTHONGS. had dwindled down to the forms i,-i,-is,-is, which are ex- hibited in the classical period of literature. [The change of the diphthong oi into i, Mr. Corssen, again explains by the assimilation of o into u before i, as in Janui, huic, cui, and the subsequent merging of ui into i, as in quaesii, senati, parti, for quaestuis, senatuis, partuis. To this explanation we object on the following grounds, viz , that, after the vowels o in hole and i in is had become merged in the diphthong oi, they lost their original sound, inasmuch, as the diphthong oi, upon being analyzed, no longer presents to us the sound of o in hole and i in is, but those of a in all and e in ell, and, that, inasmuch, as all the modifications of the diphthongs were brought about in the living language of the people, where, in the diphthong oi or rather d-e, the vowels o and i were no longer contained, we must give up the idea, that, previous to the absorption of o by i t it was changed into u by the influence of the latter. The only way in which o can be imagined to have been assimilated to u by the follow- ing i, is, by supposing, that, in the oldest period of the lan- guage, the vowels o and i had not yet merged into a diphthong, but were pronounced separately, in two syllables. This seems also probable in the case of the dative singular ; for while in all the other cases of the o-declension, the diphthong oi ap- pears obscured into i t in the dative singular alone we find o, in the majority of cases, ui in the three forms Janui, huic cui, and i in a few words only, as in illi, soli, ulli, etc. The dative ending in o, we accordingly explain in this manner, that, before the vowels o and ihad coalesced into a diphthong, the vowel o had gained such a preponderance, as to assimi- late to it the following i (comp. the Greek 'iota subscript' in dr t p for ?pofc [wt], ot'xot for otxut as in xv*xo>, round about.) For the dative in ui we accept Mr. Corssen's explanation with this restriction, that the assimilation of o into u took place be- fore the vowels o and i were merged into a diphthong ; and in the case of the dative ending in i, we also admit, that ui was blended into i, after it had first passed, according to Mr. DIPHTHONGS. 117 Corssen, through the intermediate form u. We are also willing to admit this explanation in the case of vicus (otxo$), vinum (oivos), but in all the other cases of the o-declension, with the exception of the dative case, viz., in the genitive singular, and in the nominative, dative and ablative plural, we maintain that the vowels o and i had merged in a diphthong, and, consequently lost their original sound ; in proof of which we adduce the fol- lowing forms, viz., pilumnoe, poploe, oloes, privicloeSj where the diphthong oi appears in its first stage of obscuration. The process itself in which oe was further developed into ?, we explain in the following manner : After the second mem- ber of the diphthong oi or rather a- had absorbed the first member and produced with it the mixed form oe (Germ, o, French oeu or eu) in stems, through u, it was generally weakened into u, (see page 114), but in the endings of cases and in a few stems, it succeeded in ridding itself completely of the admixture of the first member ; hence were produced the forms ploirume, modies, and the stems obedire for oboedire, pomerium for postmoerium ; also caelum for coelum, caeruleus for coeruleus, and, in the latest period of the Latin, in all those words where the diphthong oi remained in its first stage of obscuration, viz., coelum, coena, foedus, foetidus, pcenitet, etc., where the sound oe was universally changed into that of e in ell. In the endings of the inflections however, the process of weakening was carried on still farther, and through the intermediate sound between e and i, viz., El in oinvorsei, libereis, soveis, the diphthong oi was finally weakened into i, as in universi, ministris, suis, etc. ; thither these words were also followed by a few stems, viz., liberum for loebesum, libertas for loebertas, fidus for foedus, foidus. From this investigation we see, that the diphthong oi has been weakened into oe, in the earliest times, in the endings of inflections, and, after the Punic war, also in stems. The obscuration of oi, through oe, into the intermediate sound between e and i, which, in the oldest times, was expressed 118 DIPHTHONGS. either by I or E, in the more recent times by El, and in the latest times by I, dates back to just as early a period. The further obscuration of this diphthong into u, in steins, is of a later date ; it had already begun at the time of Plautus, it was spread more and more during the period of the Gracchi and the war with the Cimbri, and seems to have become generally prevalent soon after this time, while oe was retained only in a limited number of words. In the later Latin vulgar tongue this oe was finally reduced to a clear e in ell, and as such passed over into the modern Romance tongues. EL The results of the investigations of Mr. Ritschl with regard to the pronunciation of the diphthong ei, Mr. Corssen reports in the following words : 11 The sound represented by EI, except in the cases of e-stems, has proceeded from the diphthongs ai, oi, ei, and from a long I proper ; but, as far as our knowledge of the Old-Latin reaches, it is nowhere any longer a diphthong, in which the first member is the sound e, and the second that of i, but it is simply an intermediate sound between e and i ; hence, also, in the oldest ivritings it is marked both by E and J. In the older language this vowel inclined more to the sound of E in ell, and thus it was still sounded at the time of Augustus, and even later, in the mouth of the inhabitants of the country. In the mouth of the educated, however, during the classical period of the Roman literature, it was pronounced more like I [in machine, or is~\, and hence, also, was represented by /. Those places, where the short sound of i is, sometimes, represented by EI, as in sibei, or seibi, faceiu\ndum~\, are to be regarded as mere 'lapsus pennae >. In the later Roman language this sound in some cases settled down into e, and in this form, also, it has passed over into the Italian language." Mr. Corssen is perfectly right in declaring, that the question, DIPHTHONGS. 119 whether the character El simply represented an intermediate sound between e and i, or whether it also indicated a diphthong in which both the sounds of e and i were heard [i. e. Engl. diphthong ei in height], can only be decided on the ground of the inscriptions, since in the manuscripts of the oldest poets, in consequence of later emendations, ei was either not pre- served at all, or only partially so, since even the latest editors, in restoring old readings, which they found occasionally pre- served, by no means acted in a uniform manner. On this account we can only occasionally call into aid the orthography of the manuscripts, in order to prove points which have been previously established by the inscriptions. Mr. Corssen, therefore, bases his arguments on the latest minute investi- gations of inscriptions, and, especially, upon those instituted by Mommsen aad Ritschl, who have opened a new era in this department of philology ; and first of all he considers those of the ante-Augustan period, in which ei is found in the stems ; they are the following : Deiv.., deivas, deivae, deivinam, eidus for idus, leibertus, leibravit, leibereis, leiberique, leiberei, leiberorum, leiberisve, leibereis, leiberos, leibertini, Uibertate, Seispctei, eitur for itur, eire, abei, abeitur, eis, eit, abei, deicerent, deico, deixistis, deixerit, deixerint, deicere, deicito, deicet, deicundo, deicunto, deicei for dici t deicit, deixeritve, exdei- ccndum, exdeicatis, inceideretis, difeidens, afleicta, deilexit, Teiburtes, Veicentinos, meilia, meilites, Veiturios, feil[ius'] for Jilius, ceivi for civi, ceivis, ceives, ceivitate, screiptus, conscreipteisve, conscreiptumve, proscreibeive, leitisque for litisque, leisque, leiterasve, Teidia, Peisidae, preimus, preimum, Preimae, Preimus, preivataque, preivatae, veivos, veivont, veixit, veitae, veiginti, veicus, inveisa, feient for font, deividunda, erceiscunda for herciscunda, ameiscrunt, promeisserit, promeississet, repromeississet, eis, eiei, eidem, eidemque, quei for quis, quei for qui, heic for hie. The fact, that the sound, here expressed by the letters ei, whenever it was produced by the intensifying of a vowel, or 11 120 DIPHTHONGS. the weakening of the fuller diphthongs ai or oi, was originally a diphthong, is proved by the cognate tongues, especially the German, Greek and Oscan. Two letters, originally, always represented two different sounds, but, in the course of time, in order to represent intermediate sounds of more recent origin, recourse was had to the plan of writing two letters between which two the sound in question was found, viz. ei, ae, oe. The question now is, whether the character El represented a diphthong or an intermediate sound, at the time, to which our written monuments date back. The oldest forms among the above words are dew.., on a stone of Pesaro, deivas, on a very old inscription, eidus, on the inscription of the * columbarium' of Somaschi ; thus, according to Mr. Corssen, the spelling ei occurs even at the time of the Punic war. However, in the very oldest inscriptions, a long I is found in the stem-syllables of the following words, viz. militare, filea, filios, Scipione, Scipio, hie, qui, primos, scriptum, scribamus, perscriptum, scito, primo, primus, Vituriorum. Thus, on the old monument of the Furii,w&* written militare, and, a hundred years later, on a mile-stone from the time of the Gracchi, meilia ; on the sarcophagi of the Scipios we find hie and hec, and, on later inscriptions, heic ; in one of the epitaphs of the Scipios quei, and in an inscription of the same period que ; on the ' cista* of Praeneste, and on one of the oldest sarcophagi of the Scipios, filea, filios, and more than a century later, feilius. By comparing the nominatives hi-c, he-c, qui, que, with their sterns ho-c, quo-, it follows, that these nominative forms arose by the demonstrative pronoun-stem i being affixed to the stems (comp. ovtoai), as in the old forms cum-e and tam-e, where ?', as in all other cases, when it was a final, was weakened into e. In this manner were obtained the forms ho-ic (this one there) and quo-i (which one there), which, by obscuring the diphthong oi, became hie and hec, qui and que. The two forms of spelling, quei and qui, which occur at the period of the earliest inscriptions of the Scipios, thus indicate, that e DIPHTHONGS. 121 represented the very same sound, obscured from the diph- thong oi, which was expressed by ei; and, inasmuch, as e represented a simple sound, and not a diphthong, we must admit the same thing with regard to ei. Hence, Mr. Corssen very justly concludes, that, wherever, in the stems of other words, ei represents a sound obtained by the intensifying of the vowel or from the diphthongs ai or oi, it always had the same sound as in quei and qui t thus an intermediate one between e and i. At the time of Yarro and Quintilian the people in the country said leber instead of liber (comp. loebertatem, a-oi/fy), vendemia for vindemia (olvo$), vella for villa, speca for spica (I., 210, 211). " If, in the oldest times," Mr. Corssen observes (I., 211), " the people in the provinces and in the country pronounced ' e j [in ell'}, in the place of the original diphthong oi, we must, hence, conclude, that at an early age, also, e [in ell'] was in vogue, in the examples quoted immediately above, in the mouth of the rustic population, in the place of an original oi, and, indeed, as early as the time of the Punic war, when hie and hec were both pronounced and written instead of hoic, and qui and quei for quoi. The fact, that, at the time of Lucilius, the character ei represented nothing else but the intermediate sound between i and e, has also been proved. Now, inasmuch, as the greater number of the inscriptions, from which the above words, in which the stem- syllables are spelled with ei, have been collected, date from the above periods, it follows, that we are not justified, in any of these forms, to assume, that the character ei was pronounced as a diphthong." The following investigation, however, places Mr. Corssen's assertion beyond any doubt. In the derivative syllables of nouns ei appears only in the following nouns, viz. mareitom for maritum, peteita for petUa, fugiteivos, ameicorum, Cisalpeina, peregreinos, (I., 212); but in still older inscriptions we find aidiles, aidilis, Quiri[na] t parisuma, whence it follows, that, at the time of the Punic war, the simple sound of i in machine was 122 DIPHTHONGS. heard in the suffixes, Hi, ino, isuma ; consequently, that the character ei, in these same suffixes, at a later period, only expressed the sound of i in machine, inclining to e in ell. But, this same sound, as it appears, was not heard very dis- tinctly in these suffixes, inasmuch as they were generally and regularly spelled with i (I., 212). In order to examine the spelling of ei, in the termination of inflections, Mr. Corssen collects the following verbal forms ; 1. Third person singular, present subjunctive, seit for sit. 2. Third person singular, perfect indicative, redieit for rediit, possedeit for possedit, and venieit for veniit (three times). 3. Second person singular, perfect indicative, interieisti, gessistei, restitistei. 4. First person singular, perfect indicative, petiei, (petii), fecei (fed), poseivei (posivi, posui), conquaeisivei (con- quisivi) redideique (reddidique). 5. Third person plural, perfect indicative, composeiverunt, (composiverunt, compos uerunt) . 6. Present infinitive, active voice, audeire, eire, veneire. 7. Present infinitive, passive voice, solvei, mittei, darei, legei, accipei, utei, fruei, profiterei, jierei, ducei, mittei, agei, exportarei, renuntiarei, legarei, tuerei, restipularei, includei, concipei, judicareique, praestarei, possiderei, proscreibei, reddeive, deicei (I., 212. 213). None of the inscriptions, in which these forms occur, date before the time of Lucilius (150 before Christ) ; but the Plautian forms veis, curabeis, comedereis, redieit, furnish us with proofs, that the spelling El was used in books at an earlier period. In the oldest inscriptions, after the Punic war, we find / or E in these verbal forms, thus fecid, cepit, fuit, fecit, dedit, fuise, (fuisse), compromesise (compro- misisse), dedise, fecise, arfaise (adfuisse), jousisent (jus- sissent), and in the present tense subigit, abdoucit (Sc, Barb.) but E in dedet (dedit), dede (dedit), fuet (fuit), exemet (exemit), cvpet, ornavet, and after the time of Lucilius and ' DIPHTHONGS. 123 the Gracchi, poscdet for post-edit, fecet for fecit, juset (jussit), dixet. Up to the time of Augustus, we find both /and E in verbal forms, but, whenever a word ends in t, the spelling I is by far more general. From the vacillation of the spelling of cepit,fuit and dedet, fuet, in the sarcophagi of the Scipios, Mr. Corssen concludes, that in these forms the intermediate sound between e and i was fully developed, and that in the mouth of the country people the sound e in ell prevailed as in leber (liber), vella (villa), speca, etc., which sound [we add, continued among them, throughout the whole duration of the Roman empire, and became again universally dominant, when, by the decline of the refinement of the cities, the language of their inhabi- tants sank down again to the level of the rustic population, and, therefore,] reappeared again in these verbal forms, in the latest Latin, especially in inscriptions of the fifth and sixth centuries, as in vixet, vixset (twice), vixse, viset, all for vixit ; obiet, oviet for ob iit, fecet,fece for fecit; militavet, curavet, and also in the present forms, scribet, quiescet, quescet, ces- quet, quiesce, requiesquet, requiecset, requiiescet, (I., 214); however, that ei in poseit, redieit, posedeit, really described a sound which was long by nature, has been proved by Mr Corssen in his part on quantity. As regards Elin the endings of the inflections of declen- sions, Mr. Corssen is quite right in separating the forms of the consonant and i-declension from those of the a- and o- declension, inasmuch, as, in the latter only, ei appears in the place of an original ai or oi (I., 215). Among the former, viz : the consonant and i-declension, we find the following datives, viz. : virtutei, Martei t Junonei, Quiritei, Herculei, Sispitei, Vediovei,patrei, leegei, Jovei (four times), heredeive, operei, fraudei, maiorei, actionei, praeconei, redemtorei, urbei, jurei, captionei, Venerei. Among these the forms virtutei and Martei date as far back as the period of the first Punic war. But at the same time with these forms in ei we also find datives ending in i, in inscriptions, as Marti, Jovi. 11* 124 DIPHTHONGS. In the consonant and i-declension, however, the spelling e in the dative predominates most decidedly in the inscriptions, dating from that ancient period, e. g. patre, Junone (together with Seispitei, Matri), Matre, Diove (cfr. Diiove, Quint. I., 4, 17, Mommsen, Unterital. Dial. p. 255 [not 253],) Pisaurese, [_Nov~]esede, Mavrte, Marie, salute, Hercle ; and from a later period, Victore (together with Jovei), jure, Hercule, Jove, lictore, Pilemone, fruge, parenteve. If, now, we compare the oldest of these dative forms, viz. those on the stones of Pesaro, and on the Old-Latin earthen vessels, with the much rarer spelling of Marti, Jovi, Martei, T/trtutei, in inscriptions of the oldest times, it appears, that the intermediate sound, in these forms, as well as in all the other dative forms of the consonant and i-declension, was Bounded almost like e in ell, and, in later times only, received the sound of i in machine. Even in the classical period of the Roman literature we find the two forms jure and aere. Jn the usual dative ending of u- and o-stems, whose genitive case is formed in ius, we also find the spelling ei, e. g. senatuei, quoiei for cui, quoieique, eiei, ipsei, aleiue (aliwe) iei (1, 2, 215, 216). Ablatives with this ending are virtutei, fontei, partei, omnei. In Ennius, also, and Naevius, accord- ing to Mr. Corssen, traces of this spelling are visible ; still, in these authors, they have not yet been established beyond a doubt (I., 217); however, none of these forms date before the time of Lucilius. In the very oldest inscriptions these abla- tives are spelled either with i or e, as in marid, airid, dicta- tor ed, navaled, militare, patre, aire; and in inscriptions of a later date we find ablatives written both with ei, e or i, e. g. Genuati, luuci, sanctioni, deditioni, hereditati, heredive, portioni, continenti ; contione, mense, Flusare, parte, longitudine, latitudine. The fact, that even in the times of Caesar, in the 'lex Julia,' we read continenti, partei and porte, shows that ei, at this time, still represented the inter- mediate sound between e and i, as in the Punic war. Hence, also, arises the vacillation between the spelling of E and /, iu DIPHTHONGS. 125 consonant and i-stems, at the time of Augustus, and even later, after ei had ceased to be employed for the representation of that intermediate sound. In the case of the genitive singular of consonant and i- stems, Mr. Corssen did not meet with any instances, in the older inscriptions, where it was spelled EIS, but he found it spelled ES) in the very oldest inscriptions, as in salutes, Apolones, which he identifies with the very late forms (508 after Christ,) Caesar es, campestres, pages for pads, mare for maris (I., 218.) We have no objection to his doing so, but we are inclined to believe, that in the former es was long, while in the latter it was short. The accusative plural, and more seldom, the nominative plural of consonant and i-stems ends in EIS in the following forms, viz., claseis (classes), naveis, ponteis, omneis, turreis, Genuateis, fineis, calleis, Decembreis, praeconeis, civeis, tristeis, Quintileis, pelleis, Alpeis. Still, in inscriptions of the same period, we find Jin the following forms of i-stems, viz., finis for fines, omnis for omnes, Sextilis, turris for turres, Octobris for Octobres (I., 218), and E in consonant as well as in i-stems, in the following words, viz., apsides, nauales, clasesque, leciones, for legiones, lubentes, prae- cones, quaestores, viatores, Decembres, ceives, stipitesque, decuriones (ib.). The declaration of the grammarians, and the vacillation of the spelling in the best manuscripts proves, that in the classical period of the literature the intermediate sound between i and e, both in the nominative and the accusa- tive plural of consonant and i-stems, sometimes sounded more like i,. and at another time more like e (I., 218). Yarro's teacher, Aelius Stilo, who was much given to the interpreta- tion of Old- Latin monuments, was in favor of spelling eis, in the accusative plural, e. g. ferienteis, docenteis, saltanteis, facilioreis, etc., and Yarro says, that, at his time, there was a vacillation between the spelling of is and es in the accusative pi. ; and also in the best manuscripts of Yirgil. There are, also, some instances, in which is is found in the nominative plural of 126 DIPHTHONGS. these stems, and Yarro states expressly, that, at his time, the people said puppis, restis, and also puppes, restes, in the nominative plural. The same applies to the oldest manu- scripts of Cicero. In vobeis, also, El represents the inter- mediate sound between i and e, as in sibei, tibei, ibei, ubei, heicei, where it was, afterwards, shortened into i or e, stbi, iibi (Ital. ove), hicce (L, 219). On passing to the forms of the o-stems, in which El arose from the diphthong oi, Mr. Corssen first discusses the old form of the nominative plural, pilumnoe [for piluminoe, i. e. poploe furnished with the pilum, or paa/isrot], in which the vowel o of the stem was preserved, but the diphthong oi was weakened into oe, and, moreover, had lost the letter s of the plural. But, on the other hand, according to Mr. Corssen, we find in ante-Augustan inscriptions forms of the nominative plural, ending in eis, in which the diphthong oi has been weakened into ei, but where the sign of the plural, viz. s, has been preserved. They are found, at the same time, with the usual forms, ending in ei, in which the letter s, of the plural has been dropped, e. g. eeis, iei, eis, eisdem, ieis, ei, ieis, eidem, Vertuleieis, leibereis, Minucieis, Rufeis, Cava- turineis, gnateis, facteis, heisce (111, 108, 106, 100, 99, before Christ), magistreis, ffeirennieis, Laverneis, (at the same time with filiei), filiei, numei, quei, foideratei, oinvorsei, virei, magistrei, Juliei, invitei, Poppaeei, colonei, publicei, lectei, datei, Roscieis, Tossieis, III vireis, Italiceis, juratei, Romanei, ceterei, lectei, sublectei, institutei, solitei, factei, postereique, amicei, socieique, agrei, scriptei, ipsei, hei, publicanei, illeij from the time of the Empire, Sep- tumieis, createi, designatei, factei, legatei, reliquei, librarei, duovirei, patronei, unguentariei. In the oldest inscriptions, however, E is written in the plural forms, instead of EI, as in modies, ques, es, ploirume. At the time of the Gracchi, also, we find both El and E in the same nominative forms, and at the same time, e. g. Veturies, Mentovines, Cavaturines, duomvires, Atilies, DIPHTHONGS. 127 Saranes, magistres, plurume. To these forms also belong matrimes, patrimes, mentioned by Terr i us Flaccus, which must have dated from olden times, inasmuch as the s in the nominative plural is no longer found after the time of the war with the MarsL Shortly, after the time of the Gracchi, some nominatives are also found, in inscriptions, spelled with /, but where the original 8 has been preserved, e. g. Veturis, hisce, ministris, magistris (I., 221, 222). Upon comparing these forms with modies, ploirume, which are found in the oldest inscriptions, it appears, that, in earlier writing, I or E was written in the nominative plural of o-stems, and that after the time of the ' senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus', the same sound was also represented by El, thus, that the sound, which had arisen from the diphthong oi, in all these forms, was an intermediate sound between e and i. The same thing we notice in the genitive singular, where the diphthong oi, which originated from ois, was reduced into a simple broad i in machine, before the spelling of El was introduced. We find it spelled with El in the following forms viz., Bomanei, colonei, populei, locei, publicei, agrei, vinei, stipendiarei, leiberei, suei, ostiei, compagei, magistrei, pageiei, vicei, Sulpicei, fanei, faciumdei, exportandei, damnateive, furtei, mandatei, habitandei, utendei, muni- cipiei, damnei, wfectei, praefecteive, Marcei, Vergilei. Instead of El, we find / in the oldest inscriptions, up to the time of the 'senatusconsultum de Bacchanalibus,' e. g. Sae- turnij Volcani, Keri, Kaili, Barbati, Laiini; and also in law-documents and other monuments, up to the time of Augustus, we find genitives in i together with such in ei. The same applies to the dative and ablative plural of o- stems, in ante- Augustan inscriptions, where we find EI in the place of the diphthong oi, which latter has still been preserved to us in the forms suois, gnatois. Such datives are : libreis, soveis (sui$),eeis,ieis,coloneis,vicanei$, olleisque (illisque), cetereis, leibereis, postereisque, Pisideis, portorieis, mari- tumeisque, capiundei* t amiceis, liberteis, sueis, boneis, 128 DIPHTHONGS. domineis, vieis [?], purgandeis, certeis, loceisque, publiceis, tributeis, fruendeis, conscreipteis, serveis, Caedicianeis, Papiei-s, (together with colonis, Senuisanis), fileis. Ablatives of the same kind are : castreis, socieis, eeis, eieis, eis, eisdem, ieis, mieis, proxsumeis, inviteis, vinculeis, amiceis, sueis, viasieis, agreis, publiceis, moinicipieis, singoleis, heisce, anneis, vireis, conciliaboleis, legundeis, oppedeis, foreis, rostreis, abiegnieis, crasseis, seneis, aescul- nieis, Puteoleis, primeis, pageis, noneis, cetereis, secundeis, tertieis, legundeis, sublegundeis, loceis, aedificieis, oppideis, ludeiSj comulateis, olleis, illeis, perpetueis, integreis, certeis, libreis, jurateis, comitieis, anneis, annueis, colonels, plos- treis, jumenteisve, municipieis, singuleis, conciliabuleis, castreis, conscreipteisve, legateis, judicieis, dateis, jusseis t meriteis. Together with the ending eis there also occurs in the same inscriptions, although more rarely, the form is, which has become generally dominant afterwards ; in a few cases we, also, find es ; e. g. invitis, vicanesve, Januaris, secundis, hisce, ter minis, controversis, jfiscis, scriptes, puplicis, pro.xumis, iisdem, conscriptes, isdem. Thus Mr. Corsseu concludes, that in all these cases El could not have repre- sented a diphthong. Ei also appears in the dative and ablative plural of the a-declension as the representative of a sound, originating in the diphthong ai, e. g. in the dative, incoleis, scribeisve, inferieis, vieis purgandeis ; in the ablative, soveis (suis), taboleis, tableis, tabuleis, controversieis, decurieis, causeis, praefectureis. The older form nuges instead of nugais, and the spelling / which occurs at the same time with El, shows, that in this instance, also, EI had lost its character as a diphthong, and simply represented the intermediate sound between e and 1. Thus, also, the vacillation in the spelling of the following words is explained, viz ; 1 DIPHTHONGS. 129 e ei i die quarte, die septimei, die quinti, die noni, die crastini, here, herei, heri, peregre, peregri. The forms quarti, quinti, septimei, noni, crastini, heri, herei, peregri, are endings of the locative case, as well as domi, humi, vesperi. In ' die, 1 according to Mr. Corssen, the locative ending has been dropped, as the letter i has frequently been dropped in the endings of the e-declension. As regards the case in praefiscine, Mr. C. leaves it undecided. [Perhaps the letter e in die has been contracted from diei, as in Aapfto^, Dareus, Darius, pwotiov, museum']. A similar vacillation is observed in the spelling of the following pro- nouns and conjunctions, viz. e ei i Latin, sibe, sibei, sibi, tibe, tibei, tibi, Umbr. tefe, Umbr. mehe, Lat. mihei, mihi, i/fo(alater Lat. form, " ubei, ubi, comp. Ital. ove, 'Umbr.pufe), Umbr. ife, Lat. ibei, ibi, Latin, ne, " nei, ni. (Mr. Kitschl has shown that in the oldest inscriptions the spelling ne prevailed, that, in the course of time, nei and ni became more and more developed, until at last ne came again into use) Umbr. sve, Lat. sei, lastly s?*, Yolsc. se, Latin, nise, nisei, nisi, nesei, " quase ('in multorum quasei, quasi, libris,' as Quintilian says), quansei. utei, uti. The fact that Lucilius did not succeed in regulating the spelling of 2Zand 7, appears from the following synopsis of 130 DIPHTHpXGS. the different modes of spelling which are collected from the most important law-documents from the time of the Gracchi to Caesar : e ei % Tab. Bantin. nei, ni, plebeive, plebive, Tab. Genuat. Veturis, Veiturios, Vituriorum, dum-ne, nei, ni, posedet, posedeit, ibei, ibi, utei, uti, controversieis, controversis, inviteis, invitis, fontei, parti, rostris, plebeive, plebive, lucei, luci, locei, loci, populei, populi, agrei, agri, screiptus, scriptus, fonte, Lex repetund. parenteve, majorei, (Serv.) teve, rostreis, Lex repet. Lex agrar. (Thor.) Lex Corn, de XX quaest. Decembres, Decembreis, praecones, praeconeis, Sc. d. Asclep. veneire, Claz. leibereisve, L. d. Termes. PeisidaV, ceives populei, L. Jul. mund. , vemre, leiberisve, Pisidae, civeis, populi, conscreiptumve, conscriptum, parte, deicet, tuerei, advehei, exportarei, partei, ubei, dicere, tueri, advehi, portari, continenti, ubi, DIPHTHONGS. 131 ei i seive, sive. L. Rubr. eeiSj ieis, repromeisserit, repromissio, duceique, duci, possiderei, possideri, deicet, interdixetve, nisei. In the Augustan age the spelling El came generally into disuse ; but the intermediate sound, which was represented by EI remained, of which Quintilian says (1, 4, 8), " Neque e plane neque i auditur." After this time it was frequently marked by a tall /, reaching over the other letters (Ritschl, Mon. Epigr. tria, p. 31 ; Mommsen, Rhein. Mus. X., 124 ff). However, the spelling EI is still occasionally found in the best monuments of that age, up to the later times of the empire, of which Mr. Corssen mentions twenty-two instances (L, 229). In the Umbrian dialect, also, in which the process of the obscuration of the diphthongs was carried still farther than in the Latin, the character EI no longer represents a diphthong, but a long sound between e and i which is also represented by E and /; compare the following forms, viz. e ei i pehaner, peihaner, pihaner, poe, poei, poi, ape, apeij api, Fise, Fiseij Fisi The Latin diphthongs have, thus, been obscured in the following manner : au, into 6, and in a few cases into u ; ou, through o into u ; ai, through ae, e, ei into I ; oi, through oe into u ; and, also, through oe, e, ei into I. ei, into e, ei and i. The beginning of these obscurations, according to Mr. 132 DIPHTHONGS. Corssen, dates back to antehistorical ages. At the time in which our inscriptions begin, this process is in full operation, and the diphthongal characters are, to some extent, mere monuments of deceased diphthongs. In the Augustan age only the diphthong au was preserved in spelling, and this alone was transmitted to the Roman daughter-idioms ; see our remarks on the pronunciation of ai and oi, page 136. This process of extinction of the diphthongs which com- menced in the Latin at the time of Roman greatness and vigor, invaded also the system of Greek vowels, after the classic time of Greece had passed away. It may be inter- esting, perhaps, to our readers, to learn the facts, collected by Mr. Corssen, in this respect (I., 231). In the earliest time the diphthong at was weakened into as. In this weakened form it appears, even, at the time, when the Roman sound ae was expressed in Greek by at, as in At/u'xtoj, KoWt, AaiVtoj (cfr. Melhorn, Greek Grammar, p. 22). At the later time of the Roman empire it no longer sounds distinct from *. This is proved by the spelling in the inscriptions, e. g. xsl-t* for xttVat, xyts for xftVat, xsivts for xctj/fac, xs for xat, fporffoa^of for rportato^os, together with arT'TiTjcrafat for a*"TV/j flair ?, a/vai$yxa/v for avf^xav. The other diphthongs, also, are assailed about the same time by this depravation of the vowels ; hence, on Christian epitaphs we find e written, both in the place of *t and of 77, e. g. x&fat for xtrat (in six inscriptions), xlvts for xttWat, /3a5tXt for /3a#tA,st, rtpoacr-r'tcor for rfpoatfT'fuoy, /tiytyutw for Jtf^utEuar, ijpi}** for i'tpjjj''/;, t't^i^t foru4/v7? ovdJ$ for ovfcbf, irouni for heroum, zp^tov for %pv$," it follows, that at the beginning of the ninth century the obscuration of the Old-Greek at into , of ** that in almost all languages, in the later stages of their development, the gutturals and dentals, and even the labials to some extent, when followed by the con- Bonantal y, before i and e, were weakened and changed into sibilants, which process he calls 'Zetacism.' * Beitrage zur vergleiclienden Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der Arischen, Celtischen und Slavischen Spracheu, herausgegeben von A. Kuhn und A. Schleicher. ** Sprachvergleichende Untersuchungen, No. 1. Zur Vergleiclienden Sprachengeschiclite, von Dr. A. Schleicher (157) 158 APPENDIX. Although it is very difficult to trace the changes of sound in a language, lacking the convenience of alphabetic writing, which is the chief source of information for the science, dealing in the history of sounds, still, according to Abel JRemusat and Endlicher, the Chinese language furnishes instances in the popular dialect of Peking, where k before i is softened into k' or c' (tsh) ; for the sibilants tc' (tsh), tc' (tsh-Ji), sh and $, which corresponds to the Sanscrit tavya, where two semi- vowels have been drop- ped ; between a consonant and a following vowel olaovti instead of olayovtc (cfr. Ahrens de dial. Dor.) ; 2, it is changed into c or e, e. g. ayto$, Saner, yag'ya, xwzos, Saner, cunya; 3, it is transposed, e. g. w* J xpa*tv$ (xpcu^pos, Strong), Dor. [xparu^, xpaaruw, 3cpao^u/J tfpatfcrwj', later Ionic xpsaauv, Attic xpstaauV, /3paSvf, /3pa5tcof, j3pa5^wt/, /3pct(j(jwf, slower / sapSux, Aeol. xapa, heart; fjJJa, /u'Sya, roo/, Saner, vrdh, to grrow ; rfcuS-, Ttcufyw, rfaJfu. ; Saner. 7iad, Perf. xt'^oSa, #%w, * f w ; 2, from yy, ^ and ^, e. g. jWfy-ywv, /tfy^w^ ; u'un>, ^Uf c'tov ^ ^Cpay^cj, xp&^o* J ffri^yu), cti(^<.o ; (^xv^,J vjxiara,, >}xtcov, qxyuv, waouv ; ]3^^, flr t %y7tcd, trees, f^fc'cjffw, ocTcff, 6cJcfo/iat ; O7t['Z'Jo^iat. J xo/t-j xortyiu, ^4s an initial, f is obtained ; 1, frequently from Sc which, when followed by a vowel, is instead of fy (6 with a consonantal #). Thus ?a instead of Sta, (which does not occur exclusively among the Aeolians), wxfo*; aj3aM.tv for 5ta/3a?t7,ftf J Zwvv%o$ for Atdyvcroj J farffSoi/ for ^tartfSot', Zfi'j for A^^j, Ato?, from the Sanscr. dyoo ; Lat. zeta for &'cura ; 2, from (3y (j3 with a consonantal y). For according to Eustathius and Strabo the Arcadians (and, according to the latter, also the Macedonians), instead of an initial /3, pro- nounced , e. g. fTttfapfto for '7tt/3apf'o J f Ipf^poi/ for /3apa^poi'. Hesychius and the Etymologicum magnum, without specifying the dialects, mention fi'xxw [jfo'xo* ?] for j3a^o. We do not see any reason why instead of tracing some of these words to guttural roots of the Sanscrit, and not attempting to explain the rest, we should not rather admit in the Greek language, as well as in the other idioms, mentioned by Mr. Schleicher, a coalescing of the labial into the consonantal diphthong, by the addition of the semi-vowel y. Instead of admitting a partial or dialectic assibilation of the labial, Mr. Schleicher rather takes recourse to guttural stems of the Sanscrit. Still, this weakening of the labial could not have taken place in * See Bopp's explanation of this ending, " Vergl. Grainm." g 19. APPENDIX. the primitive times, when the old members of this chain of languages yet formed an unbroken whole, nor yet, while the Greek and Latin together formed the Graeco-Italic or Pelasgic idiom, but it must have happened after the separation of the former from the latter for the Latin, after many centuries, had not yet manifested the least trace of assibilation and, indeed, on Greek ground, after the labial had become fully developed, and shown its distinctive nature. In the Modern Greek, according to Mr. Schleicher, pag. 59, and Prof. Diez, pag. 234, 235, the assibilation of k be- fore i does not yet generally prevail ; still, in some dialects it is even now pronounced as c=tsh. In order to have a full view of the history of this linguistic phenomenon, we close our statement with Mr. Schleicher's zetacism of the Romance languages, which not only assails the gutturals and dentals, but also the labials, as in the Thibetian and the Polish [and, as we suppose, to some degree in the Greek]. The guttural c before i, y, e, ae, ce, was partly changed into z (=ts, ds), e. g. Ital. Zeppo, cippus ; Wai. olzet, acetum ; colza, calceus ; atze, acies the Spanish and Portuguese z is intermediate between the Italian and French partly into the sound tsh, in the Italian dolce, cielo, and partly into s in French, e. g. douce, douceur. Qu either remains unchanged, or else it passes over into the sound of s or tsh, e. g. Fr. cuisine (coquina), cinque ; or finally it takes the sound of / , e. g. Fr. question, J before all vowels, and g before i (y) and e either sound as z, as the Spanish, or as dzh in the Italian, the Proven- cial and the Walachian, or as zh in the French and Por- tuguese. The dental smooth before the mute i or e (i. e. the conso- nantal y) in the Italian and Walachian is changed into ts ; in the Spanish and Portuguese into z, $, where an indistinct d is still heard, (cfr. Diez, pag. 379). Thus in the Italian we find tizzone, titio ; pozzo, puteus ; in the Spanish pozo t APPENDIX. 165 dureza ; in the Portuguese po$o, prcsenra ; in the Proven- cial potz ; pretz, pretium. In the Italian the letter i fre- quently remains, e. g. avarizia, together with avarezza. In the French t is changed into s or c, as injustice, justesse, saison, or at least, it sounds as s, e. g. nation, corruption. In a few cases it becomes gi in the Italian, i. e. ragione, con- dannagione, presentations. Sometimes it even becomes z (tz) in the beginning of words, e. g. Ital. zio, Walach. tzigli, tegula ; also in the Italian anzi, ante, from antie, antye. D, likewise, before i and e, when they are followed by an- other vowel, coalesces into z (=dz), and sometimes into g, dzh, e. g. radius, razzo ; medius, mezzo ; hodie, oggi. In the Provencial and the Walachian it becomes z=soft or hard s. The labials, even, are sometimes assailed by the zetacism, as in the Thibetan, Polish and Greek : pi, pe, (=py) e. g. pipio, piccione ; sepia, Fr. seche ; prope, Fr. proche ; ap- propinquare, Ital. approcciare, Fr. approcker ; by, bi, be, e. g. objectum, Ital. obbietto, oggetto ; subjectum, Ital. sub- bietto, suggetto, Fr. sujet, Provenc. sojeit ; debeo, deggio ; rabies, rage; cambiare, cangiare, Fr. changer; tibia, Fr. tige ; rubeus, Ital. roggio, Fr. rouge : vi, ve, e. g. pluvia, pioggia ; serviens, sergente ; cavea, cage ; abbreviare, abre- ger ; diluvium, deluge ; my, mi, me : e. g. vindemia, ven- dange ; simia, singe ; commeotus, conge. In tracing the development of the zetacism in the various languages, every unbiased inquirer is irresistibly led to the conclusion, that we must claim for the Latin and Greek the same course of development, as in all other languages, and that any deviation from this general law must be regarded as an individual anomaly, as in the case of the Aeolians and Dorians who not only transposed g into e8, but also I and 4, as in axevos, sken'os GTt&iov, spel'ion, instead of xwi/oj, ksen'os ts'i'os and 7txtov, 4&ioi; psel'ion. This transposition of ? however, is erroneously regarded as more general than it really is, since, according to Ahrens, " De dial. Aeol." pag. 166 APPENDIX. 47, 48, and " De dial. Dor." p. 96, it only extends to the ? of a dental origin (with the single exception of ^aSa for ^'fw, just?w). Mr. Schleicher says, pag. 43: "It is a peculiarity of the Doric dialect, whenever a & follows a mute, to put it before it ; e, g., oxipog, GJt&iov skiph'os, spel'ion, instead of xtlyos ksiph'os, Tto&wv psel'ion. In these examples ax and crt, evidently hold the same relations to and 4 (*<* and Tto) ;*>s 08 to ?. Now, this last case of metathesis, as is well known, is very frequent, so that those few cases where an organical o has become J ( J A^va*, 0>J,3a?f, vpaf instead of 'A>rpa$p, J0a$5* , ^vpaaSf , and jSvJ^v, j3v?di/ for j3vc^i>, ,8uoSdv, confertim,) are nothing else but metatheses (Dorisms). In these cases J was pronounced instead of 08, as in so many other instances, in which (8a) was said by some, where they heard others say 08. In the common estimation ]{ii, . . . rportij tov J 1 1$ xat 8 ; Dionysius of Halicarnass. universally classes 6$ ^tfv fwv r/ui,utvuv tov cr, tfpcwi/ 6g d^tovwi' foi) ? x 5c(u tov 8 xai tov 7t ; and in the passage im- mediately following, where it is his object to point out the distinctive feature of , he only says, that , on account of its being medial, i. e. belonging to the middle (^CTU^ OVIM appotspuv, viz. 4, and |), sounded more softly. If there had existed such a great difference between f on the one hand, and 4 and | on the other, as is supposed by those, who pronounce ? as 08, Dionysius would have surely mentioned it here, as he above others is distinguished by his acute observation How, indeed, could Dionysius have described 4 and I as being fytoysvets to ?, if this had been pronounced 06 and not dz?" From these extracts we see that Mr. Schleicher vindicates its true sound to the letter f. Still, he admits, that there are unequivocal testimonies of later Greeks in favor of its Aeolic and Doric sound a$. A like difference, also, appears in the Roman testimonies, adduced by Schneider in his Compen- dious Latin Grammar ("Ausfiihrliche Grammatik," etc. Vol. I., pp. 375-388). While the older Greek testimonies are more in favor of the double consonant 5?, the latter incline more to the opposite side. This, also, is perfectly natural. For, in olden times, the double sound of the letter f was in use among those who spake the Attic, or the common Greek dialect. This, afterwards, disappeared more and more, until, at last, it was reduced to the simple sound of the middle aspirate, viz., 168 APPENDIX. z in English ; while the lower classes of the Aeolic and Doric population, as is the case in all languages,(especially in the German,) clung fast to their old forms and sounds, in which, in respect to the pronunciation 08, they were, moreover, strengthened by some Attic forms, which have been men- tioned above. The same was the case among the Romans. They were in constant intercourse with the Doric population of Lower Italy and the opposite Greek coast, as well as with those in Sicily, and on this account they imagined the archaic double sound of