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symbol was three skulls, his delight the misfortunes of men. Besides these there were many gods of a secondary order, demons, or genii.

SECTION III. Of the Old Prussian, Lithuanian, and Lettish Languages.

Of late years, and since the history of the Indo-European languages has engaged so much attention, the dialects of the Lithuanians and Letts have been diligently studied and elucidated. The result has been a now prevailing and perhaps fully established opinion, that this idiom may justly claim a particular place of its own among the languages of that class. It appears, indeed, that the Lithuanian, of all the idioms of Europe, has the nearest affinity with the Sanskrit. It is a fact, though a very surprising one, that the language of the ancient Prussians and Letts was strongly allied to the sacred and classical dialect of Hindústan. How this can have happened would be a puzzling question, which fortunately it is needless to discuss, since our concern is merely to ascertain facts. An analysis of the Old Prussian language by Professor Von Bohlen fully establishes the assertion, which the grammatical researches of MM. Bopp, Grimm, Lassen, and others had made sufficiently probable, if not quite certain. The following account of these dialects is abstracted from M. Von Bohlen's memoir.

The yet extant and nearly connected sister-dialects of the Old Prussian are well known to be the Lettish of Kurland and Lettland, and the Lithuanian, to which belongs the more corrupt Polish Lithuanian or Schamaitic. Both the sister dialects of the Old Prussian, namely, the Lithuanian and the Lettish, are nearly on a level in respect to their comprehensiveness and richness in words, except that the Lettish has adopted, at a late period, a greater proportion of German vocables. But they differ widely in grammatical relations. For while the Lithuanian, protected by its insulated situation from that source of corruption, has with wonderful fidelity maintained its perfection of native forms without having them fixed by writing, and has even acquired a more full developement by

consulting euphony rather than logical accuracy, and by adopting a freer and bolder construction of periods, the Lettish on the contrary has become as deficient in inflections and as abstract as the Persian, English, or modern German; it has softened down the endings of cases, it has entirely lost the instrumental, has suffered the locative to become obsolete, has no longer any trace of the dual, inflects the verb by means of pronouns prefixed, and has amalgamated foreign words with its native elements.

The Old Prussian stands in a middle place between these two languages. Its ancient richness in words cannot be estimated from the scanty remains of its vocabulary, but from the number of synonyms which it preserves it may be inferred that the copia verborum in this idiom was very considerable. Its grammatical structure displays a peculiar mixture of new and old forms; of old forms becoming obsolete, and of new ones becoming naturalised; and of an indefinite and fluctuating structure and pronunciation of unwritten words, very favourable to approximation to other languages, and perhaps giving a sometimes deceptive resemblance to the Gothic and Slavonic. Thus runkans, instead of rankans, passes into rukans, nearly as düdu occurs instead of düdami in Lithuanian, (do, dadámi, Sansk.dow); and suwu, for suwumi, (Sansk. suwámi,suo, Eng. sow). Yet these three dialects display proofs that they are distinct though allied stems from the same stock with other European languages, not derived from any of them, but having a completeness which is wanting to all the idioms of Europe and only discovers itself in the Sanskrit.*

The Sanskrit Devăs (Deus) is found pure only in the Lithuanian Dievas, Lettish Deus, Prussian Deiws. Hence Pruss. dievuts (pius, devotus), in Sansk. deivat. This may tend to convince us that the northern nations derived the name for the Deity from the same source whence the Greeks and Romans obtained it, and certainly not from them. A derivation of the same word through the Persian is equally im

* Ueber die Sprache der alten Preussen, vom Professor von Bohlen.

+ This remark will include the Celtic languages. God is in Welsh, Duw ; in Erse, Dia.

probable, for the Persians designate by the word Dew an evil demon. But the Germans may have obtained from the Persians their word Gott, (Gothic Guths,) God; in Persian Choda. The Slavish term Bog is an insulated word.*

In the analytical comparison of languages, with a view to discover their relations, it is necessary to mark the transitions or permutations of vowels not less accurately than those of consonants. In the Sanskrit there are certain laws for the alteration of vowels from the state in which they are found in primitive words to that which they display in derivatives. This is termed by European grammarians, after Grimm, the strengthening of vowels. In Sanskrit these changes follow two prescribed forms, which are termed Guna and Vriddhi,+ and by reference to these principles, which are regular and well-ascertained in Sanskrit, a derivative word is distinguishable from a primitive one. As the same changes are prevalent through all the Indo-European idioms, a similar observation will generally determine which is the oldest and least altered form of a word, and what are the latest acquired or newest forms. Thus in Sanskrit, yauvana (juventus) is later than yuvan (juvenis). So in the cognate languages we have caupo and copa, from cupa: the Prussian viddai (vidit, in Sanskrit vid,) gives origin to the causal form vaidinna (ostendit, Sanskrit vaid), in which the vowel is strengthened, and this entitles us to consider the strengthened Gothic wair (vir) as later than the Prussian vyrs, in Sanskrit viras.

The consonants are, however, more constant or less varia

One of the most striking instances of an immediate derivation of words into the Prussian and Lithuanian family of languages from the Sanskrit, is the following: Visampatis in Sanskrit means properly "ruler of the third class," or Visas; its secondary meaning is "ruler," absolutely. The Lithuanian viezpats (dominus), Prussian vaispattis (domina), displays its near relation to the Sanskrit. It cannot be supposed to be derived from the more corrupt Slavish synonym gospodin, hospes, dεOTOτng, which would hardly return so nearly to its original form. The simple Sanskrit word patis (dominus) is even found in the Lithuanian pats. The root is the Sanskrit dhatoo, pá, (regnare,) whence with a formative na, the Lithuanian ponas (dominus). (Von Bohlen, s. 716.)

Guna and Friddhi are very important forms in the construction and etymology of words in Sanskrit, and their influence may be traced in all the Indo-European languages. Guna changes i to é, u to ō, rì to ăr, and lri to čl. Vriddhi changes or augments à to a, i to ai, i to au, ri to ar, lri to al, i to ai, and o to au.

ble in the cognate languages; but here it may be observed, as a general rule, that where a mute tenuis belongs to a word in its original form, it becomes in the derived dialects or sister languages an aspirate, and by degrees passes into the middle or soft mute, corresponding to its class. Compare, for example, the Gothic pronoun interrogative hwas, with the Sanskrit kas, ká, kim, which is recognised in the purest state in our Prussian dialects; Prussian and Lithuanian kas (quis), quei (ubi), Sanskrit kwa; senku (quocum), which primitive form is wanting even in Sanskrit. Thus also the Sanskrit anyas (alius), comparative anyatarăs, anyatará, am; Prussian antars, antra, becomes in Gothic anthars, with the aspirate, and softens its dental consonant finally into d. The transition of the palatal consonants peculiar to Sanskrit is uncertain, but yet not so arbitrary that words can no longer be recognised. For example, S. chaturt'has (pronounced tshaturt'has) is in Prussian ketwirts, Lithuanian ketwirthas. S. jáná (mulier) is in Prussian ganna, in Gothic quino, whence queen, quean, cwen; also jiva and jivata (vita), Prussian givei, Lettish dsihwe, Lithuanian gywatá. Compare the Gothic qwiws (vivus). Tejas (honor) survives only in the Prussian teisis. The most variable consonants are h, r, and s, through their relation to each other, and the liability of the last to be hardened into k. And here we may remark, that the relation of the Old Indian language with the Prussian and Lithuanian stem is not only established by these and similar phenomena, but that the nature of this relation is such as to preclude altogether the supposition that it has taken place through the medium of the Gothic, as that idiom is displayed in the version of Ulphilas. The northern languages often preserve the primitive forms equally pure, as Sanskrit súnas (filius), Gothic and Lithuanian sunas, Prussian souns, German sohn, English son. Often a word otherwise lost is recognised in these idioms, as Sanskrit wisva (omne), Prussian vissa, Lettish viss, Lithuanian vissas. In many instances the idioms of the Prussian stem preserve perfect words, which in Sanskrit are found truncated. The proper names contain in the Prussian, as in other dead languages, many lost words. Thus the names of places in wangen, as

Turwangen, Kinwangen and others, situated in forests, are probably related to the Sanskrit wana (sylva, lucus), in Old High Dutch wane; and lauks (ager), in Mehlauken, Taurlauken, Taplaken, to the Sanskrit loka (locus, mansio, mundus).

With respect to the preservation of grammatical forms, the Prussian is much poorer than its sister-dialect, the Lithuanian; nor is this to be wondered at, since the Grandmaster Siegfried of Feuchtwangen endeavoured, as early as 1309, to banish it by a decree from the popular use; a proceeding which certainly rendered more difficult the instruction of the Prussians in Christianity, whilst it deprived the nation of their dearest possession -their thoughts! But amidst all the uncertainty between the peculiar and the acquired, the Old Prussian dialect shows many original traits of a perfect language, and these may, without going through the whole grammar, be shortly described. The declension of nouns has now few peculiarities; the cases are defective, inasmuch as the instrumental and locative are entirely wanting, or mutilated, and in many cases, owing to the uncertain government of the prepositions, not to be determined. There is no appearance of a dual even in the pronouns, which usually retain their forms longer than any other parts of language; and even the traces of a neuter are doubtful, for emnen (nomen), and other words which might be taken for neuters, are never so marked by the article: thus in stas, stai, sta, in Vater's arrangement, in Lithuanian tas, ta, tai, the neuter is too uncertain to be fully demonstrated. The first declension is clearly marked. The characteristic of the nouns in Prussian is in the masculine, 8, (deivs, deus,) with the connecting vowel thrown out, (comp. Lithuanian deivas, Sanskrit devas,) which appears again in the genitive deivas (Sanskrit devasya). The dative, as in the Gothic, terminates in n, and thus becomes like the accusative (deivan, Sanskrit devam); the vocative loses merely the s of the nominative (deiva, Sanskrit deva), with only a few corrupted exceptions. The nominative plural is deivai (Sanskrit devâs), the genitive deivans (Sanskrit devánám); the dative plural shows again some approach to the old form, in which a little softening of the letters is not to be taken into the account, (vy

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