CH. V.

to see the connection between this use of it and the other more common one to mark the agent'. Whether there were originally two distinct forms which by phonetic influence were confused together; or whether -tar first denoted the agent, and the different domestic relations were first conceived of as the performance of certain functions (so that bhratar meant originally the bearer or supporter, patar the protector, matar the producer)—is impossible for us to decide. One objection to the latter view lies in the somewhat artificial character of the derivations here given; the conceptions seem on the whole so little obvious or simple. No doubt there may have been originally a score of other words besides patar by which a father could be known, and patar may have driven them all out of the field by virtue of no superior merit as a conception, but from greater convenience of sound, or even some other more trifling reasons: such an elimination only requires time and long time must have elapsed between the simple beginnings of primitive man upon the earth and the stage of development which the Indo-Europeans had attained when they first appear in that dim Eastern dawn of what is to us the world's history: and therefore the charge of artificiality against these derivations should go for no more than it is worth. Yet I confess I cannot help some of our suspecting that these words, patar and matar, denoting as they do one of the simplest and earliest relationships, may possibly have been a legacy received from a still more distant time, remnants of an utterly perished language, brought down in some simpler form, and afterwards fashioned by our forefathers, so as to lose what was strange in their appearance, and be capable of being referred to a known Indo-European root and suffix. Certainly the first syllable of each word seems marvellously like the language of nature.

(Possibility of

words be

ing older

than the IndoEuropean roots).

II. Protracted sounds.

I have thus given examples of the nine momentary sounds as they occur in roots and words presumably Indo1 See above, p. 51.

CH. V.

European. The protracted sounds, which we now proceed to consider, require less strength and distinctness in articulation. Hence they occur less frequently in roots than the strong explosive sounds, which were better fitted to express with firmness and precision the ideas produced by natural objects through the senses upon the mind of a quick and vigorous race. I shall begin with the nasals, 1. Nasals. because they have a close and obvious connection with the momentary sounds: we have seen that the position of the mouth-organs for each is the same as that for the corresponding explosive sound: but that, in addition, the nasal apertures of the pharynx are open. Consequently each language should possess as many nasal sounds as it has distinct classes of consonants produced at the different points of contact: thus in Sanskrit, which possesses two additional classes of consonants, the palatal and lingual, sounded between the guttural and the dental, each of these classes has its own nasal, distinguished like the other nasals by its own peculiar symbol. Sanskrit has thus five nasal letters, while no European language has more than two symbols, though many have at least a third sound, like that of ng at the end of English "sing," to express a guttural nasal. The question has already been mentioned whether this sound is Indo-European. Certainly that language possessed no special symbol for it: and there is no evidence that it could ever stand alone in any ancient language but Sanskrit: in all the others it is only found in contact with the guttural which produced it, as in ȧyXóvn, angustus. These two words, together with the Gothic aggvus1 also meaning "narrow" and derived from the same root as the others, might seem to justify us in assuming an Indo-European root ang (where by n I denote the sound ng). But no stronger form is found in Sanskrit than agha, in the sense of "evil:" and the Greek also has the simpler ax, as in axos: a later origin must therefore

1 The symbol g, to denote the nasal, was of course borrowed from the Greek usage.

CH. V.

be attributed to the nasal, in this and in similar cases. The most that we can infer is that the sound was becoming recognised before the separation of languages, but not yet so fully as to require a definite symbol.

The dental and labial nasals are found unaltered in all the languages. The only variety we find is in the Greek, Gothic, and Lithuanian, which take n at the end of a word The reason is obviwhere the other languages have m. ous: m, which is pronounced with the lips firmly closed, is less fitted for the end of a word, where the tendency is always to let the lips part.

2

N.

From AN, to blow, we have an-ila in Sanskrit and av-euos in Greek meaning wind. Transferred to the spiritual world the Graeco-Italian anemos becomes animus, the spirit, in Latin. In Scotch "aynd" is breath (found in Barbour), and there is an old English word “onde1.” The O. H. G. unst is the violent wind, while ansts in Gothic denotes favour or grace: so curious is the interlacing of the physical and metaphysical in the derivatives of this root. In Sanskrit ânana is the mouth, and then like os comes to mean a face: and most probably the same meaning is found in προσ-ηνής, with face turned towards one, aπηýs, with averted face, πpηvýs, with face bent forward, vπývn, the part below the mouth. These etymologies are due to Prof. Benfey, who also connects prâna, which in Sanskrit signifies both breath and life, with the Greek φρήν and φρόντις.

The severity of the winter in the original home of the Indo-European nations is shewn by their all having the same word for snow: except indeed the Hindu. The original root was SNIGH, which is retained in Sanskrit in the form snih, but it denotes viscosity, and the deriThe Zend vative sneha means first oil, then love.

1 As in Gower's Confessio Amantis; "she gaspeth with a drechinge onde," i.e. a labouring breath; given in Morris, Specimens &c. p. 275, ed. 2. 2 Gr. Et. No. 419.

however has the root in its old sense: in Greek the guttural has passed into a labial, and we have vipas, &c.: in Latin ning-ere, the first consonant being lost, as often, in Latin: the Gothic for "snow" is snaivs, the Lithuanian snegas. The fact that the Indians alone allowed the word to pass out of its original sense shews that they passed into a climate the most unlike to that of the common fatherland. Their common word for snow is hima, whence Himalaya, the place where the snow lies: it comes from the root GHI, which has given the other languages their word for winter, xeμov, hiemps, Lithuanian žëma: the fact that hima was used by the Hindus to denote a number of other objects remarkable for whiteness and freshness-such as camphor, the pearl, the white lotus, and fresh butter1-may shew that snow was to them an object to be admired from a distance rather than an inconvenience under foot. Some general inferences about the climate of our fatherland will be found in a note at the end of this chapter.

=

The agreement in the word for a daughter-in-law is curious. The Sk. snushā, Gr. vvós, Lat. nurus, and O. H. G. snur, and A. S. snor, point to the Indo-European form snusa: which may not unlikely have originally been sunusa, a derivative from sunu, "a son" (which is a Sanskrit form from Su, "to beget;" whence viós su-yo-s). A man was nar or nara. We have it in Sanskrit nri, in a-vep, and it is found in all the Italian dialects as ner, except in Latin, where it seems to have been superseded by uir. It is the Sabine name Nero; and Nerius is a secondary form. The Welsh nerth, Irish nert, mean manliness". These words belong to the class which can be best relied upon to shew the affinity of the Keltic to the other European languages: the identity of the root is certain and the formation seems independent: therefore they were not merely borrowed words.

1 Benf. Lex. 8.v.

2 As in Matt. x. 35; and see Gr. Et. No. 444.

See Ebel, p. 108; Fick, 110.

CH. V.

CH. V.

M.

The labial-nasal is found in the root MAR, which with its strengthened forms MARD, and MARP-if this latter be really connected with it-is well known from the full and interesting discussion it has received from Max Müller in his second series of lectures. It appears most commonly in Greek and Latin as mor (or upo in Greek as a-μ(B)рo-тos), and mostly restricted to the sense of death. Our "murder" is to be seen in the Gothic maurthr.

One of the most important roots in the language is MAN, to think. This root indeed, as we have already seen, is only a secondary, modified form of MA, to measure (whence comes ma-ta which the Sanskrit grammars give as the past participle of man, and ma-ti, thought): but it is undoubtedly older than the time of the separation. In the Sanskrit and in all the North-European languages, the derivatives of this verb signify nothing but operations of the mind, as thought and memory: in old German minna is love, whence the minne-singers. In Anglo-Saxon myn is love, and myne "mind," memory. But in Latin the root is applied in its simplest form-man-ere—and in Greek almost its simplest-uév-ew-to express what is apparently a much more concrete idea-to remain. Which is the primary sense? It has already been incidentally mentioned that the concrete signification of a verb or noun, as a rule, always precedes the abstract: for example, VAR meant to look "warily" before pa (strengthened derivative from Fop, whence óp-áw) meant caution, anxiety; or ver-eor meant to be afraid. Has then this root reversed the ordinary process? The fact, that no trace is left in the Teutonic and Sclavonic speeches of any original sense "to remain," is strongly against that having been the primary sense of the root. Probably no root has ever passed from a particular to a general signification without leaving some trace behind in some of its derivatives