صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Gothic t, as dent(ist) and tooth; Classic k and Gothic h, (instead of ch, v. Grimm, I. c. p. 584, fin.) as (uni)corn and horn ; Classic ch and Gothic g, as chol(eric) and gall; Classic g and Gothic k, as gelid and cold.

But besides these, there are other advantages we can draw from those primitives of the classic stock. They will help us also to acquire a most desirable stock of words for the study of any of the modern languages belonging to the classic stock, as the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, &c. Each such introductory study has to begin, as already stated, with a comparison between the English and the other respective system of simple sounds, following physiological principles, so that one may be enabled to reduce, to a sort of standard measure, all sounds of any language which one may wish to compare with English.

We have still to go one step farther; the intimate connexions of the English language go beyond the Germanic and classic stock. For these two are again only branches of the tribe of the Indo-European languages, and in this way intimately connected with the Sanscrit, Persian, Lithuanian, Slavonic, and Celtic stocks. From this fact we may fairly conclude (by analogy,) without knowing yet exactly the whole importance of it, that the English language will give us most desirable aid in learning any of the last-named languages. But now that our range is wider, it will be well to consider the simple roots of the English language, instead of its primitives.

There are about 497 roots to the 3820 primitives; 470 of them are Sanscrit roots, or roots which the English has in common with the Sanscrit. If in the Indian languages the proportion of the roots to the primitives, or to the whole mass of words derived from them, were the same as in English, i. e. if each root gave about 7 primitives, or 100 words of all sorts,

7 In these statements I follow principally F. G. Eichhoff,-Parallèle des Langues de l'Europe et de l'Inde, Paris, 1836,-who gives a detailed list of the 550 Sanscrit roots that allow a parallèle des Langues de l'Europe et de l'Inde. N. L. Westergaard, in his Radices Lingua Sanscrita, Bonn, 1841, has about 3,500 verbs, of which about 1,380 are roots, yet without counting the " ra

dices etymologicæ, quæ ab antiquissimis grammaticis in collectiones radicum non relatæ sunt," p. 333.

Fr. Bopp, in his Glossarium Sanscritum, Berlin, 1847, has the same number of roots as Westergaard. Wilson, in the 2d edition of his Sanscrit Grammar, 1847, gives a list of 500 roots, the most useful verbs (he says).

those 470 roots would give 3350 primitives, or 47,000 words. I know very well that it is neither useful nor practical to take up such an enormous mass of words; I put the numbers down only to shew in a few lines what might be got from the English language for linguistic studies, if any one should wish to take advantage of all the facilities it offers to the student. A few examples will suffice to show, that in point of simple etymology, the Sanscrit is in many cases almost more nearly related to the English than any of the Germanic languages, e. g. :

Let us

Mad, (to be mad, Wilson's Sanskrit Gramm. Ed. 11., 1847, p. 295;) here Sanscrit and English are both the same. compare what is said about the etymology of "mad" in one of the best English Dictionaries, (C. Richardson's Ed. II. 1844, ad voc.) "The older etymologists refer to the Greek; but do not agree upon the specific source. Sk.-yemaad, gemæd, insanus, vecors. Ital. matto, stultus. Seren.-from Go. mod, anger. Tooke, from A. S. metan, somniare, to mete, to dream; past p. mætt, mæd. Tooke also disputes the Greek origin ascribed to It. matto. The Greek derivatives (he observes) in the It. proceed through the L.; and in the Latin there is nothing which resembles "matto."

[ocr errors]

8 J. Grimm, l.c. p. 588, Obs. 1, says, that "Words of the Classic, Gothic, and High Germ. languages, in which two consonants follow his law (as rgixuv, Goth. thragjan: rods, fôtjus,) are doubly sure; those that have only one agreeing and the other disagreeing, are suspicious; still more so those that are found with the very same consonants in all the three languages." To this we observe, that the following words, though they preserve almost all their consonants unchanged, do not fall under the last point of the given rule, as one of the two consonants of each word is either a Liquid or a Spirant. But Liquids (and mostly Spirants too,) remain unchanged, (Grimm. l.l. p. 581. Thus a word with two Liquids may keep its consonants throughout the languages of the Indo-European tribe, e. gr., name, Scr. náman, Lat. nomen, Gr. i-voμa, Germ. name, Slav. imja (Them. imen, instead of nimen,) Gal ainm, Pers. nam.

9 Another interesting example of this sort, is the verb "to pour," of which no satisfactory etymology has been given yet. Ch. Richardson, ad roc., says: "Mins. derives from D. bor-en, to tilt (a vessel,) sk.-either from the sound of falling water, or from L. purus. In some parts of England the influx of the tide, the rush of it, is called the bore ; and in Scotland an opening in the clouds, when the sky is thick and gloomy, or during rain, is called the blue bore. Jamieson. The word "bore" in each of these usages, may be traced to the A. S. bor-ian, to bore, to pierce ; and cons., to make an opening. To pour (by the change of p into b,) may be the same word, and app. as above explained." But there is no other example of an A. S. b. being changed into English p. Perch, A. S. bærs, bears, the only word that might be adduced, is derived from the L. perca. The Sanscrit root is simply púr, implere, satiare, lar

Bhri (frigere, affare, Westerg. l.1. p. 78; chauffer, brûler, Eichhoff l. l. p. 341,) root to the verb "to brew."

Stri (étendre, répandre, Eichhoff l. l. p. 292,) to strew.

Man (putare, credere, opinari, Westerg. l. l. p. 196,) comp.

to mean.

Van (négocier, acquérir, Eichhoff l. l. p. 323,) comp. to win. Dal (findere, Westerg. p. 251, Eichhoff p. 281,) comp. to deal. Sék (aller, approcher, to seek, Eichhoff p. 271,) comp. to seek. Vas' (desiderare, Bopp. l. 7. p. 311,) comp. to wish.

Váj (excitare, parare, Westerg. p. 120,) comp. to wake, to watch.

Vaksh (crescere, Bopp. p. 304,) comp. to wax.

Mur (circumdare, Bopp. p. 267,) to mure.

I might furnish a great many more examples of the same kind, if this were the proper place for reviewing the rules of consonantal transitions between these two languages.10 The English having, for the most part, thrown off the Germanic inflexions, and yet in most cases retained the radical letters, presents in many cases (as we have seen,) almost Sanscrit roots; even Latin words have been, in English, contracted in such a way, that one who had not traced the origin of such words historically, might be tempted to take them for pure Sanscrit. As we have had "man" to mean, "dal" to deal, thus Sanscrit "prach" (precor,) might be the root of the verb "to preach," as the meaning agrees perfectly well with the English word: yet "to preach" is contracted from the Latin prædicare.

With these roots, then, and the others that might easily be acquired besides by following the organic laws of transition,

giri, trajicere (cf. Bopp's Gloss. p. 222, Westerg. p. 77,) to pour; Bopp derives L. pleo, ejectâ vocali, mutato r in 1, and Tiμranu, &c. from it. As to the A. S. bor-ian, L. for-are, it can only answer the Sanscrit bh in bhuro, ferire (v. Donaldson's New Cratylus, p. 137; after Pott's Etymologische Forschungen, 1. p. 84; and Westerg. l. l. p. 260,) showing the very natural common origin of ferire and forare.

10 Donaldson, N. Cr., p. 132, gives, after Bopp, a certain number of comparative examples to illustrate Grimm's law. If English words were introduced

into that list, we should easily see, that in many cases they are next to Sanscrit, e. gr. bhratr, øgúrwę, frater, Gt. brôthar, Ohg. pruoder. Among these, the Gothic approaches Sanscrit the nearest, but the English "brother," having a short vowel in the first syllable, comes still nearer ; cf. H. H. Wilson's Sansc. Gr., 2d ed. p. 4. The same is the case with bhr s. bhar, pig, fero, Gt. baira, ohg. piru. Again the English, to bear, stands nearer than the Gt. baira. Again aixa, lingo, Gt. laigô, ohg lêkôm; the English "to lick" comes next to Sanscrit "lih," &c.

and by easy and regular derivations and compositions, we should get that stock of words which must be considered indispensable, if we wish to learn Sanscrit in a shorter time, and with less trouble, than is generally the case. The greater part of these roots would give, also, important aid in learning any of the modern Indian languages connected with Sanscrit, as the Hindi, Hindoostani, Maharashtri, Pendshabi, &c. There is no doubt that an Englishman has, in his native language, root-words enough to begin any of those languages with a considerable stock of words, and that would do much to remove that one impediment, the thought of which is the most deterring of all in beginning a new language.

As for the other languages of the Indo-European tribe, I can only say, that according to Eichhoff, out of the 470 EnglishSanscrit roots, 242 are met with in the Lithuanian, 146 in the Russian language, that is, one full half of them in the former, almost one-third in the latter. But we need not go any farther; we have said enough to show, first, that want of words is one of the greatest impediments in learning languages; and secondly, that the English language, when properly studied for the purpose, would remedy that impediment, as it contains words enough for every language within the Indo-European tribe to begin with advantageously, and that therefore writers of grammars (of ancient or modern languages,) should give, before the accidence, the full list of those English words, which, according to established rules of transition, might be made use of in beginning the new language with which the Grammar is concerned. At the same time I cannot help pointing out, that by this method the study of every other language would contribute largely to a profound knowledge of the mother tongue. And this fact alone is, in my opinion, the highest recommendation that could be made out for any specific method of learning languages.

B. GÄBLER.

152

XII.

ON THE MUMMY CLOTH OF EGYPT.

PART FIRST.

I.

THE inquiries which form the subject of the following paper were undertaken many years ago; circumstances, which it is unnecessary here to explain, have delayed their publication; but the results were communicated to numerous individuals. The revival lately of similar inquiries by others, apparently unacquainted with what is already known, induces me to believe that this communication may not be wholly without interest.

My attention was attracted to the subject of Egyptian manufactures by the late Mr. Belzoni, in the year 1822, during the exhibition of a model of the ancient tomb discovered by that enterprising traveller in Egypt. He had the goodness to present to me various specimens of cloth, chiefly from the mummies in his possession, one of which he had entirely denuded.

On my remarking that these fabrics scarcely deserved the appellation of "fine linen," which from all antiquity had been bestowed on the linen of Egypt, and that the observations of Dr. Hadley, in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1764, had thrown some doubt on the supposed fineness of this linen, he informed me, that during his researches in Egypt, in those tombs and mummy-pits which he had explored, he had met with cloth of every degree of fineness, from the coarsest sacking to the finest and most transparent muslin, a fact which I subsequently found in a great degree confirmed by the acquisition of

1 The FIRST PART of this Memoir is reprinted from the Annals of Philosophy for June 1834,—a scientific journal, in which it first appeared. It is now republished in its original form, with a few verbal corrections and additions only, in compliance with the wishes and

suggestions of others whose opinions I highly value. The additional facts and observations since collected, with replies to the objections of some Italian antiquaries, will be found in the SECOND PART.

« السابقةمتابعة »