ON THE ANTIQUITY OF SOME OF OUR FAMILIAR THE HE remarks offered in the following paper are intended to illustrate a now generally recognised law of language, namely, that though it is capable of almost infinite varieties and inflections, the stock of word-roots (so to say), which express, mostly in monosyllables, the original ideas, is strictly limited, and seems incapable of augmentation. Thus even in the most recent forms of language we constantly find word-roots breaking out, as it were, sometimes quite in their primitive identity, much as from parents who inherit Saxon, or Danish, or Celtic blood, offspring is produced exhibiting a strong tendency, even after many generations, to revert to the original type; or as morbid tendencies in certain constitutions, e.g. to gout or consumption, or mania, may lie dormant in families and reappear even after considerable intervals. Certain it is that some of our commonest English words have come down to us almost, if not quite, unchanged from a prehistoric antiquity, even to the retention of the digamma-sound (that is, the w or wh, the F of the Greek alphabet), which had vanished, as a letter at least, at the time of the earliest written Greek literature. We observe this in know and knows, which the 'phonetic' theorists would spell no and nose (or noze), thus obliterating the k and the w, which, though not pronounced, come to us from the root yvof. This preservation of primitive forms is in some measure due to the monosyllabic character of our tongue; for both composition and inflexion have a tendency to obscure and overlay word-roots. To take a few very familiar examples: Our word same is nearer the Sanscrit word samâ than either the Greek apa or the Latin simul and similis. One is seen in unus (old form oenos), while the Greek has ɛis, originally vs. Two, twin, twain, twice, are the Sanscrit dvâu, the Saxon and Scotch twá, the Greek &Fis (dis, dúo). Pave, lave, save, safe, salve, are nearly the same in Latin and Greek as in English. Whole (some also think full) comes from the same root as oxos, of which the old Latin had a form sollus. We have well and heal in the word οὖλος, wood in ὕδη, a form of ὕλη, silva. Wine (Saxon win) is the root of vinum and oivos, and a much older word than either; and it could be shown that our relative who is a more primitive form than either òs or qui. This seems rather an interesting fact, and perhaps it has not been prominently noticed by writers on the history of our language. That primitive sounds, so overlaid by inflection in older tongues, should revert, in a living uninflected tongue like the English, to their original identity, seems to be a law of the organic growth of language, precisely analogous to the tendency of varieties in plants and animals to reproduce the primary forms from which they deviated by accident or by art. It is obvious that agricultural life is peculiarly favourable to the preservation of terms describing the implements or the processes of the craft. Country life, remote from the commerce of cities and the consequent influx of new words, offers a favourable condition for the son to speak, act, and think on the whole as his father did. Our family of language moreover came originally into the far west from an Aryan stock, believed to have been an agricultural people; and it seems more than probable that a good many of their primeval words remain in the vocabulary of the English yeoman to this day. In some of the county dialects (of which local vocabularies have of late years been collected or reprinted) there can hardly be a doubt that terms are to be found that would greatly extend the list collected in the present paper. We are struck by the fact, on looking into such works as Chambers's and Wedgwood's Etymological Dictionaries, or Dr. Latham's edition of Johnson,' that far more pains are taken in giving the Gothic, or Scandinavian, or other affinities of words, than in going back as far as possible to the earliest forms in which the roots occur. Hence not all persons are likely to be aware of the connection of many of our agricultural terms (which no doubt were imported to us direct from the Norse, or the Icelandic, or other IndoGermanic dialects), with the older languages of the same stock, namely, with Latin and Greek. In showing any word to be identical with the Latin or Greek term, I do not for a moment suppose that it was, generally at least, directly derived from either. Such a view, as all philologers will admit, would be most unphilosophical. It may be called a canon in the science of etymology, that the cognation or relation of word-forms is wholly distinct from direct derivation. I merely wish to show that the word-roots are the same, leaving the how and the when they came into our usage, wholly undiscussed. And the classical languages are here almost exclusively compared, because they are amply sufficient prove the point of the argument, the question of antiquity. To trace the same forms through other dialects, modern and ancient, though an interesting and instructive pursuit, would greatly extend the inquiry, and it would require an extensive knowledge of modern languages and of comparative philology. to It is a well-known observation of Niebuhr's, that the words representing agriculture are generally common to both the Greek and the Latin, such as ȧypòs and ager, apoтpov and aratrum, Boûs and bos, equus and Tπos, ots and ovis; while the war-terms of the Oscan or low-German settlers of ancient Italy seldom have a Greek counterpart, such as clypeus, hasta, cuspis, gladius, ensis. The word bellum indeed (anciently duellum, our duel) contains the word dúo, ‘a contest between two'; and so scutum, 'a shield,' is the same word as σKûтos, a hide'; but these are exceptions to the general rule. The inference is, that the same immigrant Aryan (or Pelasgic) tribes who brought with them into Greece the practice of agriculture, extended their progress also into Italy, carrying with them the same terms of their trade. Mr. Peile, in his 'Introduction to Greek and Latin Etymology,' p. 14, observes on this :— The apparently Greek element in the Latin language is, generally speaking, that part of the common inheritance of the Greeks and Italians, which each nation retained and developed after the separation of the two branches of the original stock. The apparently non-Greek element is that portion of the common inheritance which was neglected by the Greeks, or retained only by provincial and obscure dialects. It need hardly be added, that while mere coincidence of sound, on the one hand, is very far from a safe guide, or rather is no guide at all, in etymology, on the other hand, resemblances apparently slight may be indications or even proofs of identity based on true principles of etymology. Therefore, although those who have not thought much on the subject may ridicule a particular derivation as very absurd or very far-fetched, still they should give it a fair hearing, because, if not wholly right in itself, it may yet be not wholly wrong; it may at least throw a light on some other connection in the same family of words. Some, for instance, would laugh if they were told that goose was the same word as xv, and hound the same as canis. Yet a comparison of gander with anser, and canis with Kúwv (Sanscrit çvan and çun), following well-ascertained laws of change, renders these affinities absolutely certain. By the same rule deer is Onp, just as door is θύρα, and daughter is θυγάτηρ. Many would fail to see that acorn is only the corn or fruit of the oak, which in Saxon is ác. To begin with animals, or what we call farming-stock. Here a rather curious fact presents itself; that whereas the generic names of the animals for the most part occur in the Saxon, as horse, mare (maere or myre), colt, boar (bár), buck, stag, cow, calf, kine, ox, sheep, lamb, and contain roots not represented in either Latin or Greek, yet the words which imply, so to say, the utilisation of those creatures, such as milk, suet, lard, pork, teat, udder, pap, wool, glue, cheese, butter, at once find their representatives in one, and generally in both of the languages. Thus, milk is mulgeo and μexyw or ȧpéλyw, suet is sebum, udder is oveap, according to Grimm's law, by which becomes our d, as in the examples already cited. So teat is TiTon, pap is papilla, dug is allied to sugo and suck; speane, an old-fashioned word for a cow's teat, Saxon spana, may be allied to σπâv, 'to draw towards you.' Glue is yλoiòs and gluten. Lard is lardum, laridum, Greek λαρὸς and λαρινός, whence βοῦς λαpivòs in Aristophanes, a fat ox;' pork is porсa, пóρкоs, cheese is caseus, butter is Boúrupov, that is 'cow-cheese' (perhaps to distinguish it from the cheese made from goats). Wool is con 1 Pac. 925. nected with ovλos and vellus, and foal (if we regard it rather as the produce of a horse than as a distinctive name, although fola is a Saxon word), is pullus and Tλos, again according to Grimm's law, like father and Taτýp, felt and pilus. One would willingly suppose, as n and I are convertible letters, that pony is another form of the same word; however, Grimm's inexorable law would probably be cited against it. We cannot feel much faith in its derivation from puny. It is also remarkable that the terms we use for the cooked flesh of the above animals seem to have come to us from the Normans, as beef, mutton, veal, venison, bacon, perhaps pork. Swin and ham are Saxon: from what languages pig and hog were introduced I do not know. One might speculate on the sharppointed snout having some relation to the root pic (pike, pungo, &c.). The similar sounds of hog and dog perhaps point to the same dialect. When not generic, but particular and descriptive, the names of the above animals for the most part appear, i.e., the roots of them may be traced, in the classical languages. We can hardly doubt that ram is essentially the same as ῥάν οι ῥὴν (Ιράν), as seen in πολύῤpnvos and Fapv-òs, or that ewe is ots, the Latin ovis, and the Sanscrit avis. The Greek root must have been pronounced hee, which is very nearly our ewe. So oloτpos is our whizz, and oivos was pronounced hweenos. Aristophanes even jokes on the similarity of sound between ot and oi, an interjection of grief like our woe. Wether-sheep (the Saxon weder or weter) seems to be vervex rather than vitulus, to which Dr. Donaldson refers it.3 It is just possible that filly may be allied to vitulus, which is a word of the Magna Græcia dialect, Firalòs, whence Italy, as Boeotia is probably the country of oxen. Others say it is a diminutive of foal. Steer (Saxon steor) is said to be identical with taurus, which has lost the initial 8.4 Bull is probably buculus for boviculus, as bullock, the Saxon bulluca, is a mere transposition of the letters in bucula, a word used by Virgil. Bugle is also bucule, i.e. buccina, a cow's horn used as a trumpet. Compare the monosyllable stall with stabulum. Sow is sus and is or σûs, and contains the same root as sebum and suet, repeated in the Homeric combination oûs oíaλos, from the greasy nature of the fat. Farrow, Saxon fearh, is from the Sanscrit bhar, to bear.' classical words which our language has repudiated, bos and Boûs, seem to me formed (by the process called onomatopeia) from the sound boo! just as mugio and vкâobat involve the similar sound moo! and the bleating of a goat or a lamb the sound Bλnx. The word bull has by some been compared with bellow and bawl. But Professor Max Müller will have it that Boûs is identical with the Sanscrit go (which is our word cow), by changing, as he says, 'the guttural to the labial.' This certainly is drawing rather largely on our credulity. 2 Pac. 930-4. › Varronianus, p. 4. Peile, Etymol. p. 251. 5 Our Dr. This word cow is the Saxon cú, plural kine. There is at Cambridge a piece of marshy ground still called 'coe-fen,' which means cow-pasture;' and its name does not belie its present use. word calf is Saxon; the Latin vacca is Sanscrit, vaha. Donaldson says it is identical with ox, the Saxon oxa. (Compare auxέw with vox). Another Saxon word, differing from the classical, and I believe also from the Sanscrit, is sheep (sceap or sceop), which seems the more remarkable, as the ancient habitat of this invaluable creature is believed to have been central Asia. So also flock (floc) is Saxon, not classical. The Greek word for sheep is Tрóẞатоv, meaning 'on-walking,' from their slow advance in flocks, either in pasturing or when driven. Lamb, as we have said, is Saxon. Stallion, which is commonly referred to stall, must be related to the Saxon stellan, 'to spring,' especially as the Greeks use Opoσke precisely in this sense. Steed (Saxon steda) is related to σrádios, sted-fast and steady, the σraròs iπTоs of Homer. The firmness of posture observed in the gait of the horse naturally suggested the name. So also stud, a collection of steeds. Champ is formed to express the sound, Greek KóμTоs, properly the noise made by boars' tusks. The word goat, according to Mr. Peile (Etymol.,' p. 242), is but the Teutonic form of the Latin hædus. The Saxon is hafer, which seems the same word, and is at least very like our heifer, though we apply the term to a young milch-cow, and etymologers refer it to heck or hok, an inclosure' (pxos). It is rather remarkable that so similar a word in Saxon, eafer or eafor, should mean 'a boar.' appears to be the Latin aper. Again, the resemblance between aper, caper, and κáπpos is rather curious. It The word wool has cognate forms so varied, both in our own and in the classical languages, that to discuss them fully would require considerable space. This is one of the ancient roots, which, with its digamma-sound, or w, has been retained unchanged in our dialect, though it went through many transformations more than two thousand years ago. The Greek verb that most directly represents it (eïnew or eiλeiv) meant to pack, roll, or ram into a narrow compass.' It is a word very familiar to the student of Homer, where it occurs under many forms. The root is Foλ, Feλ, Fin, or perhaps FEAF, very nearly our wheel, the o appearing in world, whorl, volvo, ảoλλns, in the word under consideration, wool, and in several others. All the words connected with it imply rolling round and contracting or condensing into a circular form. In Greek we have ovλn, 'a scar,' in English heal, weal, and well, all which imply the closing-up and contracting of the mouth of a wound. I have already said that our word whole and the Greek öλos are also ultimately the same, the notion of combination' and 'integrity' being opposed to that of division' and dispersion.' Hence ovλa are the gums," |
