XII.] 



THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 



461 



In general auslaut is better preserved in Berber than in Basque. 

 Thus : 



Basque 



Berber 



ni 



azaro 



ego, egoi 



ori, hori 



zuri (for zurig, zulig) 



nek, neki 



ageris 



agus 



auray 



tshulleg 



English 

 I 



dew, hoarfrost 

 south wind, south 

 yellow 

 white, to be pale 



All these equations, which form a vocabulary of no less than 

 780 words, are much closer than they seem, because the differences 

 are largely explained by constant or normal phonetic laws of 

 change, such as those established by Rask and Grimm for the 

 Aryan family, and by other considerations which are too technical 

 to be here considered 1 . Let one example suffice. The Bas. 



1 Amongst these is the remarkable vocalic shifting in the tri-literal roots, 

 which is fully developed in Semitic, less so in Hamitic, and incipient traces of 

 which are evident in Basque. Such variants as Ham. abrid, azrib, azerg, azrug 

 (way), are compared with Bas. eguzki, iduzki, iruzki, iluzki (sun) &c. 



