38 



SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



IV. Sanskrit. Very naturally the Sanskrit would be regarded as one of the most 

 important systems of consanguinity in the Aryan connection, from the Aveight of its 

 authority in determining what the original form of the family may have been. It 

 is to be regretted that the system, as given in the Table, is so incomplete, although 

 it is shown as fully as competent scholars were able to reproduce it from the remains 

 of the language. Where the special terms are numerous, and their etymologies 

 apparent, as in the Greek, it facilitates the attempt ; but where the language is 

 barren of radical terms, and the compounds are limited in number, as in the 

 Sanskrit, a failure to recover an ancient, after it has ceased to be a living system, 

 is not surprising. 



There is, however, another view of the case which is not without significance. 

 The absence of radical terms for collateral relatives, and the presence of a limited 

 number of compound terms which are descriptive of particular persons, tend to show 

 that kindred were described, among them, by a combination of the primary terms ; 

 and that the system, therefore, was originally descriptive. 



The following diagram exhibits a fragment of the original method of arranging 

 and desisnatuiij kindred : — 



LI.\EAL LIXE. 



M Col. Line. 

 Male. F side. 



^C jPilroyapuli 



It wiU be observed that most of these terms are compounded of the primary, and 

 describe persons. They also indicate the line and branch, and whether on the 



made from the term for father, by the addition of a termination, and might have come into use 

 independently, after the separation of these dialects from each other, as fsedcra, paternal uncle, 

 from feeder, father, in Anglo-Saxon. The same remarks apply to matula, melros, and matertera, 

 for maternal aunt. There are also common terms for uncle and aunt in the Greek theios theia, 

 German Oheim and Muhme, English uncle and aunt, derived the last two from avunculus and 

 amita. In Slavonic we have slrijc and ujec for paternal and maternal uncle, and tetka, common 

 for aunt. From the fact that the same terras do not run through the several dialects of the Aryan 

 language, the inference is a strong one that these relationships, in the concrete, were not discrimi- 

 nated in the primitive language. 



Uncle is a contraction of avunculus, the literal signification of which is a "little grandfather." 



