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reversed becomes fes, to wash and to clean. Inversion of sound, the 
formation of dissyllables and concurrent development of many words 
with the same meaning originated in many instances after the 
following method:—The initial consonant of the stem root 
was sometimes repeated at the end, or it was transferred 
there. In this way fes became fesf and by lingering pronuncia- 
tion fesef, hence in time fes meant to wash and sef also. Again, ker 
became ferk, in the same way ker rek; and later both ker and rek 
signified to turn round, to revolve, to rotate. The initial uw in ush 
“immense,” transferred to the end became shu, with the same meaning, 
and osh or sho signifies “much” also. There is, moreover, ample proof 
that the ancient Egyptian defined his ideas by contrasting them with 
their opposites. Hence one word had not only different meanings, but 
sometimes expressed the most opposite ideas. He arrived at the idea 
of strength by contrasting it with feebleness, sen meant both strong 
and weak ; of light by contrasting it with darkness, sam darkness, 
sem to become light. Sense is often inverted as well as sound, 
as in ben “nothing,” neb “all;” kar wise, raka stupid; mer left 
hand, rem right hand. These are not isolated examples, but 
selections from thousands of instances recorded by Dr. Abel from 
the “hieroglyphical language” of Egypt. In Coptic each vowel 
had specific import, augmenting the meaning and intensifying the 
sense. “QO” sonorous was such an intensive. For instance, bel 
to loosen became bol to liberate ; talshe to cure diseases became talsho 
to alleviate the sorrows of the soul; take to kill became tako of 
annihilate or work wholesale destruction. Thus Plato’s theory to 
the significance of individual letters in the Greek and other alphabets 
is proved by Coptic grammarians to possess some truth. The 
phenomenon of the same sound conveying the most opposite significations 
1s certainly very remarkable, but it is not confined to the Egyptian lan- 
guage. Itoccursabundantly in the Arabic and in the literary Chinese of 
the period 2,000 n.c. There are relics of this mental phase in linguistic 
development in the more highly organized European tongues.* In 
German, boden signifies ground floor as well as loft; in English, 
“down” means below as well as a slight elevation, like our South 
Downs. That the preposition “with” in the sense of conjointly 
signified also “without” is proved by the’ existence of words like 
withdraw, withgo, and withhold. ‘To bid” means to offer as well as 
to command. “ Better,” the comparative of good, is derived from bad. 
Melior, though derived from malus, is the comparative of bonus. The 
Sanskrit vara means “ good,” but the derivatives Icelandic ver and 
Gothic wairs, like the English one, signify worse. The Sanskrit 
“ Deva,” bright heaven, God, supplied old Persian Daéva, an evil 
spirit. In Great Russian blagi signifies both good and bad ; dobhr 
good and bad also. That tongue yields an interesting example of both 
sound and sense : for bar, the Russian word for master, inverted or 
spelt backwards rab, yields the word for slave in that language, and 
“‘Bar” is the oldest root form of an ancient Russian title of nobility, 
boyarin, literally “a master of slaves,” or the titled slaveholder, in that 
former land of serfs. 
*“ Slavic and Latin” and ‘“‘ Linguistic Essays. By Dr. Karl Abel. 
