40 
Vedic hymns with a decoction of the hop plant, bea correct one. They 
had names for law, dhd to settle, didman law, and for ship, in 
Sanskrit naus, in Zend navi, our “navy.” In fact, it is evident the 
Aryans were comparatively a highly civilised pastoral people, far 
removed from the rude condition of wandering, hunting, ancient 
man. 
In this way languages yield us a stereotyped picture of the mental 
and moral phases and material surroundings of the people that spake 
them. Tithes and taxes are certainly among the most ancient institu- 
tions, for records from both hemispheres prove the existence of collectors 
of tithes and gatherers of taxes from the dawn of history, in all parts 
of the world. We learn from the ancient Babylonian cylinders, bricks 
and tablets of clay, that the Accadians of old had libraries for their 
books of bricks, numbered and distributed to students by the librarian, 
that they made wills duly signed and sealed with thumb or signet, 
practised astrology, had “‘syllaberies” and grammars, as well as cribs 
and interlinear translations of the phonetic symbols and lists of 
ideograms. Their astronomers noted the weather, sun spots and 
eclipses, which did not always come off when predicted. Yet the 
Accadians had not developed grammatical gender, and were, if their 
records may be believed in the “ mother-right ” stage of social organisa- 
tion. The woman was the head of the family, and ranked before the 
man, her name being always placed first in the records. The Assyrian 
Semites traced descent in the patriarchal line as we know, and, there- 
fore, women held an inferior position. It is amusing to find that the 
Semitic translators of the Akkadian texts always carefully transferred 
the order of names, placing the man first, the woman after him. The 
mental phases of the language-makers are definitely stamped on 
language. To quote Dr. Abel once more, “ Words mean what nations 
put into them,” therefore “the introduction of one universal language 
would be far from ensuring uniformity of thought.” 
Modern English is compounded of words from almost every 
language on earth, and some have travelled very far and often. Ayah 
comes from Hindustani, one might think, but it is a Portuguese word 
aia, a dialectal variety of the Spanish aya, a nursery governess, and 
was carried to India by the Portuguese who discovered that country, 
and has since been brought back again by the English conquerors with 
a final h added. We have Anglicised the Polynesian word ‘¢epz, 
meaning sacred or forbidden, and transferred it, sense and sound com- 
bined, when we named “ tabooed topics” or “ tabooed luxuries.” This 
is as much a proof of our intercourse with Polynesia as the Tahitanised 
English buka bua, which shews plainly who taught them to read. A 
man cannot ask for a glass of toddy without speaking Hindustani, and 
the old-fashioned pronunciation of ‘‘ tay” comes nearer the Chinese 
ch’a than the modern enunciation of that familiar monosyllable. 
Chocolate comes from the Aztec chocolatl, so does tomatl, member of 
an extended group of native American languages characterised by the 
sound of “7.” We got our polka from the Bohemian Czech ; tokay, 
like hussar, from Hungarian Magyar; and the sash of the ingénue 
from the shest or girdle of the Persian fire-worshippers. . Cherub and. 
seraph, with their learned plurals cherubim and seraphim, were trans- 
