1 80 Bekher's Digammated Text of Homer. 



admit the digamma by simply dropping a movable v from the pre- 

 ceding word, they are left out of the count, which reduces the un- 

 conformable cases to 28 in 110, or about 25 per cent. This ratio, 

 Ahrens says, is so large as to throw discredit on the initial digamma. 

 To prove it so, he takes the word ct^a^ (originally -e&vaS.) king, which 

 he finds to occur 151 times in the Iliad. Here setting aside, as be- 

 fore, the cases in which only a movable v stands in the way of the 

 digamma, he makes 11 out of 151 to be the number of imconforma- 

 ble cases, or about V^ j^er cent. He then proceeds to say that as to 

 other words which have an unquestionable digamma, as tqyov, Idelv, 

 vlxog, oivog, etc., any one may satisfy himself by his own observation 

 that the percentage of unconformable cases is not larger, that it is 

 rather smaller, than for civaS. It could not justly be inferred from 

 these observations of Ahrens, that no words had the digamma in 

 Homer, for which the unconformable cases exceed 7 or 8 per cent ; 

 but only that in such words the digamma must be regarded as more 

 or less doubtful, and if the proportion is very much greater, as im- 

 probable. It is also evident that the weight to be given to this test 

 will depend somewhat on the absolute number of instances in which 

 a word is found. If the word occurs but seldom, the ratio of con- 

 formable and unconformable cases may be in a measure accidental ; 

 but the influence of accident diminishes, as the numbers we are deal- 

 ing with increase. 



We come now to some criticism of particular words, as written by 

 Bekker with or without digamma. All the words which have been 

 generally agreed upon as showing evidence of this initial, receive it 

 here. The list of digammated words given in my Grammar (23 d) 

 was not designed to be complete, but only to include the most import- 

 ant roots in which traces of the consonant-initial have been generally 

 recognized. It contains about 33 distinct roots, and in all these with- 

 out exception Bekker has admitted the digamma. Beside these he 

 admits it in some 20 or 30 more, for I have not been able yet to make 

 out an exact list. In many of these additional words, the real exist- 

 ence of the digamma is beyond all reasonable doubt. This is true, for 

 instance, of swg year, which connects itself naturally with Sk, vatsara, 

 year, Lat. vetus, old (i. e. full of years, cmnosus). Out of 19 Homeric 

 passages which show the word, only two resist the introduction of the 

 consonant, and these allow it if we only re-insert an elided vowel : thus 

 louaavT sTsa (B, 328) may be changed to Toaaavju Ft'rfo: noil' exeu (T, 255) 

 to nollu F^xea, the last two vowels of -Fhsa being taken as one syllable 

 by a frequent synizesis. But, as might have been expected, there are 

 words written by Bekker with digamma in •which there is room for 



