228 Comparative Philology [| April, 
and the same mode of reasoning characterized the original speakers 
of both the Aryan and Semitic languages, and we can draw the 
inference quite logically that these races of men were, at least, 
of the same species, though we could not assert, on such principles 
only, that they had a unity of origin. So in the case of silver, 
Silver is keseph in Hebrew, from kasaph, to become pale or white. 
So, in Sanskrit, silver is counted as white, and called sveta. Thus, 
also, Hebrew zahav, gold, from tsahav, to shine, tsahov meaning 
yellow, as gold in German is so termed, doubtlessly from its yellow 
colour. But if we can show a community of words and gram- 
matical forms, or a sufficient number of them, we may justly 
conclude that the Aryans and Semites were not only of the same 
species, but of one family, contrary to the hypothesis of those who, 
like the author of the ‘ Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,’ 
maintain various centres of creation and an entire distinction of 
race amongst the several families constituting the genus Homo. 
Now it has been estimated that if only eight words were found 
to be identical in two languages, it would be, according to the 
doctrine of chances, nearly 100,000 to 1 that they were derived 
in both cases from some parent language, and that, of course, eight 
such words would furnish evidence of a common origin scarcely short 
of absolute certainty ; but without stringently insisting on this, which 
is, however, an ingenious calculation, such a multitude of words exist 
in the Aryan and Semitic languages common to both families, 
that it becomes impossible to draw any other conclusion than that 
all those languages, widely as they are now diffused, and much as 
they differ from each other, origmated during the infancy of the 
human race in one locality. In order to account for the origin 
of language, Renan supposes all the roots of words to be onomato- 
poetic; but others, and chiefly Prof. Max Miller, assert that 
onomatopoeia has furnished only few words in the Aryan languages. 
In the Semitic tongues, certainly, many words and roots are 
onomatopoetic, but, in proportion to the whole number of words 
in that family, they are comparatively few. It appears highly 
probable that the first words uttered by man were onomatopoetic, 
and that man who, from the first moment when he became 
conscious of being, possessed the power to think and organs of 
speech, affected by the sounds which he heard and by the sight 
of all the natural objects around him, would at once imitate those 
sounds by an almost involuntary exertion of his vocal organs, and 
contemplate those objects with an eye of curiosity and wonder, not 
devoid of intelligence. His reflective faculties would soon be brought 
into operation, and he would naturally give vent to his feelings in 
words which, once uttered, became the representatives of things from 
that moment through all succeeding time. This seems to be the 
most reasonable mode of accounting for the origin of language ; but, 
