Professor Rasx’s Remarks on the Zend Language. 533 
Zend. English. Persian. Zend. English. Persian. 
Zaware Strength oy Qhasha (aec.qhaghrem) Sister pls 
Mahrk6 Death Sho Acpoé Horse cas 
Qsahyé King xslt Meregh6 Bird ea 
Shérpraio A town re | Perecath He asked Cans 
I am well aware that several of these words may be compared with 
Sanscrit expressions ; nay, some of them appear even in Armenian, Greek, 
Sclavonian, and Icelandic ; but what I would intimate by this comparison 
is, that the Persians haye derived them from the Zend ; for instance, Byline 
is not immediately borrowed from the Sanscrit ¢érd, nor from the Greek 
aso, but from the Zend ctars ; eee not from the Sanscrit caxhuh ; ajy not 
from Sanscrit bahuh ; 4} 1s a different root from the Sanscrit ctira, which also 
exists in the Zend iid “ a hero ;” \ I is not from the Sanscrit agvah (Latin 
equus), but from the Zend aspo, and that this is the genuine Iranian form, 
appears from ancient names, such as ‘Ycoarryc, &c. In the same way )\;> 
a@ thousand, is clearly derived from the Zend hazagro, not from the Sanscrit 
sahasram, although these two words may perhaps be originally one and 
the same, and so in many other instances. This alone seems to put it 
almost beyond a doubt that the Zend was the old popular language, at least 
of a great part of Iran; for if it were introduced as a sacred language for 
religious purposes, how came such words and forms of words, not at all 
religious, to come down to the people, and to be preserved so obstinately 
by them through a period of more than a thousand years, even after a 
thorough change of religion? he fact is, that these words belong to the 
radical expressions, which, even in the most mixed languages, will always 
betray the true origin of the people ; for instance, in English, if you look 
back to the translations of these words, you will observe, that all the 
corresponding expressions are Anglo-Saxon, with only a slight change, 
neither Danish nor French. If now we suppose the true history of 
England to be lost, and that any body should pretend that the old Anglo- 
Saxon was mere German, never spoken in the country but introduced with 
some slight alterations to serve religious purposes, he might be contradicted, 
merely because such words could never have descended to the people, nor 
have been preserved by them through a long and dark period in that 
particular form, different from every other Teutonic dialect, unless the 
3Z2 
