SABAEI. 



229 



C is the chief sibilant of the English alphabet, and is employed to 

 ^ represent two different sounds, as in this and the*. The word 

 would seem to justify the addition of a third sound, h ; but in 

 this word the vowel u, so often pronounced )/, has modified the pro- 

 nunciation of the preceding consonant, fyugar would easily glide into 

 In the Hebrew alphabet, whence those of Europe are derived, 

 a common symbol is employed, with and without an affixed dot, to 

 denote * and th. The symbol referred to has for its name a word 

 which also signifies tooth or ttttli ; and if we call to mind that the so- 

 called Phoenician and Samaritan alphabets give older forms of the 

 Hebrew letters than those now used, it will be easily believed that the 

 syiul ol in its original shape [ALPHABET] was the representation of two 

 or three teeth : an origin which would agree with the fact that the 

 sibilants are all formed by means of the upper teeth, and the sound 

 tit by the upper and lower brought together. This explanation is con- 

 firmed by the consideration that in emitting the last-named sound the 

 teeth are not only the sole organs employed, but more than usually 

 exposed to view by the retraction of the lips. But for the strong 

 evidence thus furnished by the Hebrew alphabet, the form and power 

 of the letter might have been readily derived from an imitation of 

 a hissing snake. 



The letter > is subject to the following interchanges, many of which 

 have been previously noted. 



1, with </. See D. 



2, t with Ik and ilk, as in the Laconian dialect of the Greek language, 

 in which 0<ot, Ti/uo0os, Afoji-aia, take the forms atop, Ti/toatop, Atrtutuo. 



too rvrrofaaia, tic., readily glided into Turrroiata, &c. The 

 English language formerly wrote berth, hutcth, but now prefers lota, 

 katet. 



8, i with (. Thus again the Attic forms <frri<ri, cTror, TlootiSur, au, 

 were by the Dorians written $<rri, txiroy (regularly enough from the 

 present *n(t}ra), floottlar, rv. In like manner the German words tlai, 

 ><u, a, wooer, katten, eacn, appear hi English as that, tchat, it, tcaler, 

 halt, eat. 



4, i with ;. Thus the Greek island ZaxvrSos was the mother city of 

 Saguntum in Spain, and no doubt gave its name to it. In fact the 

 manuscripts of Livy (xxi. 7), with one exception, scarcely worth men- 

 tioning, appear to have all got Oritimli a Kaijnntu Inmln ilirniitur, not 



Hut the most abundant evidence of the interchange is to 

 be found in the Somersetshire dialect of our own tongue. 



5, with ih. Witness the Berlin pronunciation of ill German words 

 beginning with it. Moreover, the English words ilerp, day, tmear, 

 mine, have for their German equivalent* ic/ilaf, tcklag-en, Kkmier-en, 

 K/trtff. 



6, * with <-, </, and A. See those letters. 



7, / ' with ij. See X. 



8, < with . See N. 



9, * with r. See R. 



1". X 'it ten appears before an initial consonant, where it is doubtful 

 T tho older form be that with or that without the sibilant. Thus 

 k irnyu, crfxrSon), <rfni, correspond to the Latin lego, fanda, 

 So rmi\as and <jxa\a\fi would be found upon close examination to 

 > quivalenta of the Latin mi and mu-. and axa\tva to differ from 

 ily in the fact that the Utter is a frequentative verb. 

 Again the Greek posaessea within itself the double forms fffuxpot and 

 tuxpoi, oTpf>a and rprr*. The English language contains numerous 

 examples of the same variation, as in melt and mult, tumble and itumlile, 

 fiite and tpite. The German a* well as our own tongue not un fre- 

 quently prefixes an * when the Greek and often the Latin are without 

 tli.-it letter. Thus the Greek xAfi-o (root nAtii or n\nt), the Latin 

 ./.<./.; or rluil-n, and davit, the (Jerman tchlieu-en, and the English 

 ihut are all of one kin. Compare too the various forms of the words 

 signifying 



11. The sound fie at the beginning of words if often degraded by 

 the loss of the sibilant or w, or both. Thus to the Latin mart* and 

 ittadto correspond the Greek 48v, &c., the German iii**, and the 

 English ticcet. Those who doubt the connection here assumed between 

 narit and tain/en, may, as regards form, compare clarit and daudo, or 

 with what must have been its older form, duiginti, while the 

 connection in meaning will be readily established by the common 

 comparison of adrift with medicine, unpalatable but militant, aa in 

 Lucretius (i. 935), Std reluti pueril abtintkia, Ac. Again, *op-or 

 mnut (o/>-niu) of the Latin correspond to the Greek uw-mn, 

 to the Gothic verb in-mrpp-an, the German tchlaf, and the English 

 ileep ; toeer and tocrui in Latin, to the Greek iitvpat and iitvpa, and the 

 German vh>rlnji.r tx prefixed to uthn, rater, 4c. ; the Latin md-or, to the 

 Greek iS-ot, itput, Ac , to the German irhtcciu and English meat ; the 

 Latin tui, ribi, te, to the Greek ou, oi, i, although the Greek has also 

 allied words beginning with a<f>. The Latin tnror, German c/< 

 EngUsh litter, have lost their correlative in Greek. Lastly this inter- 

 ABTS AM) 8U. DIV. VOL. VII. 



change will perhaps account for the fact that the river Oder has two 

 ancient names, Suetus and Viatlrut, which have been the cause of 

 much confusion in the geography of ancient Germany. Indeed the 

 mouth of the river is still called Strinemiinde. 



12. Sp is interchangeable with ]>s, sib with it-s, and id with ds. For 

 the last we need only refer to the Doric use of aS for f. Instances of 

 the second interchange occur occasionally in Greek and Latin. /i{os, 

 the misletoe, is written in Latin risen* ; faxaros, ludicrously put down 

 as a primitive in some lexicons, is of course only the superlative of the 

 preposition {, for ejaros. The Latin misceu has for its participle 

 mi.itus as well as miitus ( = iiiisctus). The tendency to this interchange 

 accounts too for the form leicenti, for texcenti is never found iu the 

 best manuscripts of the best authors. But the Anglo-Saxon and 

 EngUsh afford the most numerous instances of this metathesis. 

 Thus the former language has the double forma rapt or );>, a wasp ; 

 dpic or afpe, tremulous (whence the name of the aspen tree) ; hapte 

 or //.</, a lock (Grimm, 'Deutsche Grammatik,' p. 251); also /rose 

 or frof, a frog ; Jucat or j!.cas. a fish ; tine or ta.r, a tusk ; asce or axe, 

 cinder ; asrjan or a.rjan, to ask (ibid, p. 256). Hence it will be seen that 

 it is a mere accident if iu our own tongue ajce and leaps have been 

 rejected as vulgarisms in favour of ask and v>asp. The provinces still 

 prefer the tt and JM. Thus a Kentish countryman talks of a n-lii/nt 

 rather than ic/iitj> of hay. May we not in this way establish the 

 identity in name of several of our rivers, as Are, .ce, i'si, and Psi? 



13. .S is often lost. Inattention to this fact is the cause of much 

 confusion in the grammars of the Greek language. Thus the neuter 

 nouns in oi must once have had a corresponding a in the genitive, 

 ytvts, ytvtffot, Ac., afterwards ytvot, ytveos. Hence the retention of 

 the in the vocatives of proper names formed from neuter nouns of 

 this class, as Aioyo-ft, 471/ioffflfMi, 2opaTes. (See 'Journal of Educa- 

 tion,' vol. iv., 333.) Above all, the neglect of this letter in the original 

 (as here assumed) forms of certain present tenses leads to apparent 

 anomalies in the derived forms. Thus from K\fi(a)ta we should have 

 without any irregularity KAIO>IJ ; from ytu(o)nat without difficulty 

 7ey<r-Tioy, as well as the Latin yits-ttty, yus-ta-re ; from Se(a}ta, Sfanos, 

 in which the sibilant corresponds, as it so often does, to the guttural 

 in li'ja-re, dica-re, and the English tight from tie. The Latin language 

 in such cases changes the sibilant into an r; but even this language is 

 not at all unwilling to discard an , particularly at the end of words, 

 as in the double forms magi* and "iaye, riderit and ridere, t/M.i and 

 iptt, puer for pucrut. Nay, even the neuters of adjectives seem to have 

 lost the final t of the nominative in this way. At any rate putit is used 

 for a neuter nominative as well as pole. The third person of the Latin 

 perfect may powibly owe its occasional long quantity (perrujilt, Hor. ; 

 tubiil, Hor. ; rtdilt, Ovid, Ac., &c.) to an older orthography endiir.,' iu 

 itt ; for as the other perfects of the indicative as well as those of the 

 subjunctive and infinitive of the active verb, to say nothing of all the 

 passive perfects, are evidently formed by the addition of the tenses of 

 the verb eae, so perrHftitlit and perrupernnt contain in the two last 

 syllables the almost unaltered forms of til it and nnnt, and seem to 

 justify the idea that perrupit is a corruption of ;;///.*' that is, 

 perrupett. As to form, we might compare this corruption with what 

 we know has occurred in the French subjunctive perfect, fusae, /sc, 

 f&t, that is, futt. The French language abounds in examples of the 

 logs of the sibilant. Thus from the Latin OKI/I us, mugittcr, nosier, 

 ijuodragetima, are derived, first, ante, maiitre, nottre, carctmc, and then, 

 according to the modern orthography, due, mditre, nvtrc, carimc, to say 

 nothing of the silent * in such words as main, rottx, ilc, est, &c. 



SABADILLIC ACID, a name sometimes given to cevadic acid. 

 [CIVADIC ACID.] 



SABADILLINE (Sabadillia). A poisonous alkaloid, found aloug 

 with jervine, colchicrne, and veratrine in white hellebore. Its com- 

 position is not known. 



SABAEI (2a3oioi), a people of Arabia Felix, on the borders of the 

 Red Sea, in the northern part of the modern Yemen. They are 

 described by Diodorus and Strabo as the most numerous, and, toge- 

 ther with the Gerrhaci, as the richest people iu Arabia. Their 

 country produced frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, and balsam in 

 abundance, but was also infested by deadly serpents. The inhabitants 

 are represented as living an idle life, on account of the abundance of 

 the produce of the country, but are at the same time said to h;i\ <> 

 carried on an extensive commerce with Syria and Mesopotamia, both 

 with the productions of (heir own country and also with those of 

 Ethiopia, to which they sailed in boats made of skins. 



The country of the Sabaei is mentioned iu the Old Testament under 



the name of Sheba (S3tC), and is spoken of as rich in iiiceuse, spices, 



precious stones, and gold (1 Kings x. 2; Jer. vi. 20; Isa. Ix. 6; Ps. 

 Ixxii. 16), and as carrying on an extensive commerce with the other 

 nations of Asia (Ezek. xxvii. 22 ; Job vi. 19 ; Joel iii. 8). The queen 



