518 



PHILOLOGY. 



discovered languages, the mode now adopted of ex- 

 pressing or representing the sounds by the alphabeti- 

 cal signs of the nation to which the writer belongs, 

 is very inconvenient, and lends to strange mistakes ; 

 for instance, the name of prince Lee-Boo of the Pel- 

 lew islands will appear to a Frenchman to be com- 

 posed of two dissyllables, because, according to his 

 own onhoraphy, it should be written Li-Bou; and, 

 then, an Italian will commit the same mistake, and 

 rend Li-Bo-u. Mr Pickering of America has pub- 

 lished an Essay on a uniform Orthography for the 

 Indian Languages of North America, which we con- 

 sider as the best work of the kind that has yet ap- 

 peared. The alphabet that he proposes lias been 

 almost universally adopted by American missionaries, 

 not only on this continent, but in the South sea 

 islands. It consists of twenty-seven letters, all bor- 

 rowed from our Roman alphabet. These letters 

 consist of five pure and five nasal vowels, the latter 

 distinguished from the former by a cedilla under- 

 neath, as in the Polish orthography, sixteen conson- 

 ants, and the aspirate A. The guttural sound of the 

 Greek ^ is represented by kh, the author having 

 been afraid of the Greek character being mistaken 

 for our double letter x, as his principal objects were 

 simplicity in theory and facility in practice, in both 

 of which he has, in our opinion, -succeeded as far as 

 it is possible to do. (See the Memoirs of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. iv. p. 319.) While 

 we think that such a general alphabet may be of use 

 for unwritten languages, we are of opinion that it is 

 entirely useless for those that have an alphabet of 

 their own, and properly suited to their idiom. Sir 

 William Jones, and, after him, M. de Volney, have 

 expressed the wish that our Roman alphabet might 

 be employed in writing the Arabic, Persian, and 

 other Oriental languages ; and the latter has left a 

 considerable legacy to be employed in premiums to 

 those who should discover the best mode of attaining 

 that end. We cannot perceive what benefits will 

 arise from it. He who knows those languages will, 

 of course, be able to read their writing ; and he 

 must know how to read it, otherwise their books 

 will be to him a dead letter; and to those who do 

 not, our Roman letters will convey no better idea of 

 the sounds of those idioms than the characters which 

 ihe nations which speak them have adopted for 

 themselves nay, we rather think that they will be 

 apt to mislead them. It has become fashionable in 

 Europe to represent the unknown sounds in Oriental 

 proper names by letters different from those formerly 

 used, as if they could convey to the mind the idea of 

 a sound which the ear has never heard. Thus some 

 will write the Qoran or the Khoran, Kairo instead of 

 Cairo, sultaun instead of sultan ; and various similar 

 attempts are made to assimilate our pronunciation of 

 proper names to that of the country to which they 

 belong. These only serve to confuse the reader, 

 and do not contribute in the least to the advancement 

 of science. It is impossible to say into how many 

 shapes the name of poor Genghis-Khan has been tor- 

 tured, in order to come nearer to the true pronuncia- 

 tion of his name. We have gained nothing by these 

 vain attempts, except that in these fantastic dresses 

 we no longer know our old acquaintance. We have 

 taken notice, under the head Indian Languages, 

 of the curious alphabet invented by the Indian 

 philosopher Guest to represent the sounds of the 

 Cherokee idiom, which may now be considered a 

 written tongue. We refer our readers to what is 

 said on that subject ; it is pregnant with reflections 

 which, if followed through all the chain of ideas to 

 which they give rise, will greatly contribute to ex- 

 tend and to improve the phonological science, 

 which has not yet made any considerable pro- 



gress, and may still be considered as in its in- 

 fancy. 



II. Etymology. This branch of philology considers 

 words only in relation to their origin, and to their 

 connexion with or relation to each other. We have 

 little to add to what has already been said on this 

 subject in the article Etymology, to which we refer 

 our reader. We would refer him also to t!ie excel- 

 lent work of president de Brosses, entitled Traite de 

 la Formation mechanique des Langues, ft des Prin- 

 cipes physiques de V Etymologic (Paris, an IX., 2 

 vols., 12mo), in which this topic is fully and most 

 learnedly discussed. The object of etymology is, by 

 means of the similarity, affinity and probable deriva- 

 tion of words in different languages, to trace, as far 

 as possible, the successive migrations of men from 

 one country to another, and thus to extend and im- 

 prove our knowledge of the history of the human 

 race. Many learned men have thought that the sci- 

 ence of etymology would lead us to the discovery of 

 the primitive language which was spoken by man at 

 the creation. We have given our opinion on this 

 subject under the head Language, and we will not 

 repeat what we have said there. We have shown, 

 also, that the verbal affinities which late investiga- 

 tions have discovered between the languages of 

 Europe and those of Western Asia vanish from the 

 moment when we have crossed the river Ganges, 

 and are riot to be found in the idioms of the Ameri- 

 can Indians. All attempts to show the contrary 

 have hitherto failed. It is no reason, however, for 

 further inquiry to be abandoned. There is no know- 

 : ing what facts investigation may bring to light. The 

 ! affinities which have been shown to exist between 

 the Sanscrit, for instance, and the Teutonic and 

 Slavonic languages, are well calculated to excite 

 surprise, and to put us on our guard against too 

 strongly asserting the impossibility of further dis- 

 coveries. It must be owned that the etymological 

 science is very uncertain, and is full of false lights, 

 ever ready to deceive and mislead us. What greater 

 resemblance can there be between two words than 

 between the Indian name Potomac, applied to a river 

 in America, and the Greek word vorafiis (a river) ? 

 And yet it is very certain that the former is not de- 

 rived from the latter, for its Indian etymology is well 

 known. On the other hand, who would believe, if it 

 were not an undoubted fact, that our word tragedy 

 is derived from a Greek word signifying a goat ? and 

 who would now suppose that the English word wig 

 is derived from the Latin pilus (a hair) ? This, how- 

 ever, may be easily shown Latin, pilus; Spanish, 

 pelo, thence peluca ; French, perruque ; Dutch, 

 peruik ; English, perwick, perwig, periwig, and, by 

 contraction, wig. The Russian and Latin languages 

 appear to be entirely different from each other, yet 

 many verbal affinities may be found between them. 

 | We will mention' here a few, extracted from an ex- 

 cellent dissertation by Mr Frederic Adelung, of St 

 Petersburg, on the merits of the empress Catharine 

 in promoting philological knowledge : 





Russian. 

 Pastir, 

 Charosch, 

 Paschct, 

 Ovcts, 

 Vidit, 

 Agnets, 

 Karmana 

 Krugom, 

 Spinu, 

 Beret, 

 Jgum, 

 Ssekeroiu, 

 Strait, 



English. 

 Shepherd, 

 Dear, 

 He feeds, 

 Sheep, 

 He sees, 

 A lamb, 

 A purse, 

 Around. 

 A thorn, 

 He carries, 

 Yoke, 

 An axe, 

 He builds, 



Latin. 



Pastor. 



Chancs. 



Pascit. 



Ovis. 



Fidet. 



Agnus. 



Crumena. 



Circum (Kir Aunt) 



Spina. 



Fert. 



Jugum. 



Securis. 



Struit. 



