26 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



been introduced by another people. Thus the Basque 

 language contains many words which seem to have been 

 taken from the Latin at the time of the Roman rule. 

 Berber is full of Arab words, and Persian of words of 

 every origin, which probably did not exist in Zend. 



The other method consists in reconstructing a dead 

 language which had no literature, by means of those 

 which are derived from it ; for instance, the speech of 

 the Western Aryans, by means of the words common to 

 several European languages which have sprung from it. 

 Fick's dictionary will hardly serve for the words of 

 ancient Aryan languages, for he gives but few plant- 

 names, and his arrangement renders it unintelligible to 

 those who have no knowledge of Sanskrit. Adolphe 

 Pictet's work ^ is far more important to naturalists, and 

 a second edition, augmented and improved, has been 

 published since the author's death. Plant-names and 

 agricultural terms are explained and discussed in this 

 work, in a manner all the more satisfactory that an 

 accurate knowledge of botany is combined with philology. 

 If the author attributes perhaps too much importance 

 to doubtful etymologies, he makes up for it by other 

 knowledge, and by his excellent method and lucidity. 



The plant-names of the Euskarian or Basque language 

 have been considered from the point of view of their 

 probable etymology by the Comte de Charencey, in Les 

 Actes de la Societe Philologique (vol. i. No. 1, 1869). I 

 shall have occasion to quote this work, of which the 

 difficulties were great, in the absence of all literature 

 and of all derived languages. 



6. The necessity for comhining the different methods. 

 The various methods of which I have spoken are of 

 unequal value. It is clear that when we have archaeo- 

 logical records about a given species, like those of the 

 Egyptian monuments, or of the Swiss lake-dwellings, 

 these are facts of remarkable accuracy. Then come 

 the data furnished by botany, especially those on the 

 spontaneous existence of a species in a given country. 



* Adolphe Piotet, Les Origines des Peuples Indo-Europdens, 3 vols, in 

 8vo, Paris, 1878. 



