Language. 919 



grapple, draggle, rush, shoot, shot, shut, &c. Many words for cutting and the objects cut 

 or used for cutting, &c., are obviously of similar origin. Thus we have the sound sh r 

 with each of the vowels; share, a part cut off; shear, an instrument for cutting; shire, a 

 division of a country; shore, the division between land and sea, or as we 'use it in Kent t 

 between two fields ; a shower, a number of separate particles ; again scissors, scythe, 

 shread, scrape, shard, scale, shale, shell, shield, skull, shoist, shatter, scatter, scar, scoop, 

 score, scrape, scratch, scum, scour, scurf, surf, scuttle, sect, shape, sharp, share, shave, 

 sheaf, shed, shoal, shred, split, splinter, splutter, &c." 



The Tutuco (ctenomys brasiliensis) is a curious small gnawing animal with the 

 habits of the mole. Its name Tutuco, is an imitation of the sound it makes whije bur- 

 rowing under ground. The Teru-tero (vanellus cayanus) which resembles the English 

 peewit, is a South American bird ( Patagonia and Buenos Ayres), named from the sound 

 it makes. (Darwin.) The Momot is a bird, and the Quagga a quadruped, both named 

 from the sounds they utter. 



The sound of st seems to be a natural exclamation commanding silence or stillness, as 

 in " hist " and " whist." Pei'haps it is in imitation of the hiss of the serpent which chal- 

 lenges a halt. From stillness to fixedness is an easy transition, and at any rate we find a 

 large number of words of Teutonic and classic origin, containing the sound st and im- 

 plying the quality of fixedness; as stable (adj.), stall, (from which we get stable, the 

 noun) stack, stab, staccato ( Italian ), staddle a staff, stage, stagger to cease to stand 

 firm, stagnant and stagnate, staid, stain (a spot), stamp an imprint, hence the verb 

 stamp ; stand, stallion, stair, stake, stalk, stamen, stump, stupid, sturdy, stick, stem, 

 stone, strong, and fifty more. 



Where we cannot finally trace original words to obvious imitations of 

 natural sounds, we can only account for them as whimsical, capricious 

 or accidental. A whimsical word may be an imitation according to the 

 fancy of one person, when another might see little or none in it. Mar, 

 for example, is an Aryan root, meaning to grind. Now it is quite pos- 

 sible that the person first using that word might have done it through 

 an impulse of some grinding sound, of which m-r-r was, in his fancy, 

 some sort of expression. 



So tup, to strike, may have been the whim of someone, an expression 

 he would use to accoinpam^ the gestures by which he might attempt to 

 convey the idea of a blow. Just as it is natural for a dog who wishes 

 to convey an unusual idea to his master, to accompany his expressive 

 movements with the voice in little, inarticulate whines and barks, so, no 

 doubt, it was equalty natural for man, possessed of the power of artic- 

 ulation, to accompany with articulations of some sort, his gesticulatory 

 efforts to convej 7 ideas. If he was trying to show in pantomime how 

 one savage struck another, he might accompany the action by the mono- 

 S} T llable tup, for example, as likely as by any other. This is the Aiyan 

 root-word for strike. We find it in the Greek tupto, to strike ; in the 

 English tup, a ram ; and tup, to butt as a ram. 



But we are to consider that it is now out of the question to get down 

 to the real beginning of language, especially to the real original root- 

 words of the Aryan languages. The roots we find in these languages 

 may be many removes from the original words. Passing from mouth 

 to mouth without any standard of accuracy or purity, words could not 

 possibly long remain the same. In the changes which the root-words of 

 the Aryan tongues underwent before they became Aryan, and while they 



