Language. 921 



them. This name superseded a hundred at least that the moon had 

 borne before men knew or cared for it as a measurer. To a savage its 

 function of lighting is vastly more obvious than that of measuring 

 time. Our Indians called it the night sun. Again, we are informed 

 that thunder is derived from the root tan, which means to stretch, and 

 " expresses that tension of the air which gives rise to sound. " (M. 

 Miiller. ) In Sanscrit, thunder is tanyu, in Latin it is tonitru, from which 

 our own word is easily derived. From tan also comes the Greek tonos, 

 our tone, tone being produced from stretched strings. From the same 

 tan comes the Latin tendo, to reach out ; tennis, thin ; tener, tender, 

 and our words thin and tender, the last meaning stretched out, and 

 hence delicate. Now, no savage ever lived who first conceived of thun- 

 der as an air-stretcher. Lightning might early have been thought of as 

 a streak ( as we often speak of it even now ), and the Vord tan used to 

 express that sense as something like a string extended or stretched 

 across the sky ; and this would imply that thunder and lightning were 

 not* at first distinguished from one another. But it is easy to see that 

 even in this to us rather obvious expression, there is too much general- 

 ization implied for an original term. The first names could not be gen- 

 eral names, or names of classes of things. If some particular line or 

 mark had been called a tan (a stretch or streak ), this term would not, 

 at first, through the comparison of such mark with another of a dis- 

 tinct kind, be also applied to it. We say streak of lightning, and this 

 expression implies that we have compared lightning with a streak of 

 something else, and it also implies that before it was possible to say 

 streak of lightning we had possessed one idea of some streak, and an- 

 other idea of lightning, and the third idea, arising from the union of the 

 other two, did not occur till long afterwards. 



Ovis, the Latin name for sheep, is also found in Greek, Sanscrit, Teu- 

 tonic, Lithuanian, Slavonic and Celtic. It was therefore a common name 

 in the original Aryan tongue before the dispersion. It is said to come 

 from the root aw, to be pleased or satisfied. In Sanskrit, av is to 

 please ; Latin avere, to desire ; avarus, greedy ; ovis, pet animal, &c. 

 * Also auris, the ear, and audire, to hear. Gothic awi, is sheep, ewe ; 

 awso, the ear. In English, cesthetic, audience, avarice, ave, uncle, ear, 

 ewe. ( See Skeat. ) But there is another word by which the same ani- 

 mal is designated; viz., in English, sheep; in Saxon it is seep ; Ger- 

 man, schaf ; Dutch, schaap. These words are derived from the root 

 skap, to cut ( hence to castrate ). In Polish, skop, and in Bohemian, 

 skope, mean a wether or castrated ram. In Polish, skopowina is mutton; 

 in Russian, skopite is to castrate. Italian for mutton is castrato. A later 

 form of skap is kap, from which comes the Greek koptein, to cut ; also 

 the Latin, capo ; Dutch, kapoen ; Danish, kapun, and English, capon^ 

 all meaning; a castrated rooster. 



