OLD ARYAN WORDS 



latter sort, where they exist in different classes 

 of Aryan speech, have obviously been handed 

 down from primeval times ; they must have 

 formed part of the vocabulary employed in Ar- 

 yana Vaejo, and the most convincing proof of 

 their genuineness is to be found in the peculiar 

 nature of the wear and tear they have under- 

 gone. To recur to an example previously cited, 

 the existence of such English words as colour, 

 opinion, admire, etc., not only fails to prove kin- 

 ship between English and Latin, but it does 

 not even prove that English is an Aryan lan- 

 guage, since these words are manifest importa- 

 tions, and the case of Persian and Arabic shows 

 that nothing is easier than for one language to 

 adopt half its current words from another that 

 has no relationship with it. But on the other 

 hand, when we compare such words as corn with 

 Lat. granum ; horn with Lat. cornu ; who and 

 what with Lat. quis and quid, Skr. kas and kad ; 

 queen with Gr. yvvrj ; beech with Lat. fagus ; 

 doom with Gr. #e/us ; tear with Skr. dar ; bear 

 with Skr. bhar, Gr. and Lat./<?r0; tooth (Goth. 

 tunthus] with Zend and Skr. dant, Lat. dens, 

 when we find a thousand such cases of syste- 

 matic divergence, we get clear proof of the 

 original identity of the English vocabulary with 

 the others brought into the comparison. For 

 the divergences in themselves are incompatible 

 with any theory of modern borrowing and lend- 

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