OLD ARYAN WORDS 



) always with the meaning of " house." In 

 the Teutonic class we do not find this word in 

 precisely the same sense; but we have the 

 Germ, zimmer, " a room," connected with Goth. 

 timrjan, " to build," and Eng. timber p ,or " build- 

 ing material ; " and these words, compared with 

 Gr. Scpeiv, carry us back to Old Aryan dam, 

 " to build," so that the domus of our forefathers 

 was not a mere hole in the rocks, but a dwell- 

 ing-place put together by the art of the carpen- 

 ter. In Greek the more common word for 

 house is ol/cos, originally Fot/co?, " a place that 

 one goes into." This word runs through all 

 the Aryan languages, but the original sense of 

 " entering " is forgotten, and it only means " a 

 place where one lives," sometimes a house, 

 but more generally a village. Thus we have 

 Skr. ve$a, Zend vif, Russ. vest and Polish wtes, 

 Lat. vicus (whence the diminutive vicula, villa, 

 village) , Irish fich^ Kymric gwic, Goth. weihs> 

 Eng. wick. The Old Norse language shows a 

 curious deviation from this general agreement 

 in meaning ; for whereas the word generally 

 describes an abode on the land, to the sea-rov- 

 ing Norseman a wick was a creek or sheltered 

 bay serving as a station for ships, and hence 

 their famous name of Vikings or " men of the 

 fjord." So, while the ending wick or wich is 

 very common in old English names of inland 

 towns, it occurs frequently also on the British 

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