28 



♦ KNOV\rLEDGE ♦ 



[December 1, 1887. 



cannon for throwing grape-shot, is apparently imitative in 

 sound, and its form was probably induenced by imitation, 

 but the real derivation was pedrero, Spanish piedra, Fr. 

 pierre, a stone. Oar word to murmur is clearly imitative, 

 and with it may be compared the Tamil muru-muru. 



The origin of such words as tvltisper, listen, Ger.Jlustern, 

 hicsh, -was probably imitative. Silence .' is a command ex- 

 pressed among the Sioux by hush-sh ! among the Yeddahs 

 of Ceylon by iss ! and in Japan by a hLss, with which may 

 be compared the Gr. sim, to hush, command silence. As 

 Wedgwood suggests, the savage watching for foe or prey 

 would hear, or fancy he heard, a rxisiling among the leaves 

 of the thicket or long grass, and in order to attract the 

 attention of his companion or companions would softly 

 imitate the sound, and thus produce such exclamations as 

 hush I whist I st 1 Arc, which would soon take their place in 

 speech, and give rise to derivatives, becoming at the same 

 time conventionalised in pronunciation. 



Dr. Comrie says* that the natives of the north-east coast 

 of Papua, when shown an ii'on axe, named it din-din, from 

 the sound which it produced. When I was a little girl I 

 used to call hammering "dodding," and I alwaj's believed 

 that the old carpenter who used to work at the house, whose 

 name was Dodd, was so called because he " dodded." 



The spirit of imitation, besides giving birth to language, 

 exercises a great influence upon the word after it has come 

 into being. 



When words are reduplicated or lengthened out in order 

 to express degrees of comparison, the representation of 

 thought is practically pictorial. Thus in French heaucoup 

 is much, heaucouqi-hemicoup very much, and the same mode 

 of expression is common to the most widely different races. 

 Among the Dyaks kwai is strange, kwai-kwai very strange ; 

 huhiang is to think, hu-hjiiwj-hu-lyang to think deeply. 

 In Madagascar ratclii is bad, rdtclii very bad. Among the 

 Watchandi of Australia jir-rie means already or past, 

 jir-rie-jir-rie, a long time ago, and with much lengthening 

 of the first syllable, jie-r-rie-jirrie an immense time ago. A 

 Brazilian tribe has the word ouatou for stream, which 

 becomes otiatou-ou-ou-ou for sea. The Aponegicrans for 

 " six " use a word itaivunn, and for " seven " itawuuna-=:a 

 long six. 



A child relation of Wedgwood's used the word 

 "baby" as a diminutival prefix. Baby Thomas was the 

 smaller of two men-servants of that name. To express 

 further diminution, he nan-owed the sound to beebee, and 

 very small objects became beebee-heebee tilings. This word 

 is probably connected with ivee, and a baby friend of mine 

 is always called Wee-Wee. Reduplication seems naturally to 

 convey the idea of repetition, continuance, or an increased 

 degree of the state indicated, e.ij. tin>/=^smaM, tiny iiny= 

 very small. 



In Maori puka is to pant, puka.puha the lungs ; muka 

 flax ; muka-muka to wipe, rub, for which flax is employed ; 

 mura to flame, muramura a flame. In jSIalay ai/un is to 

 rock, and ayunayunan a cradle. In Africa the Wolof 

 dialect has sopa to love, sopsopa to love constantly, and 

 Mpongwe has kewlu to walk, and kendagenda to walk 

 about for amusement. In Dayak kakd-kaka means to 

 continue laughing loudly." 



In Chinese, frequentatives or the repetition and continua- 

 tion of an action are expressed by repeating the primitive 

 syllable, as mo-?«o = to go on rubbing; ho-ho^bo keep on 

 drinking; t'ia a- t'iau — to jump about. The repetition, 

 however, sometimes serves to intensify the meaning of the 

 primitive. It gives the notion of "a good many," "all," 

 " every," to a single, as jin, man, jin-jin, everybody, 



* " Journal of the Anthrop. Inst.," vi. 2 (Oct, 1879). 



all men or most men ; jl, A&y, ji-ji, daily ; chi^-che sCing- 

 p'tng, each (animal) is sick ; shl-shl k'o-lien, truly to be 

 pitied ; ti tsiu-liidni-liii'ini, completely intoxicated. 



Similarly in colloquial speech, we say, " He went on 

 write, write, write ; " "I like it very, very much ; " " Oh, 

 go on, talk, talk, talk," and so on. 



In the early stages of language there seems to have gene- 

 rally prevailed a love of reduplication for the mere pleasure 

 of repstitiou, as well as for the sake of greater clearness and 

 pictorial eSect. In South America there is a river Bio-bio, 

 a rodent tuco-tuco, and so on ; and the Maori dictionary is 

 full of words of such formation as mati-mati, toe; emi-emi, 

 tree ; dki-dki, to urge ; and dti-dli, to drive away. In 

 Hebrew the superlative is formed by repetition of the ad- 

 jective. In Breton from 7ndd comes mdd-mdd, best ; from 

 fidl, bad, fall-fall, worst. The French have bon-bons, 

 goodies. Reduplication seems, therefore, to intensify an 

 action or quality ; and duration of time, as well as large- 

 ness and smallness of dimension (intensification), is also ex- 

 pressed by the lengthening out of vowels. 



With regard to the long vowel of the present ten.ses of 

 Latin and Greek verbs, in place of the short vowels of the 

 stems, and the strengthening of the final consonant, it has 

 been suggested that its origin is really imitative, denoting 

 the duration of the act, as when we say, " He came creeeping 

 along,"or" He draairls out his words." Thus, phalno, scr'ibo, 

 dlco. While, on the other hand, the short penult of etupon, 

 elabon, elathon, &c., agrees with the momentaiy nature of 

 the act.f 



In the many words and roots which I have mentioned, 

 and in thousands of others which I might record if space 

 permitted, the imitative or pictorial origin is clear ; and as 

 I have shown + that the trace of the origin of words is 

 easily and most frequently obliterated by the growth and 

 wear aud tear of language, the inference is patent that 

 imitation must have played a most important part, if not 

 the most important part in the first development of speech. 



AMERICANISMS. 



Gobbler, for a turkey cock, is probably no more an 

 Americanism than Bow-irow for a dog. Readers of "The 

 Pioneers" will remember how the owner of the unlucky 

 turkey to be shot at by Leatherstocking and the big 

 Vermonter calls to his bird, " Poss up a gobbler." The 

 expression belongs i-ather to nigger patois than to American 

 English. 



Go. A State is said to go Democi'atic, or to go Repub- 

 lican, when it votes for one or the other cause after being 

 for a time doubtful, or on the other side. 



Go BV, To. To stay ; not to go by, as we understand 

 the words in England. This peculiar usage belongs to the 

 Southern States. The exj^lanation is not .so diflicult as 

 might b3 expected. Where in journeying a traveller has a 

 choice of ways, as in the South is generally the case, a 

 friend will say to him, " Go by my plantation and stay with 

 me," meaning simply choose that way. Later such a re- 

 quest would be shortened into "Go by aud stay with me." 

 Southerners do well to get a convenient expression for such 

 cases, seeing that they are of all men in the world the most 

 hospitable and generous. 



Go FOR, To. To go for any one, in the sense of attack- 

 ing him, appears to be an expression of Southern origin, 

 though now heard commonly enough all over the States. 



t T. H. Key, " Language : its Origin and Development," 1874, 

 p. 144. 

 { Knowledge, vol. ix., p. 85 et seq. ; p. 141 et sei^. 



