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♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[April 1, 188 



expression, " Fie ! for sbame," or in the exclamation com- 

 monly written. /«««(//( .' A more explosive action in Ijlowiug 

 tln'ough the mouth as if to get rid of an oflending object 

 ■will produce the sound pooh, /;('.s7(, or ^w/;ai(', often written as 

 exclamations, and to this origin may be traced a number of 

 words in many different languages. 8uch, for example, is 

 the Sanskrit /(»y, to become /omZ (whence Latin putridus, 

 our putrid), piy and phj, to revile, hate. The Zulu says of 

 turned-off meat, " the meat says pu " (stinks). In Timorese 

 poop means putrid ; Quiche puh, poll signifies corruption — 

 our pus; polilr is to turn bad, puz rottenness; Hebrew 

 puahh, to exhale as odours, blow (cf. Malay /«{/>?«<, to blow), 

 utter, pant, rail against (cf. Maori piiku, to pant). From 

 the same source comes also the vei'b to pujf', with all its 

 derivatives, even to T^owAnr-pnff. From the idea of a puff 

 of smoke comes the Australian pooiju, smoke ; (:||uichua 

 pu/iucumt, to light afire ; pultuya, a cloud ; TawXuJ'u, cloud. 

 In Zulu also the word for thorax is Juha, pupuiiia means 

 to bubble, boil, and very many other derivatives from the 

 same instinct-sound, if I may so call it, might be cited. 

 The English spue and spit have similar origins, and the 

 sound of forcible ejection from the mouth is heard in 

 Tahitian Tutua, to spit. In Chinese p)t is used to express 

 contempt and defiance, and is very often equivalent to 

 " begone ! " 



Our woi'd cliuclif is imitative of the sound uttered as an 

 expression of inward amusement and glee, an instinctive 

 sound, as proved by its being made by Laura Bridgeman. 

 The Zulu jr/jf/^eArt is used in the same way as our ;//(/(//?; 

 hee-hee or ha-ha becomes a word meiining to laugh ; 

 Sanskrit, hahh. The Chinese make a word h)-lu expressive 

 of laughter, and A? is used in the sense of " to be glad." 

 Zulu lialala, to utter a sound of exultation, corresponds to 

 the Hebrew Italal, to shout, give praise, introduced into 

 English in the form Hallelujah ! which means literally 

 " Praise Jah," or Jehovah, and to our Inirruh. 



Interjections may become words : thus from o, the 

 answer to a call or cry used by the Gallas to drive cattle, 

 two verbs have been formed — oarda, to answer, and ofa to 

 drive. 



The function of bi'eathing is that which, all over the 

 world, has been and is considered the most significant of 

 life. To say a person has ceased to breathe is equivalent to 

 saying that he is dead. The Hebrew root hhayah, to live, 

 is imitative of breathing, and from it come many derivatives. 

 Another form of it is lihivvah, to breathe out, declare, 

 show ; from it come also hhavvah, life, the name of the 

 fir.st woman. Eve; the more-used plural form //hui/im, 

 life ; and hhai/ah, living thing. Another very important 

 form of the verb to breathe is liayah to exist, to be, 

 to become, happen; al.so seen in Jiavali, which takes on, 

 moreover, from the idea of breathing after, the meaning to 

 desire, long for ; havvah, desire, cupidity, or avah (with 

 vav), to long for, ovva/i, desire, lust — in a spiritual sense, 

 pleasure, will. Closely connected with the latter is the verb 

 aba/i. Compare Latin aveo, to be willing, to wish, desire, long 

 for, and the much-used Semitic root ahab, to desire, love. 



The Sanscrit root bhu to be, mustj also have originated in 

 the imitation of the sounds of breathing ; its form closely 

 resembles the above Hebrew words, and from it are de- 

 rived the Latin Ju " to bo," existing only in the perfect 

 tenses — Welsh bod ; German bin, bist, &,c. ; side by side 

 with sein, ist, &c. ; Saxon bean, our English to be. To 

 have and to happen ai'e probably derived from the same 

 origin in the imitation of breathing sounds; the Welsh 

 Iiapiaw is to happen, to befall, to have luck ; liap or hap, 

 luck, chance, that which falls or comes suddenly, allied with 

 Dutch happen ; Welsh hajiaiv, to snatch ; Norman hopper, 

 to seize ; French happej; to snap or catch (a sound which 



may be heard when a dog catches in its mouth anything 

 thrown to it). In Spanish haber means to hr(ve, to happen, 

 to befall, to take, to possess ; thus uniting the meanings of 

 the Latin cap, and hab, which are apparently cognate words. 

 To our have correspond Saxon habban, Gothic haban, 

 German haben, Dutch hebben, Swedish hafra, Danish haver, 

 Portuguese haver, Italian avere, French avoir ; and, as men- 

 tioned above, Welsh ]iafi<iw, to snatch or seize hastily, as 

 well as hapiaic to happen. Closely allied with this is our 

 slang term cop, " to take," with its derivative copper, " a 

 policeman." 



The Hebiew word ritahh, meaning air in motion, wind, 

 and which to my ear is distinctly imitative, applied also to 

 breath of the nostrils, s-nuffimj, snorting of anger, like a/ih 

 from aiatph to breathe, comes to be used in the same way as 

 the Latin sjiirifus (literally breathing), as spirit, soul, vital 

 principle; and nephesh, breath, from the root napliasli is 

 similai-ly used. Aiiuph (whence apli, anger), to breathe, 

 especially through the nostrils, is used in the sense of 

 to be angry, and is imitative of the hard breathing 

 of anger. The i-oot ruahh, to breathe, is cognate with 

 puahh to blow, and nuahh to respire, breathe quietly, 

 hence to rest. It is used in the same way as in the 

 Germanic languages the root huch, hugh, AUemanic 

 hughi, Swedish hugh = Hebrew rtuiMi, spirit. The 

 Hiphil form of the verb rualiJi is herialth, to smell, similar to 

 the German riechen, in smelling, the air being drawn in and 

 expu-ed through the nostrils. Followed by a particle mean- 

 ing in, it comes to mean smelling with pleasure, to delight 

 in (Isaiah xi. 3, " His delight shall be in," &c.). Reahh 

 •nichoahh, "a sweet savour," also means something pleasant 

 in a moral sense. Another derivative of the word ruahh is 

 ravahh, to be spacious, ample, loose; hence, rluaM, space 

 (Genesis xxxii. 17), relaxation, freedom from distress (Esther 

 iv. 1-t). Imitative of the sound of hard breathing, we find 

 shaaph, to pant, catch at with open mouth; hence, by an 

 easy transition, to hasten. Cognate to this root are sliuph, 

 to gape upon — hence, lie in wait for ; ncishaph, to blow — 

 whence veshepih, evening twilight, when the cool breeze 

 blows, and, further, darkne.ss, night (Isaiah v. 11), or morn- 

 ing, when there is also a cool breeze (Job vii. 4), nashaph 

 being only another form of the more largely used root 

 naphash, for, as we have seen, the transposition of sounds 

 is a very common linguistic change. These roots may be 

 compared with the German schnauben, to breathe heavily, 

 pant for; schnaufen, to pufl" and blow; and schnappen, to 

 siMj), gasp, catch at. We find the same idea in puahh, 

 to breathe, blow, blow out ; also to utter and rail against, in 

 which sense it is connected with the word peJi, Arabic _/m, 

 mouth. In Hebrew the sounds p and /'are interchangeable 

 and represented by the same letter of the alphabet ; for 

 example, jii'h, with the prefix I, meaning " to," becomes lephi, 

 " according to." Puahh is also closely connected with the 

 word naphahh, to blow, breathe, kindle (as a fiie) ; cf. German 

 fachen and anfachen, and yaphach, used in the Hithpael 

 form (.Jeremiah iv. 31), to pant or sigh deeply. 



OUR PUZZLES. 



I HE Puzzles for last month in their simplest 

 form are dealt with in what follows : — 



Puzzle XXV. T'o buihl up four letra- 

 Jiedrons and six sqiuire-based pyramids 

 liaviitg equal triangular /aces into a square- 

 based pyramid. 



Set four of the pyi'amids so that their 

 square bases aekh, ebfk, kfcg, and kc.dh, fill the square 

 ABC'D as shown in fig. 1, their vertices being at l, >i, n, and o. 



