230 MAJOR C. RB. CONDER, B.E., D.0.1.. LL:D., McR.A.S., 
evidence is very small, and the negative is (as has been 
observed) not very reliable; but the subject is of such interest 
that an attempt to throw light upon it, however imperfectly, 
will perhaps be considered of value. The points to which 
attention is usually called by linguists, in such enquiry, con- 
cern the knowledge of metals and weapons, of animals and 
plants, of cattle and agriculture, of dress and food, of the 
computation of time, of dwellings, crafts, family, and religion. 
A few words may therefore be devoted to each in turn. 
It will be generally allowed that the discovery of the use 
of metals was not made by primitive man. The Egyptians 
had native words for metals, and borrowed others from the 
Semitic traders. The early Aryans had their own words for 
gold, silver, and copper, and in later times the Armenians bor- 
rowed words of Mongol origin, and the Greeks used both 
Akkadian and Phoenician terms. The Semitic peoples also 
borrowed Mongol words, through intercourse with the 
civilised Akkadians, who knew not only gold, silver, and 
copper, but early distinguished lead and tin, and had iron and 
bronze at a very early historic period. There is no word for 
any of these metals that runs through all the languages, nor 
are there any common names for weapons; for even the bow, 
though its name in each case comes from a root meaning “ to 
bend,” ig separately named in each class of language. It has 
been observed in Aryan speech that the word for knife, coming 
from the root SAK, to cut, is connected with the word for stone 
which is found in the Latin saruwm, whence Schrader supposes 
that the early knives were of flint. This root 1s common to 
the other linguistic classes, and in each there is a word for 
stone which may perhaps be connected. In Mongol speech 
we find TAK and SIK, “to cut”; and in Akkadian TAK, “a 
stone,” which becomes Vash in modern Turkic dialects. We 
also have the word Saf. for “stone” in the same group. In 
Egyptian we find Sekh, “to cut,” and Sen, “a stone.” In 
Semitic speech we have Shak, ‘to divide,” and Suwdn, for a 
“flint stone.” Possibly these indications may point to a 
common use of flint knives, such as we now find to have 
been known in Palestine and in Egypt as well as in 
Europe. 
Turning to the question of the earliest animals named by 
man we find from the root LA, “to roar,” the name of the lion 
which is the same in Semitic, in Aryan, and in Egyptian 
speech. It has been considered to be a loan word from the 
Semitic, but the root is apparently common to all the 
