ON THE COMPARISON OF ASIATIC LANGUAGES. 259 
night is observable, and I have to a certain extent mentioned it in 
the paper at page 210 in regard to the Aryan languages in which 
vowel harmony exists to a certain extent, and it is also supple- 
mented by the consonantal harmony which is found to exist in 
the Tartar and Zend languages. 
The meeting was then adjourned. 
REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING PAPER. 
The Rev. R. Coturins,* M.A., writes :— 
After the long study and care bestowed by Major Conder on the 
subject of this most interesting paper, it seems almost an imper- 
tinence on the part of one who has comparatively little time for 
such study to say a word. Noram I able to refer to all the vocabu- 
laries that have been used by Major Conder. I would, however, 
venture to suggest a doubt whether all language can be traced 
ultimately to simple monosyllables. Is there not evidence of some 
further law of sympathy between sounds (especially consonants 
and combination of consonants), and the impressions produced by 
actions, or feelings, which carries us along beyond merely so 
simple a syllabic origin as here suggested ? However correct the 
Ulustrations at the close of this paper be, are there not many cases 
left thus incapable of explanation ? 
Take a class of words in which k, s, p (with sometimes r) are 
the backbone. For instance, there is the remarkable word used 
for the first description of the “manna” (Ex. xvi. 14). Leaving 
the vowels out of the question, it is khasaph, or khasap, the root 
meaning being to ‘‘ peel,” or “scale’”’; so that it seems to mean a 
“scrap,” or, as our Revisers put it in the margin, a “ flake.” 
Another form of the same word seems to be sakhaph, to ‘ scrape,” 
or “sweep.” Gesenius, no doubt correctly, compares it with the 
Gr. skaptein, to “hoe,” or “dig,” whence we get skaphos (scraped 
out, or dug out), skiff, ship; khasap and sakap both occur in 
Arabic, also conveying the same idea, as in the Hebrew, of 
“scraping.” I do not recalla parallel in Sanscrit, or the South 
Indian languages. But in our own German and Latin, we have 
scab, schaben, scabere, and (perhaps) shave; probably scoop belongs 
to the same family. With a later addition of r (a point Major 
Conder notes) we get scrape, scrap, scramble, scrabble, scrub; and as 
s is apt to be lost before k (as between Sanscrit and Pali) we may 
* Late principal of Cottayam College. 
