LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 301 



we fincl tlie Danish lue, tlie German lohe and tlie Lowland Scotch 

 low reproducing what I believe must have been the original word 

 Tueamxig flame. The English word ^a^0J^ which isflacon in French, 

 lagenos in Greek and lagena in Latin, may doubtless be referred to 

 the Hebrew LOG, a liquid measure containing over t went j-f our 

 cubic inches. Yarro informs us that the lonians called ewr the 

 ispring, her,^^ which is nearer to the Persian hehar than the Latin ver, 

 and may not improbably connect with the Erse and Gaelic ur and 

 fewr meaning green and grass. Professor Miiller says, " Beech is the 

 Gothic hoha, Latin fagus, Old High German puocha. The Greek 

 pJiegos, which is identically the same word, does not mean beech but 

 oak. Was this change of meaning accidental, or were there circum- 

 Btances by which it can be explained 1 Was phegos originally the 

 name of the oak, meaning the food-tree from phagein to eat ? And 

 was the name which originally belonged to the oak (the Quercus 

 Esculus) transferred to the beech, after the age of stone with its fir 

 trees, and the age of bronze with its oak trees had passed away, and 

 the age of iron and of beech trees had dawned on the shores of 

 Europe l'"'^ No doubt the author of these words is right in his con- 

 jecture, which he hardly dares to take out of the category of 

 hypotheses. The Danish eeg is the Greek pliegos ; the German eich 

 is its own huch and the English heech ; while English oak and Dutch 

 eih represent the Gothic hoTia. These are variations of an old root 

 that must have stood for tree in general, just as we find the words 

 EIL, ELON in Hebrew standing for an oak, a terebinth or any con- 

 spiciious tree, and thor the Coptic and drus the Greek oak as forms 

 of a root that furnishes the Germanic, Celtic and Sclavonic languages 

 with the equivalent of our English tree. 



One of the most striking instances of a double or even treble 

 phonetic change in the passage of a root through various languages 

 is afforded ia the word god. I regret that in setting this forth it 

 will be necessary to come into conflict with the views of one who is 

 universally recognized facile princeps among philologists, and a 

 high authority in oriental literature. I allude to Professor Miiller, 

 who speaks most condemningly of Sir William Jones, because " he 

 actiially expressed his belief that Buddha was the same as the 



86 Varronis de lingua Latina, l.v. 



w Science of Language, Series ii. Lect. v. 



3 



