[403] 



THE COPTIC ELEMENT. 



IN LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 



BY THE REV. JOHN CAMPBELL, M.A., TORONTO. 



Read before the Canadian, Institute, February lOtfi, 1872. 



(Continued from page 303.) 



While tlie title of this paper is "The Coptic element in Languages 

 of the Indo-European Family," I may be permitted to indicate the 

 presence of the same element in other families of language. Allusion 

 has already been made to the claims of the African and Polynesian 

 languages to relationship with the Aryan and Semitic tongues. After 

 a survey of vocabulaiies of over two hundred different languages 

 spoken in all parts of the world, it is only among these two groups 

 and, to a very slight extent, among the monosyllabic tongues of 

 eastern Asia, that I have so far been able to discover thf presence of 

 that initial p sound which I have identified with the Coptic article. 

 One of the simplest examples is to be found among certain of the 

 numerals of ten African languages, most of which belong to the 

 West Coast.*' 



LANGUAGE. TWO. FOUK. FIVE. 



Biintakoos of Guinea noo nali taw. 



Igherra on Niger River ebba enna jokki, 



Ratongga on Bagoon River beba binni betta. 



Right of Benin bi nin tang. 



Efik of Calabar iba inang itiun. 



Otam on Cross River beba bini bittan. 



Mandinga fida nani lulu. 



Mozambique piU ssesse tliana. 



Lagoa Bay see-berry . . nau thanou. 



Bongo on Gaboon River baba banai batan. 



In the Ratongga, the Otam and the Bongo langviages we find the 

 African representatives of the .^olic, Sabine and High German of 

 Europe. Among Asiatic tongues, in what is generally called the 

 Monosyllabic area, the Japanese holds most strongly to the Coptic 



*2 Bowring, Decimal System. London, 1854 ; p. 165—168. 



An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa, &c., by El Hage Abd. Salam Sliabeeny, with notes 

 by J. G. Jackson, London, 1820 : p. 373. 



Twenty-nine years in tbe West Indies, &c., by Waddell. Appendix vi. 



The words in italics in this and subsequent lists are abnormal forms that do not form pait of 

 the comparison. 



