LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 409 



be called Mentcheres or Month-ra. He is Mendes, to whom 

 Diodorus^^ and Strabo^* attribute tbe Labyrinth, all the connections 

 of -which were decidedly lunar. As for Balkh, it appears in Boulak 

 near Cairo and in other parts of Lower Egypt. Various writers 

 admit that in Menoutchehr we have the Mandaixces of Ctesias. He 

 is followed among the Median kings by Sosarmus, and the latter 

 monarch in the Assyrian list not only connects with Lampares and 

 Lamprides his predecessors, reminding one of the Egyptian LabareS 

 or Lamares, but also with Mithreus and Teutamus his successors, 

 who are most unmistakeably the Egyptian Mestres and Tothmosis.^^ 

 I do not doubt that Al Bahar JSTau is the original form of the 

 Labyrinth, 



Perhaps the most striking instance of the use of the Arabic 

 article is afforded by a comparison of two Celtic words with their 

 equivalents in other languages. The first of these is the Gaelic 

 and Erse ban, meaning white. In Hebrew it is LABAIST, in Greek 

 alphos, and in Latin alius, the la and al representing the article. 

 The second instance is the Gaelic heann, the Irish hen and the Welsh 

 pen, meaning a hill. These are the same as the Greek hounos, and 

 with the Arabic article, give the Celtic and classical forms Alhain, 

 alpeina, Aljjes, together with a certain Phoenician Alpin. The roots 

 of ban and ben or beann or pen are not distinct, for the idea of moun- 

 tains with white snow-clad summits connects with that of whiteness, 

 just as LEBANON rises out of LABAN, white, it being pre-emin- 

 ently the White Mountain range of northern Palestine. It is not a 

 little singular, however, to find in the Celtic again, as in the case of 

 the Welsh ty, a root form older than that of the Hebrew. Many 

 things lead me to the belief that in the Hebrew LEB, meaning the 

 heart, a similar case presents itself. With this word the affections 

 of the heart are bound up, so that the German liebe and our English 

 love are both derived from it. But it would almost seem that the 

 root of the Hebrew word is found in AHAB, the verb to love in the 

 same language. This AHAB, (the Arabic HEB,) assumes the 

 aspirate form in AGAB, meaning the same, and gives the original of 

 the Greek agapad ; but it also has an unaspirated and contracted 

 form in ABAH. The latter form by a common phonetic change 

 becomes AMAH, furnishing the original of the Latin a7no, and, 



'3 Diod. Sic. Lib. i..6], fi6. 



6* Strab. Lib, xvii., 1, 42. 



» Vide Du Pin, BibliotMque Universelle des Historiens. Amsterdam, 1708. Livre Premier, 



