ERRATA RECEPTA. 889 



vocal organs of the western nations. By this process the old Persian 

 Khshayarsha, vex venerandits, became Xeroses, Other instances are 

 these : Artaxerxes from old Persian ArtalxlisTiaira, {arta intensive, 

 and Khshatra, king.) Darius, old Persian Baryavush, Bominus, the 

 possessor. Darius, like Ahasuerus, Pharaoh, &c., is a title, not a 

 name. Hystaspes, old Persian Vishiaspa, possessor of horses. Mar- 

 donius, old Persian Marduniya, wa^ior. Camhyses, old Persian 

 Kabujiya, eulogist or bard. Cyrus, old Persian Kuriish, the sun. 

 Astyages, Ajdahak, the biting snake. Zoroaster, Zarathrustra, 

 golden star. — As later instances, add Sapor from Shah Pour, Chosroes 

 from Khusru Parves, Assassin from haschischim, Hunni from Hiongnu 

 Hungary from Huvgri, Ungri, TJgri, Vhori, nomades, vagrants. 

 Saladin is Salah-ed-Din. Averrhoes is Ibn Roshd. The Cid is 

 El Seid. Prester John is Prester Kahn, the great Khan Ouang of 

 the Keraites, who was reported to have been converted to Chris- 

 tianity. In the mediseval period, Ahlm in Palestine was trans- 

 formed into Acre — an instance of an unnecessary vernacularism 

 becoming at length a spirit-stirring, historic word, and the source 

 of several family names. 



The Phoenician terms PetuU, contention, Voseveev, place of flame, 

 and PJvoron, blindness or darkness, became Puteoli, Vesuvius and 

 Avernus. The latter by the Greeks of the neighborhood was adroitly 

 interpreted to be Aornos, birdless. 



The Etrurian Tarchinia the Eoman wrote Terracina ; and Aequi- 

 culi, one of the forms of Aequi, the well-remembered associates of 

 the Volsci, quickly became Aequicoli, practisers of justice. Orichal- 

 cum, mountain-copper, is aurichalcum, gold-bronze ; and Hercle, in 

 the asseveration Mehercle, is understood, not of the native Hei'culus 

 or Herclus, guardian of the Pen and Fold, but, of the son of Zeus, 

 Heracles. The general term Aborigines {ab privative and origo) be- 

 comes in Festus Aberrigines, nomads from all quarters. Lycophron 

 makes out of Aborigines, Borigoni, thrusting the word into the Greek 

 compounds in gonoi. — Hyperai, certain ropes, braces of the yard-arm 

 in the tackling of ships, were understood by the Koman sailor to be 

 opifera, the help-bringers. In the dialect of Etruria, Aphrodite was 

 Fruti, which became. associated yv'iih fruitus ; and the mongrel hiero- 

 spex passed into aruspex, perhaps under the influence of ara. The 

 received interpretation of Rome itself by the word of good omen, 

 Strength, is now held to be a vernacularism,— a Latin Gragcism, so 



