66 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
primitive type from which others have varied. Least of all can the 
Sanskrit vowel system, which has confounded under the dull sound 
of w in “‘gun” the three short vowels a, ¢ and o, and has suffered 
corresponding mutilation in its long vowels and diphthongs, be 
taken as the starting point in explaining the richer and, as it now 
appears, far more primitive vowel scale of Greek or even of 
Teutonic. Accordingly the guna-theory invented by the sharp-witted. 
grammarians ef Panini’s school left the vowel system of European 
languages a maze without a plan. Here it will not be possible to do 
more than state the two discoveries that have led to a more satisfac- 
tory explanation. The first is that of Karl Brugmann, viz: that not 
only do vand JZ, as recognized in Sanskrit grammar, assume under 
certain conditions the functions of vowels, indicated by the char- 
acters transcribed as dotted 7, ¢ (Greek ra, ar, /a, al, Latin or, ol, 
Teutonic ru, ur, Zu, ul), but so also do the nasals under precisely the 
same conditions, 7, for example, when deprived of its vowel becoming 
a “sonant nasal,” as Brugmann calls it, written (3) and appearing in 
Sanskrit as @ or az, in Greek as a or am, in Latin as ev, in Teutonic 
as wn. The other, needed to show the full significance of Brug- 
mann’s was that of Verner, apparently incidental to his celebrated 
x Law,” but really far more wide-reaching in its consequences, viz: 
that the Vedic accent system was in essentials that existing before 
the “ Dispersion,” in other words is pre e¢inic. These facts, together 
with the changes undergone by the Velars or back gutturals, show 
that the Sanskrit vowel system, instead of being primitive, was only 
a blurred copy of a more finely painted original—an original pre- 
served with marvellous fidelity in the Greek vowel scales and in 
some measure by those of the Teutonic languages. Starting from 
these premises we can give a tolerably clear explanation of the 
‘“‘ Ablaut,” which, so far from being as Earle only five years ago 
represented, a discovery of the primitive Gothic community, is a 
fundamental law of Indo-European conjugation, declension and 
derivation. 
We all remember the lists of related words given in the chapter 
on derivation in our grammars or spelling books such as, bless, bliss ; 
feed, food, fodder : bite, bit, bait, bitter, beetle ; and the question 
whether verbs come from nouns or nouns from verbs settled by @ 
priori argument or by a quotation from the infallible Horne Tooke. 
