240 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



In the name Niagara, an additional factor or term is seen — "aga," or really 

 Ogha. 



In the early Semitic or Germ language, there was another word for river, in 

 addition to the term Aba, which is supposed to be often merely water. It is, 

 however, impossible now to give the original word a definite expression. The 

 Hebrew, the Sanscrit, and the Celtic have slightly varying orthographies for it. 

 In our ordinary transcripts, or versions, of the Sanscrit, the term appears as 

 Ogha. The English word ocean is traced to this term. The Celtic language has 

 the term written Acha, or Achi ; and from which the Latin word acva or aqua 

 comes. These words are given in our lexicons as the significants of water or 

 river. 



In the ancient Germanic or Teutonic language of Europe the term has been 

 rendered Aha or Ahha, our authorities stating that this is also a correct pronuncia- 

 tion of the Celtic Acha. Writers on language usually refer to the word Aha as 

 the Germanic equivalent of the words Acha, Apa, and Aqua — water or river. 

 Probably the facts are that Aba and the group of terms owing their origin to it, 

 variously rendered in B and P, making really one primitive word, was in the 

 ancient speech the true term for water, while the word written with G, C, Ch, 

 and Q, refers always to the running river, with the possible exception of the Latin 

 aqua, which is expressive of either water or river. Aha may be considered sim- 

 ply as the ancient Teutonic expression of Acha, as it is known that defect has 

 existed for countless ages in the German tongues, preventing their pronunciation 

 of certain digraphs in speech — a fact we shall have occasion to refer to again. 



There are developed so far but two of the ancient terms for water and river, 

 Aba and Ogha. Na, while not purely an adjective, was expressive of the con- 

 stantly flowing water. There was aix)ther term in the ancient speech expressive 

 of the character of the water. It is the syllable De (often rendered "dee"). It 

 is seen in the Sanscrit words Dena and Deap ; and it is supposed to be the root 

 of our English word "deep," this coming, says Webster, from the Anglo Saxon 

 deop, the same as the Sanscrit deap, meaning the deep waters, as the sea. Dena 

 is the flowing deep water, while Rina, another Sanscrit word, is the rapid flowing 

 water. Dena, Depa, and deap are all analogous if not identical. It is well 

 known that D and T often interchange in languages — one being used for the 

 other. Our authorities state that the Indian word now written Tippa is correctly 

 rendered Depa. (See Lippincott's Pronouncing Gazetteer.) 



It is scarcely necessary to burden these pages with full illustrations of the 

 manner in which these ancient terms have entered the river nomenclatures of the 

 Old World. They are seen in purity and corruption everywhere there, and they 

 are so imbedded in the historical languages that references are superfluous. One 

 fact should be remembertd— the vowel sounds, especially in the terms, are given 

 all manner of writings. This is due to the fact that the expressions of sounds 

 have no common uniform and arbitrary orthographies in the language of men. 



