LAURA BRIDGEMAN. 17 



in passing, that this latter instance shows, in a striking manner, how different 

 tribes view or perceive the same phonetic phenomenon (hear the sound of the 

 drum) differently, according to the different genius of the nation ; yet all may 

 be equally correct in their own way. 



Out of the second class, or purely imitative words, arises another very large 

 one. It consists of those words which, so far as their sound goes, are derived 

 from onomatopies, but have come to mean something which is only occasionally 

 accompanied by the originally imitated sound, or is not so any longer at all. 

 Such, for instance, is the English word grumbling, which originally indicated 

 the physical sound of grumbling, but now frequently means the mental act of 

 petty dissatisfaction. A man may grumble in a clear voice. To the same class 

 belong the French grander^ the German krazen, (to scratch, and pronounced 

 krat-sen,) the Greek ;i;p«", from which is derived ypatstv, to grave, to engrave, and, 

 ultimately to write, as if we used scratching for writing ; and, by a farther ex- 

 tension of the meaning, for composing, corresponding, and other significations, 

 which the expansive word writing has received in the course of time. The 

 German word Schmecken^ (of the same root with the English to smack,) which 

 now means to taste, both as an active and a neuter verb, is here in point. It is 

 derived from the sound which is produced by a person eagerly tasting some 

 substance — an action expressed by the French claquer, and the English smack- 

 ing ; the latter of which also signifies to savour of something. For, the active 

 and the passive, the cause and the effect, the state of a thing and the action 

 resulting from it, the perceiving and the causing of the perception, are ideas 

 constantly passing over into one another in the human mind, and produce cor- 

 responding results in language.* But the German word extends its meaning 

 still farther, for Geschmack is the terra for taste, in all its meanings, as if the 

 English smacking were used for the sense of taste and the cultivated sesthetical 

 perception and judgment, or as if the French used claquement for their word 

 goiit^ in the fine arts, though the very words gout and gouter are derived from 

 the Latin gustus^ which, with its guttural sound, belongs likewise to the present 

 class. It was, originally, an imitation of the sound produced by the act of 

 swallowing, or the reversed sound of gulping (also a word to be mentioned 

 here.) The German pZ^mp, now meaning clumsy, was suggested by the sound 

 "which the fall of a heavy and unelastic body produces. The Greek pneuma, 

 meaning mind, but originally breath, is derived from the sound of breathing 

 forth. The Chinese word gong means the instrument which produces the sound 



dub as a noun, as din had been used by others before him, and as eiapopeia has been used by the 

 Germans as a substantive. What are the Latin clangor, clamor, the German Klang, but words of 

 this sort? We might imagine a Hudibrastic writer using the expression, '■'■ They ruh-a-duhb edit all 

 about.^'' No dictionary, however, in my possession, has Rub-a-dub; by and by the lexicographer 

 will admit this, as yet, half-wild word. 



* One of the most striking instances is our ^'I am told," for " It has been told to me;" as if the 

 Latin narror (they say of me) were used for *'they tell me;" or as if the English "/ am reported" 

 did not mean " It is reported of me," but " It has been reported to me." 



Art. II.— 3 



