242 proceedings of the canadian institute. 



Words Relating to Hearing and Speaking. 



The Aryan roots kru and klu. to hear, are preserved almost intact 

 in the Gaelic words, cluas, ear, cluin, hear ; claisteachd, the sense of 

 hearing, and in cliu, renown; the Latin c/^<ere and the Greek khi-ein, 

 to hear, are nearly the same in both form and sense. 



It is remarkable that the two forms of the Aryan root rak and lak, 

 to speak, and the Sanscrit lap, to speak, should both be preserved in 

 Gaelic : lahh-air, speak ; radh, saying. " Is Jior an radh so," — this is 

 a true saying. 



Names of Various Objects. 



When Skeat traces the words share, .shear, shore, and scores of 

 other woi'ds to the Aiyan root skar, and to tlie base ska, he does not 

 seem to know that ska7' or sgar, used in exactly the same sense, is one 

 of the commonest words in the living language of Ireland and the 

 Highlands of Scotland. For example : " Sgaraidh e iad o cheile 

 amhuil a sgaras buachaill na caoraich o na gabJiraibh," — " He shall 

 separate them one from another, as a shepherd separateth the sheep 

 from the goats." The base sga may be found in hundreds of words, 

 such as sgap, scatter ; sgoilt, split ; sgireachd, parish ; sgath, lop and 

 sgian, knife. 



Is it a mere accident that thin is ton-win Sanscrit ; tana in Gaelic; 

 and ten-uis in Latin ; all appai'ently from the root ta to stretch ? Can 

 it be a mere chance that the i-oot tar or thar and the variant tra, to go 

 over or through, and the Sanscrit tri, through, should have so many 

 corresponding terms in Gaelic, identical in meaning and form, as 

 thar, across {thar a chuian, across the ocean) trid, through and 

 tarsuing across; tarsnati, the rung of a ladder or any cross beam? 



Lagh, lag, the Aiyan root meaning to lie down. In Gaelic, laigh 

 is to lie down ; lagh is law in Gaelic, i.e., a thing settled or laid 

 down, like the Latin leg-s. 



The dog must have been domesticated before the Gaelic-speaking 

 people left the original seats of the Aryan race, as his name in 

 Sanscrit is cvan or cuan ; in Greek, Kuon ; in Gaelic, cu ; and in 

 Latin canis. 



The importance of this language for philological purposes cannot be 

 over-estimated. The various branches of the Old Aryan race both in 

 Asia and on the continent of I'vurope, have been so disturbed and 



