OF ACCIDENTAL LINGUISTIC RESEMBLANCES. 



31 



or past condition, their relative antiquity, or any other incidental circumstances. When- 

 ever, therefore, in the course of our linguistic comparisons, we discover any marked simi- 

 larity both in sound and sense, it may safely be assumed that the resemblance is not acci- 

 dental, but that it results from the operation of some adequate cause. Although, in many 

 cases, that cause cannot be positively ascertained, we may often satisfy ourselves as to it's 

 probable character. 



lor example, let the subject of comparison be the Chinese Mandarin root ma ( g, or mi { g, 

 which denotes » great,, vast, confused, mixed," and other similar meanings." As ana- 

 logues, we find in Sanscrit ma,h, to grow; mall, to honor; ma'h, to measure; macf, to collect, 

 to fill, to mix ; with the derivatives mahat, great, mighty, &c. ; in Greek, Mrrmov , „A ri „, ^ 

 />.ax/,u q> ,,Ax a , ,,.{ Y a~, fiiyuufit, /u$ • in "Latin, mag ister, magnus, misc, mix, majestas, mango; in 

 Gothic, miclceh; Ang. Sax., maegn, micel, mucel; Swedish, mycken ; Scotch, mekyl, muckle, 

 myche; Spanish, mucho; English, mingle, mongrel, mix, much; in old Egyptian, mah, to 

 fill ; mak, to rule. The common ancestry of the Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, and Gothic dia- 

 lects, is now generally admitted, while the affinity of the Chinese is still a mooted ques- 



tion - The d ' l " l, ' , ' for iX merel y fortuitous resemblance in the Chinese radical, may be 

 determined in the following mariner. 



There are in the Mandarin dialect, eighteen initial sounds, seven which may be cither 

 medial or final, and only four which can. be used as final in connection with a, medial The 

 respective Chances of accidental concurrence on the several sounds are, therefore, ■ , !,and 

 h and the chance that the concurrent sounds should be similarly arranged, is >, |. The 

 chance of the entire coincidence is only frxjxjxj ,,?„, and it is, therefore, morally 

 certain that the resemblance is not accidental. 



The efficient causes which are most frequently set forth to explain such resemblances, 

 are those which have already been intimated, viz.: 1. Uniformity of physical organization; 

 2. Uniformity of mental action; 3. Imitative nomenclature, or onomatopoeia; 4. Affilia- 

 tion of languages. The first may be deemed sufficient to account for a resemblance in the 

 elementary sounds, and the second for a similarity of ideas, but neither separately nor in 

 combination is it easy to conceive of their determining the assignment of special sounds 

 to the expression of special ideas. 



■There is no plausible onomatopoetic explanation for any portion of the word except the 

 broad vowel a, which, if we set aside as being thus sufficiently accounted for, the chance of 

 casual coincidence is increased to ,,,', r -H T i«- Although it is possible, and perhaps even 

 probable, that the other sounds may also have been primitively onomatopoetic, we have no 

 nght to take it for granted that they were so; and even if they were, the fact would 

 either diminish any probability of a common origin that might be advocated on other 

 grounds, nor would it explain the precise arrangement of sounds which has been adopted. 



