36 



ON THE COMPARATIVE ETYMOLOGY 



advocates ran possibly claim, and setting aside everything for which their explanation is 

 admitted to he sufficient, there 1 still remains an unsolved residuum, which can be accounted 

 for only on the simple and all-sufficient supposition of a common origin. 



3. But, however satisfactory any hypothesis may be, the need of stronger assurance will 

 be constantly felt, and every road that promises any approximation to certainty, should be 

 carefully explored. The three obvious avenues for research in language, are, 1. Historical 

 intercourse between nations, by conquest, colonization, or commerce; 2. Resemblance in 

 verbal forms, whether radical or derivative; 3. Analogies in grammatical inflection and 

 construction. All immediate, or derivative etymology, is based upon the evidence of 

 national intercourse, while all comparative, as well as all radical etymology, rests on the 

 formal resemblances and normal differences of words. Grammatical analogy, when strongly 

 marked, furnishes nearly demonstrative evidence of a common lineage, and it should, there- 

 fore, be the first object of search in all philological comparisons. 



4. If the grammatical resemblance is decided, it adds great weight to (-very verbal re- 

 semblance- ; if it is feeble, doubtful, or entirely wanting, it has hitherto been often assumed 

 that coincidences of sound and meaning may be accidental. I have endeavored to show 

 that this assumption is entirely groundless. The- absence of inflectional counterparts, can, 

 at the best, prove no more than that there has been no family intercourse since the inflec- 

 tions were established; and it is difficult to understand why more weight should be given 

 to mere verbal identity or similarity in one case than in another, or why different explana- 

 tions should be sought at different times for resemblances of the same character. 



5. The early etymologists generally pursued their inquiries under an impression that 

 the parent language was still extant. The honor of parentage has been successively attri- 

 buted to Hebrew, Chinese, Egyptian, and Sanscrit, but these successive claims have all 

 been strenuously disputed, and the believers in radical primitives no longer confine their 

 investigations to a single channel. Still, the question of the relative antiquity of languages 

 retains its interest, and every new discovery of collateral evidence that has even an indirect, 

 bearing on the question, is eagerly welcomed. 



(J. Tin- publication of Bowen's Yoruha Grammar and Dictionary, in the Smithsonian 

 Contributions of 1858, lias furnished to comparative philologists a new and valuable The- 

 saurus of radical words and primitive grammatical forms, the study of which may, per- 

 haps, do much towards removing the difficulties that have hitherto impeded the progress 

 of philological science. 



7. The Yorubas occupy a portion of Western Africa lying between 2° and 7° E. long., 

 and between (i° and 9° :}()' N. lat. Their territory is bounded on the north by Barba and 

 Nufe, east and southeast by the Niger and Benin, south by the Gulf of Benin, and west 

 by Dahomey and Mahi. They are usually black, and have woolly hair, but individuals 



