40 



ON THE COMPARATIVE ETYMOLOGY 



the Chinese allows the employment either of the guttural nasal, or of the dental nasal, n. 

 This difference, however, is so slight, that it does not materially affect the general parallel- 

 ism of structure, but the two dialects stand side by side, as the best living representatives 

 of the earliest types of speech, as well as of the rudiments of dialectic variation.* 



17. The following pronominal or demonstrative elements, are found in Yoruba, viz. : a, 

 c , h °, w, y, m, n, ,., k, t (and perhaps s, in the verb sa, to aim or point at). 



1. Foi the pronoun of the first person ; a, i, o, m, ,,, w. E. g., emi, mo, mi, D , /; &, awa, 

 we; Cfr. ifU, mick, me, -we, nos, ego, — o, — m; Chin., wo, go or ngo; Egypt.,f a, u, anek, 

 or anuk; Copt., anok, anak, anog ; lleb., anokhi, i; S., aha,, vaya,. 



2. For the pronoun of the second person, e, i, o, w, y . E. g , iwo, o, thou; e, e 5 yi 5 , ye. 

 Cfr., ye, vos; S., tva„ yuya,. 



3. For the pronoun of the third person; a, i, y, o, w, n, n . E. g., on, o, i, yi, a, lie, she, 

 it; a, awoij, nwo,,, they. Cfr., ,;,,;?, he; Egypt, u or f; Hob., hit, hv, o. 



4. For the indefinite pronouns; n, t, k, y, r. E. g., na, that, the name, the; ni or eni, 

 one, person, this, that, the; ta> who? ti, who, which, that; ka 5 , one; k or ok, the ordinal 

 prefix; ki ( what? ki, (conj.) that; yi or eyi, this; re, his, her, its, thy, him, thee. Cfr., Egypt., 

 anuk, entek, cnta, entuf, entus, ek, et, su, se, es, ten, sen, &c; Sans., sa, tad, yad, tyad, etad, 

 idam, ki,. 



18. The number of pronominal elements, and the consequent number of their possible 

 combinations, is so great, that one- may be easily inclined, though "convinced against his 

 will" of its intrinsic improbability, to bring forward the old argument of possible acci- 

 dental resemblance, lint such an inclination can hardly remain after a study of the com- 

 parative grammatical structure of the verbs in the Yoruba and Egyptian languages, which 

 have the following features in common. 



19. "The infinitive is the pure root Now this root expresses at once all the per- 

 sons, whether the subject precede, or, as is more commonly the case [in Egyptian], the 

 sentence begin with the verb. % 



20. "Through all the variations of person, number, mood, and tense, the verbal root 

 remains unchanged. § 



* Dr. Prichard, in his Natural History of Man (3d London ed., p. 551), refers to the wide diffusion through 

 Northern Africa, of tribes bearing an unquestionable affinity in language to the Syro-Arabian or Shemite race, 

 lie also notices the fact that the resemblances, especially in grammatical structure, are approximations not to the 

 modern but to the most ancient dialects of the .Semitic family. If the Chamitio resemblances should prove to be 

 equally striking, African comparative philology may perhaps furnish the experimentum cruets that will finally settle 

 the mooted question of linguistic unity. I give on a subsequent page some interesting comparisons with Dr. P.'g 

 collection of South Sea Island words. 



f liunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal History. Ed. 1848, vol. 1, p. 28.'!. 



% Bunsen, vol. 1, p. 204. § See Bowen, p. 27 sqq., and Cfr., Bunsen, vol. 1, p. 294 sqq. 



