52 



ON THE COMPARATIVE ETYMOLOGY 



go or ngo, no, and wo ; Sans , aha,, ma', me, a'wa',, nau, vaya„ asmat,* na«, &c; Gr., tyd, Ip.-, />.- 

 V o,-, r /P .-; Lat, ego, m-, nos; Gcr. ich, mir, wir, uns; lag., I, my, me, we, us; Dak., mis', 

 mi, ma, wa, we, un, or unk. It will be noticed that all these languages, except the Dakota, 

 base their nominative singular on the form which is usually employed in Yoruba only for 

 future or negative propositions. But g and m are both used in connection with verbs as 

 particles of continuance, in which office Bowen regards them as probably a contraction of 

 ni, to be. Ngo, go, ego, cmi, mi, ich, I, may, therefore, be the simplest affirmations of per- 

 sonality, and universal humanity may thus be bearing constant, though unconscious testi- 

 mony to the truth of Des Cartes' celebrated maxim, "Cogito, ergo sum." 



The Greek alone retains, both in the singular and plural, the full form of the root em-, 

 together with the contracted m- in the oblique cases of the singular. Sanscrit corresponds 

 more closely with Yoruba in the dual and plural, having all tlve forms, awa, wa, and a, 

 but it also retains in those numbers the nau and na«, which ally it so intimately to Greek 

 and Latin. The elision of the initial vowel in the oblique cases of emi, which is general 

 in Yoruba, becomes universal in Sanscrit, Latin, German, and English. The two latter 

 languages agree witli Sanscrit, in retaining the Yoruba plural wa, as well as traces of the 

 pluralized n-s. Dakota uses mi in all cases of the singular of the separate, and in the pos- 

 sessive and objective singular of the incorporated pronouns; wa and we in the nominative 

 singular incorporated ; ma, in the possessive and objective singular incorporated ; up, in 

 all cases of the dual and plural. 



76. Eni. — E ni, that which is. 



77. Eke, an imprecation, a question; ara, an outh ; ero, a relation or telling ; ro, to tell, 

 to relate; Cfr. Eg. r; Copt., ro, mouth; Gr., ipht, 



78. Ere, gain, interest, earnings, a crop; cm, ashes ; ckuru, dust; crukpe, dust, earth ; 

 ro, to till ; ru, to mingle; aro, that which is tilled. In these words we find the traces of 

 that ancient root AR (a re, that which goes), from which the names of the Aryan race, and 

 of the earth itself, are derived. Prof. Max Milller has given an interesting discussion of 

 the root in its secondary meaning of to plough, together with some of its most important 

 derivations, quoting Pott's remark that, " All might be traced back to the Sanscrit root ri, 

 to «-o."t The corresponding Yoruba, word, re, not only retains this meaning, but it also 

 has the signification to he good, which allies it still more closely to the Sanscrit A'rya. In 

 ro, to fabricate from any raw material, we have tin; secondary meaning winch is retained 

 in Lat. ars, and Gcr. arbeit. The association of tin; tilled ground with the idea of pounding, 

 breaking, is so natural, that ror,, run, to chew, run, to break to pieces, and lo, to grind, may very 

 probably be correlated. Their analogues are found in Chin, luh, dregs, loo, mixed, la, to break, 



* The radical significance of the plural formative s, maybe traced in Yor. si, to, and; s'a, sn, to collect; s'c, 

 greatly. " Motion from is invariably expressed by ti, and motion to by si."— Bowcn, p. 52. 

 f Lecture on Languages, p. 252, sqq. 



