324 Is the Pushto a Semitic Language? | No. 1 



who published (Eiga 1795) many of the articles of the " Asiatic 

 Researches" in a German translation. 



Klaproth, however, the distinguished traveller and orientalist, as 

 early as 1810 vigorously attacked this opinion in the first volume 

 of the Archives for Asiatic Literature, and dated his conviction that 

 the Pushto is an Indo-Grermanic language. In 1826, when he pub- 

 lished his Tableaux Historiaues cle V Asie, he held the same view.* 



In 1814, Elphinstone, in his " Account of the Kingdom of Cabul" 

 also dissented from the opinion of Sir "William Jones, and stated 

 positively that of 218 words of those in common use which he had 

 examined, not one had " the smallest appearance of being deducible 

 from the Hebrew or Chaldaic." 



In 1829, Dorn, professor of Oriental languages at the University 

 of Charkow, then young, but already distinguished for his attain- 

 ments in Eastern Literature, in his translation of JSTeamet "Cllah, 

 maintained that there was not the least resemblance between Pushto 

 and Hebrew or Chaldee. He adduces three words that had been 

 referred to as proving a connection between them : 



b| father, compared with the Chaldee st. emph. ^2K 



JJL*A| to ta7ce, with the Hebrew 172$ 



~j\ the side, with the Hebrew TfT 



He simply says that these prove nothing. And he is correct ; but 

 it may be added that the word aba, alia, or apd means " father" in 

 considerably more than thirty distinct languages (v. Buschmann, JJeler 

 den Naturlaut, p. 16, which list is very far from being complete), so 

 that such a word would have to be entirely excluded from any 

 evidence ; that the Infinitive Ji-^t (dkhistal) is deceptive, the root 

 being Jl^l (dkhal), bearing the same relation to the Infinitive that 

 the Persian d^ does to its Infinitive &*<-£, and that it is most pro- 

 bably connected with the old Persian &^1 " to draw out," " take 

 away ;" whilst £jt (arkh) is undoubtedly the Sanskrit ^T¥ (was) 

 " breast ;" the slight shifting of the signification finds its exact 

 counterpart in the Sanskrit qi^ " the side" as compared with the 

 Polish piers' " breast ;" the pronunciation of the Polish s' is precisely 



* Does Captain Baverty mean any pleasantry, when, in his Pushtoo Grammar, 

 he " hopes the Professor will change his opinion now" twenty-five years after 

 his death? 



