I860.] Is the Pushto a Semitic Language ? 327 



this book, as is well known, the author runs a violent tilt against 

 men like Grotefend, Beer, Lassen, Rawlinson, St. Martin, and upsets 

 them all to his own complete satisfaction and the reader's infinite 

 amusement. The third volume of this work is filled up by " A New 

 Key for the Recovery of the Lost Ten Tribes," which recovery, we 

 are informed— and the information is at least new — is " the most 

 interesting problem in the history of the world." It is in this that 

 Dr. Forster reprints Jones' note from the second volume of the 

 " Researches," and reasserts the Semitic origin of the Pushto lan- 

 guage. In proof of this assertion he produces three words, which 

 are to establish his position. 



(1). He quotes from Wolff " "lltf (or) light, is the only Hebrew word 

 I found in the Afghan tongue." — On this it may be observed that 

 or j)\ in Pushto does not mean "light," but " fire," and that the 

 word is plainly connected with the Arian tongues. In the language 

 still called Zend "fire" is dtar, Persian jit ; the connection of jj\ 

 (or) with these is precisely analogous to that of the 

 Pushto jj-a (mor) mother with Persian j^*>, Sanskrit ondtar. 

 j> JJW (wror) brother with „ J^]y. Zend brdtar. 

 „ jjJ (lor) sickle with „ Sanskrit ddtra* 



5? jy ( nor ) other with „ Zend (a) ntar. 



It may be observed that in Irish ur is " fire," but the connection 

 of the latter is more likely with the Latin uro which of course 

 (us-si, us-tum) must be referred to the root ush ; and, as Pictet 

 observes, (Les noms celtiques du soleil), la ressemblance avec 1' 

 hebreu or, ur, lumiere, semble done puremenfc fortuite. 



(2). Dr. Forster continues, "I have no Afghans to confer 

 with on the matter, but I possess Elphinstone's Cabul ; and 

 will undertake, in the second word of his " Pushtoo Vocabulary," 

 to find a second Hebrew word: viz. W12W , Samim, with the 

 article prefixed, WftlVTl, hesamin, ' The heavens,' of which the 

 Pushtoo, ' Asman, Heaven? is clearly only a dialectic variation. 

 I notice this merely as a specimen of Dr. Wolff's carelessness and 

 hastiness of examination." — This, the readers of the Journal need 

 not be told, would prove too much, and hence nothing ; inasmuch 

 as uU-«T is also pure Persian ; asman also occurs in Zend and the 

 * On the change of d into I see below. 



