336 Is the Pushto a Semitic Language ? [No. 4. 



internal modification of these roots, effected by vowels, aided by 

 certain letters termed servile. 



3. Such modification alone produces from the simple root the 

 differences between verb and noun, adjective and substantive, gender, 

 number, and tense. 



4. In addition to the distinctions of gender known in the Arian 

 languages, the Semitic languages also distinguish gender in the 

 pronoun of the second person, and in the second and third person of 

 the verb. 



5. Tense-formation is undeveloped. 



6. Composition, with immaterial exceptions, is unknown. 



These features will in vain be searched for in the Pushto language. 



Pushto will attract few students by its literature ; excepting tbose 

 who pay attention to it for practical purposes, it is of interest only 

 to comparative philology and its cultivators ; and to them, it would 

 be interesting mainly on account of its antique look. There is no 

 doubt that it has preserved many forms, either altogether, or in 

 more original shapes than are to be found in most of the other Arian 

 languages ; that is, in its vocabulary, not in its grammar, which is 

 on a par with most of the descendants of Prakrit. 



What grieves and perplexes etymologists so often, is the existence 

 of orphans in the various branches of the great Arian family, stray 

 little things that have lost all love and likeness to then- reputed 

 parents, or whose parents have been so long dead that nobody can 

 remember who they were. The entrance upon a comparatively new 

 field sometimes discovers twin-brothers of such orphans, which dis- 

 covery relieves the anomaly at least in some measure. Let a few 

 examples from the Pushto suffice. 



The Greek rapydvr] is a rope-basket, a net-work made of rope, 

 ■n-Xey/xa ti Ik cr^otvtou, says Suiclas. Benfey (Griech. Wurzel Worter- 

 buch, I. p. 670) is quite perplexed as to its derivation, and Semitic 

 roots which have been compared by some are of little advantage. 

 The Pushto has tyfy (tragan), Panjabi tangar for those rope-baskets 

 the Afghans so universally use to cany their loads and burdens in. 

 It is not a little interesting that the Apostle Paul uses this word 



