1851.] On the Physiology of the Arabic Language. 119 



required to modify the meaning of the word. If you address the king, 

 you pronounce the vowel in Sire long, in order to make the sound 

 grave, but if you express your anger towards an inferior, you say 

 Sir, making the best of the r to thunder at him. It is said that 

 the Chinese express the different modifications of the meaning of a 

 word solely by modifying the intonation. 



As we have brought it home to the Shemites that they use very 

 arbitrary processes to cast roots of foreign words, we are justified in 

 supposing that many of their roots, of which we cannot as plainly as in 

 the preceding examples demonstrate a foreign origin, have been made 

 tri-consonantal and considered verbal, though they are derived from 

 monosyllabic words denoting objects or actions. We call such words 

 for the sake of distinction the elements of roots. 



Supposing all languages were originally monosyllabic and therefore 

 unorganic, there were only two ways to enlarge them and to make 

 them organic — by composition — this is the mode which the Tatars 

 have chosen— and by changing the vowels and by other internal modifi- 

 cations, as is the case in Arabic. 



The former of these means of enriching their language was contrary 

 to the genius of the Shemitic nations, and they confined themselves to 

 the latter, but it is evident that if the internal organization was con- 

 fined to changing the vowel of the original word, the number of deriva- 

 tives would have been very limited. Thus of qal you can only make 

 qal, qyl, qil, qol, qui, qawl and qayl. If the language of the Shemites 

 was to become sufficiently rich for their wants, other means were to be 

 devised to increase the number of derivatives : the elements of roots 

 were to be enlarged, and it is by enlarging them that the roots 

 became bi- syllabic. 



By making the roots bi-syllabic the number of derivatives which 

 are possible is squared. If you can derive seven words from qal, you 

 can by a mere change of vowels, derive forty-nine from qalad. But the 

 notions of euphony of the Shemites require, that there should be a 

 certain proportion in the quantity of the two syllables of a word. The 

 longer the vowel of the first syllable is, the shorter is to be that of the 

 second and vice versa ; thus they would not say qalad ^is nor qylyd 

 ±*b? but forms like qalid ±M, qalyd *>$ &c. are euphonic. The sense 

 for euphony, reduces the number of derivatives to such an extent that 



