1 85 1 .] On the Physiology of the Arabic Language. 1 2 1 



three consonants they drop one, thus, the word stratum (Italian strada, 

 English street), is pronounced sirat -fcj/* We can easily imagine how 

 by degrees the first vowel was pronounced long in such cases, and the 

 second short and finally entirely dropped, as in the above instances. 

 In comparing words of various dialects of the Hindu-Germanic tongues 

 we find indeed transpositions of vowels, which have something analo- 

 gous, thus we say in German triib-en and in Latin turb-are.* But such 

 transpositions are never used with us as a means of forming derivatives. 

 Elements of roots which had three consonants served as norm, such 

 as had less than three consonants were enlarged to three in order to 

 form prolific roots. 



2. The simplest way to effect this was to double the last consonant of 

 elements of roots, consisting of two consonants separated by a short 

 vowel. There is, however, no vowel between the doubled consonants in 

 the most ancient derivatives of these roots. Taking the root kad 

 (English cut, Arabic &*) as an example, it is likely that kadd, he has 

 cut ; kodd, cut (imperative) ; kadda i±$ segment, are the original deri- 

 vatives and that qadyd, qidad, &c, are of more modern origin. The 

 same applies to roots like i>j radd, reddere, j> barr, pure; ** ghamm, 

 sorrow, (German gram.) 



The Arabs are fond of doubling letters : the roots of which the second 

 vowel is doubled, and which are called surd roots, are therefore very 

 numerous, there are no less than 426, and there are only 1784, possible, 

 and some of those which are possible, would be far from being euphonic. 



3. If the vowel which separated the two consonants of which the ele- 

 ment of the root consisted is long, as in ban &k to appear (Greek 

 <fiaiv(i)) or in qal (English, call ; Greek, KaXew, German, gellen, hence 

 Kehle and nightm-g ale), the oldest forms are made by merely changing 

 the vowel as qal, he said ; qyl, it was said ; qawl, speech ; qol, say, 

 (Imperative) ; a-qiil, I say, or shall say. It is against the spirit of the 

 Arabic language to pronounce two vowels after each other as in coerce. 

 In order therefore to increase the number of derivatives, a hamzah or the 

 consonants w or y or both, are inserted wherever two vowels meet in 

 the formation of derivatives after the norm of tri-consonantal words, as 

 qayil (J'is dicens, and owing to the tendency of the language to have 



* The Latin origin of this word is attested by Soyuty in his list of foreign words 

 which occur in the Qoian. 



