1851.] On the Physiology of the Arabic Language. 123 



a root in various ways by inserting a hamzah, by hardening this hamzah 

 into an ^ or even into a £ or without inserting any such letter, thus 

 *>** ba'ad and «>Ij bad, wide ; u«« sa'ab and Jm sab to flow (sa'b 

 means also the sap) have the same meaning and are obviously formed 

 from the same elements. There are in all 194 roots of which the 

 second letter is an ^; and I suppose in more than one-half or about 100 

 of them the 'ayn occupies the place of a long vowel. 



5. The greatest liberties have been taken with elements of roots 

 ending in a vowel which is preceded by one or two consonants as in 

 English, go, free, (Arabic \y. bra). Roots frequently in use derived 

 from such elements are even now only nominally enlarged and remain 

 monosyllabic as ja *la- to come (probably originally identical with the 

 Hindustani ja-na and English go), raa &f; or ra *\j to see, &c. Others have 

 been enlarged by the addition of weak consonants (i. e. ^ and j) and 

 this enlargement is in many instances only nominal, as rawa ^JD 

 to flow (Greek, pew). The element of this root is clearly ra, this has 

 been enlarged into raa and the w has been inserted for the sake of 

 euphony. In some instances a hamzah was added, and this was fre- 

 quently hardened into an ethus f*J bada, F*J and badaii, ^>j bada'a, 

 have all the same meaning " to commence" and both \y. bara, and \j> 

 baraa, mean to produce (para-re). The f is sometimes even hardened 

 into the stronger sound of £ as Q, ^b bolugh from the element bla 

 (Greek TrAeios, Latin plenus, English full.)* Roots which end in weak 

 consonants and which therefore in reality are not tri-consonantal are 

 very numerous. 467 roots end in w, 36 in y, and 215 in hamzah ; to 

 these may be added 161 roots ending in 'ayn; in all 879 roots which 

 is nearly one-fifth of the total of tri-consonantal roots. 



The Arabic language of books or at all events of our dictionaries, 



contains the words of almost all dialects of Arabia, and owing to the 



dialectic differences we find sometimes half a dozen of roots formed of the 



same element with hardly any difference in the meaning. Thus from the 



element kum (Greek ow, Hindee &+*» simat, Latin summa, and cum) the 



•* <** w 



following roots have been formed fS qamm, ^ kamm, ^ jamm, Z* 



dhamm, 0+*> jamal, (compare simul,) £^ jama' and ^^ jama. Again 



* The Arabs frequently put an m instead of a b, and it is probable that the root 

 malaa *<JU to fill, is derived from the same element. 



