1860.] Is the Pushto a Semitic Language ? 325 



that of the Sanskrit *!;. The change of the Sanskrit ^T into ¿ is 

 exemplified in various languages : compare the French savon with 

 Spanish jabone (soap) ; Hebrew 2fín (XVmg) and ND (súg) "to 

 encircle ;" ¡IDÜ Máká) and ¡"DD (sáká) " to look ;" Greek ao-r-qp with 

 Persian^¿A.| " a star ;" Hindustani j~»»o with Persian j~+±* " socer ;" 

 Sanskrit svap with Persian v!^ " sleep," etc. 



Taking his materials solely from Klaproth and Elphinstone, Pott, 

 than whom, with all his audacity, no greater etymologist has arisen, 

 does not hesitate a moment in assigning the Pushto its place as one 

 of the Indo-European languages. He divides the latter into five 

 families in his Etymologische Forschungen (1833), and places the 

 Persian and Pnshto together into the second family, precisely as he 

 puts the Germán and the Dutch together in the fourth. 



In 1839, Ewald the greatest Hebraist of the present century, gave 

 a careful examination of what materials of the language were acces- 

 sible to him, and, of conrse, conld not give the slightest support to 

 the opinión that Pushto had any connection with a Semitic language. 



The same view was clearly elucidated by Dorn again, in the trans- 

 actions of the St. Petersburgh Academy of Sciences at various times 

 from 1840 to 1845. In his Pushto Chrestomathy (St. Petersburgh, 

 1847), he designates the Pushto as a branch of the Indo-Persian 

 languages. 



" The Bible of Every Land," a work published by Bagster in 

 1848, which exhibits in its notices great accuracy and completeness 

 of information, says of the Pushto language, " It exhibits none of 

 the peculiarities of the Semitic dialects, but, on the contrary, forms 

 an important link in the great Indo-European languages." 



The latest edition of Brockhaus' Conversations-Lexikon also cor- 

 rectly calis the language a sister of the Persian. 



And as if to clinch the matter, Max Müller, whose authority in 

 such things is simply indisputable, without the shadow of a doubt 

 ranges the Pushto among those scions of the Arian stock which 

 struck root in the soil of Asia, before the Arian reached the shores 

 of Europe. (Languages of the Seat of War, London, 1855.) 



To these we may add minor lights to show at least the general 

 consent of intelligent philologists, such as Sclileicher (Zur Verglei- 

 chen den Sprachengeschichte, Bonn, 1848, p. G7 ? ) and (Dic Sprachen 



2 v 2 



