1860.] Is the Pushto a Semitic Language ? 329 



Yúsufzai " gheg." But careful investigation will at once prove that 

 " ghe;" is the proper pronunciation, and that it has the same paren- 

 tage with the Persian (Jy^f ; f is the inseparable partióle, common to 

 the Sanskrit, Zend, Parsi, and Persian, as in ejfWf vJ"^Í (*^í ^f 

 ^.tó^f tj^j yf, etc. etc. The final ¿t», in Persian, often becomes^ in 

 Pnshto, as J»¿ =jy^ ; (J>j^ =y^ 5 the substitution of the vowel 

 e for o is a mere clialectic variation ; the Banúchís, for instance, 

 constan tly say mír, Jcír, Ur, kim, for mor, Tcor, lúr, Jcum, etc. 



The Pushto *J}) (loba) " play" might be imagined to be connected 

 with the Hebrew ^V/ • only it is much easier and far more correct 

 to derive this Pushto word directly from the Arabic *±*J, of the 

 same signification, by the analogy of scores of similar instances, the 

 Afghans pronouncing a generally like o, — an incidental proof this that 

 their own original speech has not this Semitic guttural. 



Or the Semitic advocates might be told that da is used in Pushto 

 to form the Genitive, whilst H (di) or 1 (de) in Chaldee is constantly 

 used to form a relation very much like that expressed by the Geni- 

 tive ; and it is not unlikely that this constant recurrence of da in 

 both Pushto and Chaldee may have imposed on Sir William Jones. 

 It must be considered, however, that da also forms the Genitive in 

 Panjábí, but as a postposition, like lea in Hindustani ; it is more 

 likely that the Pushto da is connected with the Latin de, which 

 again reverts, in the Eomanic languages, to form the Genitive. In 

 Polish, the Latin de is most frequently translated by od, which is 

 beyond a doubt the Sanskrit adhas ; whether de is for ade= adhas, 

 as Benfey suggests, is another question. 



Dá also is the demonstrative pronoun both in Pushto and Chaldee ; 

 only it is so in Zend also, and though the Afghans would like to 

 make out their relationship to the Israelites, their language prefers 

 to be considered an ancient relict of Zend. 



But, at all events, sound philologists have long since abandoned 

 and reprobated the plan of establishing the affinity of languages on 

 sporadic resemblances traced in their vocabularies. Organic identity 

 in grammatical structure, added to a large community in certain 

 household words, is necessary definitely to determine such questions. 



However, the learned decypherer of the pictured rocks seems him- 

 self not quite firmly convinced of the Hebrew origin of Pushto, as, 



