334 la the Puslito a Semitic Language ? [No. 4. 



This gramraatical term has been introduced into the Persian Grammar 

 also by ignorant native compilers in India, but quite improperly. It 

 is a pity that Capt. Raverty has thought fit to encumber his other- 

 wise not very clear or correct or practica! grammar with the inept 

 terminology of Arabic grammarians. There can be no stronger 

 proof of the Arian nature of the Pushto than that which Capt. B-. 

 calis " affixed personal pronouns." 



Argument No. 4, states that the inflexions of the " Afghanian" 

 verbs are formed according to the Arabic and Hebrew system, with 

 two original tenses only. 



Unless it be admitted that such a statement can originate only in 

 the sheerest ignorance of the nature of the Semitic verb, it is difficult 

 to disentangle the manifold confusions implied in it. It compares 

 incommensurables ; it says that an ounce is as long as an inch. How 

 utterly alien and foreign the tenses of the Semitic verb are to 

 Occidental, that is Arian, modes of thought and expression, becomes 

 glaringly apparent, for instance, in the voluminous investigations of 

 their nature, say, in the Hebrew. Hardly two grammars of the 

 language have the same nomenclature for them. With some they 

 are the past and the future, with others the definite and indefinite, 

 with others the perfect and imperfect, with some even the anterior 

 and posterior ; Donaldson (Comparative Grammar of the Hebrew 

 Language) shrewdly does not cali them anything but Primary and 

 Secondary, which terms have reference merely to their form, and only 

 ventures to say that the former expresses single or transitory acts> 

 and the latter represents repeated or continuous action. A perusal 

 of a few sentences of the Hebrew Bible is sufíicient to convince any 

 one that the mere precession of the particle " and" is sufíicient to 

 make the form that otherwise expresses the future, denote past 

 action, and vice versa. How utterly diñerent is this from the 

 Grammar of the Indo-European languages. Indeed, the manner in 

 which time is expressed in the Semitic tongues, cannot be understood, 

 unless, as Nordheimer, the profoundest of Jewish Grammarians, some- 

 where observes, We occidentals discard the notions we have acquired 

 as to the proper function of the tenses. This is not the place to 

 discuss the nature of the Semitic tenses, but it is distressing to see 

 that which peculiarly characterizes the modern Arian languages 

 mistaken for marks of identity with ancient Semitic peculiarities. 



