344 Is the Pushto a Semitic Language ? No. 4¡. 



Undor^J^t " silk" Vullers is mute, as alas he is in most places 

 where one would look for information. In Pushto (JAij j (wresh-al) 

 is " to spin," which at least shows that the a in ahresham is prosthetic, 

 for euphony, and that the original meaning of the Persian word is 

 " that which is spun" by the silkworm. But at the same time a 

 conjecture may he ventured as to the Greek apáyyr¡ " spider" which 

 may reasonahly be supposed to be connected with a word for " spin- 

 ning," like its equivalent in so many languages ; the change of v into 

 a vowel before r is quite common, e. g. Sanskrit vrih = Greek 

 opx-ew ; Pushto ¿^^j (wrbushe) =3? Greek opo(3o<s (Germán erbse). 

 Prof. Max Müller in another conjecture on the same word (Zeitschrift 

 für Vergleichende Sprachforschung, 4, 368), makes a suggestion most 

 worthy of consideration. He observes that a specific term in course 

 of time often passes over into a general application, and that a word, 

 for instance, denoting originally some peculiar kind of " making" 

 adopts the sense of " making" generally ; he instances TÍyy-í\ (art) 

 from Sans. tvaJcsh (to work in timber) ; and Latin ars (art) from ar-o 

 (I plough) ; and he goes on to say that the Sanskrit rach (to make) 

 may originally have meant " to weave." This I would modify so 

 far as to say that if a root for apá^-vq must be sought for in Sanskrit, 

 it may be vraj " to make," # which may originally have signified " to 

 spin ;" and support the conjecture not only by the Persian f&Jj* 

 (which would then be the original form of both *¿oj and ¿¿Hy.], 

 both forms being due to the same principie of dislike to a double 

 consonant at the beginning of a word), and the Pushto JAtL* 

 (wresh-al), f but also by the Grreek irpay — (do) and the ¥o\\s\i praea 

 (work), both of them etymological cruces and nuces ; and would 

 venture to add even the English work and Germán werlc. 



Taking the Persian wordj^ " hunting" by itself, it would seem 

 rash to connect it with ^üX¿ " to break," which has for its Imper- 

 ative e^*> ; yet this seems to be the connection on the analogy of 

 the Pushto ^P^o (mate) " hunting" especially that of the lion, as 



[* This very rare root (vrájayati) is explained by the grammarians " to send," 

 " to purify," rather tlian " to make" ( u Vraj a márganasanslcára-gatyoh.y Eds.J 



t For the change of the consonant ;" into sh (vrij = wresh) cf. Sanskrit jív» 

 ámi = Oíd Slavic Shivú ¡ Sanskrit jná = Persian Lv^»T, and tlie Highlander's 

 shenlhman for genileman. 



