348 EMERITUS PROFESSOR J. S. BLACKIE ON 



analogous to the change of accent which takes place in English when a verb and 

 a substantive are in all other respects identical, as in protest and protest, or in the 

 rase of proper names in Greek — A loyevrjs. born of Jove ; A loyeVqs, a man's name ; 

 Se£ dpevos, having received ; A ef aprnvos, Mr Receiver. A phenomenon somewhat 

 different from these cases presents itself in the case of diminutives, which are 

 made in most languages by the addition of terminations, which, though possessing 

 no separate meaning in themselves, do really suggest the idea of littleness by the 

 character of the differentiating syllables. Thus the terminal /, being a pleasant 

 soft letter, and easy to dwell on prettily with a kindly tongue, seems to have 

 been used in various languages to express diminutives — as in Latin puer, puella, 

 puerulus ; German Mayd, madl ; Italian donna, donzella, dama, damigella. The 

 same explanation may apply to the vowel p in the Greek 7rat,Sapi, from 7rcuS. 

 It is impossible, however, to see the same propriety in the termination lo-kos 

 used to diminish substantives in Greek, as ish is to diminish adjectives in 

 English, and ike in Scotch, as in lass, lassie, lassikie. It is probable that all 

 these terminations, as also the Greek ikos adjectival termination, are only 

 varieties of the verb iiKO), to be like, in which case they belong not here, but to 

 our previous section. 



IX. Before proceeding further, it may be well to make two remarks 

 about roots. (1) However remote the single Sanscrit monosyllabic roots in dha, 

 tha, ma, &c., may appear from any ejaculatory or mimetic origin, I most firmly 

 believe that they are merely the curtailed forms of words which had such an 

 origin, starting from the impressions made on the senses or from external 

 sensations ; as, for instance, when Max Muller says that pate?; a father, 

 comes from the root pa, to nourish — even if that be true — I am not at all sure 

 that the root pa, to nourish, did not first come from the kindly babble of infantile 

 lips which produced papa, mama, Amme, pcua, and Dt?. (2) All roots are, and 

 must have been verbs originally, for the simple reason that substantives could 

 not receive names except from certain qualities residing in them; but qualities, 

 so long as they are quiescent, do not strike the senses sufficiently to stir the soul 

 to that vocal utterance which is the word ; therefore adjectives, being quiescent 

 qualities, could not be the first words, but verbs, which are energising qualities or 

 functions. But the first word, though a verb, while the language-forming 

 instinct is yet in its infancy, would answer all the three purposes of verb, sub- 

 stantive, and adjective ; as happens in our bald and unterminational English 

 every day— -fire, to fire, fireman — which, had the Englishman spoken Greek, 

 would infallibly have assumed the triple form of nvp, -rrvpevo), and irvpevTri*;. 



X. Hitherto we have spoken of language only as a useful machinery for the 

 purpose of communication among social creatures; but language is also a fine 

 art, and that in a double sense : a fine art fashioned by Nature under the 

 influence of that striving towards the Beautiful which is apparent in all the 



