352 THE LATIN VERB JUBERE. 



as to justify the belief that they are the same word, notwithstand- 

 ing the assertion of some that the Shemitic languages have no 

 common origin with the Aryan. Now dh a bair, that is, dhubair, 

 is pronounced habair, from which, by dropping the initial 

 breathing, I have the a bair of the future, that is, the present, 

 tense of the K. verb. Similarly, although Gesenius in his Lexicon 

 does not notice it, the H. form amar is got from da bar by 

 dropping the initial d (as in the Kymric, am, " round about," for 

 dam), and changing b into m. This relationship is the more likely 

 because the Hebrew verb dabar might be written, dh-amar, while 

 the initial a of amar is the soft guttural vowel aleph which is 

 almost equivalent to a silent h, the h which represents dh. 



It will be convenient here to refer to the fact that in Sanskrit 

 there is a wonderfully large number of verbs that mean " to speak," 

 (I have counted more than twenty in Benfey's Sanskrit Dictionary) 

 besides many others that mean both "to speak" and "to shine."*. 

 I for one cannot conceive how any language can require twenty 

 different verbs all meaning the same thing, and so I infer that 

 these twenty, or at least many of them, all come from one single 

 root, modified sometimes by caprice, as when a Samoan says na- 

 mu for manu without any reason for the change, and sometimes 

 modified to suit the shades of meaning which the speaker intends 

 to convey. These modifications usually proceed on the principles 

 for the change of consonants already noticed, but, in some words, 

 like the Samoan nam for man, the root syllable is reversed. This 

 kind of change happens more frequently, I think, than etymologists 

 are willing to acknowledge. Many word-forms could be accounted 

 for by the operation of the principle of the reversal of the root, 

 "end for end," as seamen say. As instances I quote the C. gaf, 

 and the E. dagger. The Kymric gaf, "a bent hold or hook" is 

 the same as the C. bach, "a hook, a crook, a grappling-iron"; 

 bach is only gab reversed and the g aspirated ; so in E., the dag- 

 ger is that which pierces, stabs, and the gad-fly is the fly that 

 pierces the skin to deposit its eggs; gad is dag reversed. Then 

 also, it is curious to observe that verbs " to speak " also mean 

 " to shine." How is this to be accounted for 1 the two ideas are 

 so unlike. There are some distinguished astronomers in this 

 Society, who know all about the sun, the moon, and the stars. 

 Can they tell me why the sun is represented in old almanacs and 

 in the emblazonry of fire-insurance offices as a full, rosy face, with 



* To show their connection with our root, I would arrange these Sans- 

 krit verbs thus : — Fromroot dab, S. ramh, ru (for rav), rap, raj, jap, 

 lap; hve and hu (for hav); from vad (for dabh=dav), S. vad, bhan, 

 bhand; from gab, S. cab da, gad ; from vag (for gabh = gav), S. 

 vach (vakti, ukti), valk, ah (for ag) ; from a Bair , S. barn, 

 varh, bru, bhrinic; from radii, S. art h. 



