200 REV. J. IVERACH MUNEO^ M.A.^ ON THE WITNESS OF 



could have devised anything so simple yet so efficacious as this 

 i^in, h'v', 3rd sing, epicene pronoun. Hebrew, it is now certain, 

 compared with Arabic, is Hke an old mediaeval building partly 

 in ruins. Arabic is like the same building restored by a modern 

 architect, many of the original lines and tracery being obliterated 

 in the process." 



Every item of relevant knowledge which I have gathered in 

 the interval, and all well-informed criticism on the subject, have 

 confirmed these statements. 



Let me remark that no criticism which asserts that I regard 

 i^'in, as the root of the pronoun is worth consideration, 

 because I bring many items of proof , which in combination make 

 it certain that the root was ^hv or ^shv, sJi being one letter. 

 IsTot only so, but the whole research goes to show that this 

 pronoun, as well as the main stock of primitive Semitic-Indo- 

 European speech, was biliteral in its consonants, while between 

 these the diphthongs an and ai were used, expressing active and 

 passuT respectively. Hence criticism of that description convicts 

 the critic of failure in the most elementary duty of fidelity to 

 what is stated, as well as of lack of apprehension of the bearing 

 of philological facts. 



Xow, with regard to my comparison of ^^in, hv, to the 

 Kosetta Stone, this comparison lies in the importance revealed 

 by the research and analysis of the one as establishing the 

 fundamental unity of primitive Semitic-Indo-European languages, 

 with the importance revealed by the decipherment of the other, 

 which led to the opening up of ancient Egyptian inscriptions 

 and literature. 



The detection of the real cause of the change which uni- 

 versally took place in Semitic languages in the feminine form of 

 the 3rd sing, personal pronoun from v to y opened up the whole 

 structure of the primitive speech, while the method of express- 

 ing active and j^j«ssiYt with the biliteral consonantal roots, and 

 the shedding of the feminine ending t which was so extensively 

 developed in Indo-European in the formation of neuter pro- 

 nouns, in addition to establishing the essential unity of pre- 

 Semitic-Indo-European language, reveals to us the interesting 

 and important fact that, just as to the child everything is living 

 and acting upon it, so to man, in his advent upon this earth, 

 everything was alive, and his speech could as yet only distinguish, 

 grammatically, masculine and feminine, the feminine form of the 

 personal pronoun agreeing with the old passive. 



What had prevented Semitic speech from developing a neuter 

 pronoun and neuter nominal inflexion, was the peculiar idiom 



