KTIINOLOOV OF THE I NDO-PACI [■ IC ISLANDS, 



90 



Names of farU of the hodi/. 



In comparing the names of ihe different parte of the body hi any 

 group of lunguages, we find that the Bame root has received 

 various application?. The same vocable in difiei-unt langu-igra or 

 dialects eiyiitfieii Head, Huir, Skull, Face, Check and Eye. Wo 

 fimi also that the saint; vocable h»ia hceu ap[>lied to tlie more pi-o- 

 nifneut portions of ihc person, sis the Nose, Li [is, Mouth, Teetli, 

 Ear!^, Ariui*, Ilandii and Fingers, Legs, Feet and Toes. We find 

 also that ibe same wortl has been Riiplied to the Head nnd to por- 

 tions of it, as ihe Nose, Moutb, kc. and hence the former cIubs of 

 names runs into the latter, and ihe same term hns eouae to signify 

 every one of the ol)jeets we have nanied. We also find more 

 limited claasc?, fouTideJ on more gpecific analogies. Ttius woi ds for 

 th« Lips, Month, Tongue and Teeth are often specially connected. 

 It is probable that one name oi-i(rina!ly signified the \Jouth*aiid 

 ail it^i parts, and that this name aften-rards became restricted to the 

 Mouth in one dialect, to t!ie Lips in a second, to the Teetli in a 

 third and to the Tongue in a fourth. The Lips and the rows of 

 Teelh might receive the same radical name. The number and regu- 

 lar Brrangementof the Teeth appears to have early suggested a con- 

 nection, between them and the Fingers antl Toes. Hence the same 

 root has been applied to the Teeth (and secondarily to tlio Mouih 

 and Lips), to the Fiogei^ (and secondarily to the Hands and Arras) 

 and to the Toes (and secondarily to the Feel and Legs). Similar 

 specific resemblances, — as hetvreen the lateral and double appen- 

 dages of Ears, Hands and Feet, and the moat close of all that 

 between the two Ai-ma, Hands and Fingers and the two Legs, 

 Feet and Toes, — have given rijse to specific glossariut applications. 

 The Eye being ihc most striking and imtjortant feature in the 

 Head the same root was transferred from Eye to Head and vice 

 versa, Grlossarial change and concretion has been attended in all 

 families by similar phenomena. Every vocable in the progress of 

 a nation and of its language receives several secondaiy or conven- 

 tional apfdications, some larger and some narrower than the original 

 or etymological one, and some only connected with it tnetupborical- 

 ly. Hence a single root, whatever its oiiginal meaning, comes to he 

 applied to numerous analogous objects. Distinctions are primarily 

 indicated • by the addition of segregative and qualitive wwds or by 



