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An Essay on the Relationship of 



eventually to draw up such instructive lists as in paragraph 15 ; — they 

 would not only be able sometimes to throw light on history, but would 

 also make the drudgery of learning languages more easy and interesting 

 to themselves. Much is still to be done and to be discovered by means 

 of comparative study of languages. Somewhere in the Asiatic Re- 

 searches, for instance, is a remark that a certain number of identic 

 words, not apparently derived from the Sanscrit, seems to exist in 

 all the languages and dialects of India.* If by the united endeavours 

 of scholars in the north and south of India, a list of such words was 

 produced, it would afford useful hints to the philologer, historian and 

 antiquarian :— and attention bestowed on the rules according to which 

 consonants change, would greatly assist therein. 



20. — I now proceed to substantiate the preceding remarks, 

 and select for this purpose the word v\rj, which means, 1st, a forest or 

 wood,silva, and 2d, branches, sarmenta (as in Anabasis, 3, 5 and 6) from 

 which root, in each of these meanings, various derivations exist. Even 

 the word silva, (more correctly sylva) comes from v\r/, and the identi- 

 ty becomes more evident, if we remember that the Romans pronounc- 

 ed it also sylua (the u as a vowel, as in Horace, Ep. 13, 2). 



f Sylva = saltus = wald (German) = wood ; — wild (English and 



V German), sylvestris. 



"\ J 0 "^ 7 ! ( a l° st middle-link), hence ^v\ov. 



7 ) Holt (Spencer) = holz (German) wood, in the meaning of lig- 

 & mxm and saltus. 



V koXov, (lignum) kt}\ov (jaculum, the shaft being of wood). 



21. It is mentioned above, that the words horn, cornu and karan are 

 identic, but before I proceed to give a list of the derivations, I must re- 

 mark that it is evident both from Revelation and from the nature and 

 history of the languages now in our reach, that mankind formed them 

 by the exercise of their mental faculties. A limited number of very 

 simple (perhaps mostly monosyllabic) words was the common property 

 of the primitive races. The Caucasian tribes, after their separation 

 from the others, continued to multiply their words, partly by merely 

 modifying the sound of a vowel or a consonant of a word already in usef 



* I suppose kotei (a fort) is such a word ; also ur, vur and buri, with their variations, 

 buram, veram, bore, pore and pur, meaning a village or smaller town. — After having 

 written this, I find in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science, No. 13 page 398, the 

 following statement : " There are in it" (in the Pali or Magadhi dialect), *' words com- 

 mon to Telugu and Tamil, but not Sanscrit ; lending some force to an opinion that a com- 

 mon dialect, not Sanscrit, once ran through the whole of the continent of India." 



+ An instance of the change of the vowel is Kakov and KrjXov ; instances of the change 

 of the consonant are frequent ; e. g. the word waffen is pronounced in Nether Saxony 

 wappen, (hence the English word weapon), and means, 1st, arms of offence and defence ; 

 2d, the figure painted on the shields of the old Germans. But subsequently the word 

 wappen was likewise received into the high or classical German, and means now exclu- 



