Lectures on The Science of Language Part 8

The modern name of Iran for Persia still keeps up the memory of this ancient t.i.tle.

In the name of _Armenia_ the same element of _Arya_ has been supposed to exist.(236) The name of Armenia, however, does not occur in Zend, and the name _Armina_, which is used for Armenia in the cuneiform inscriptions, is of doubtful etymology.(237) In the language of Armenia, _ari_ is used in the widest sense for Aryan or Iranian; it means also brave, and is applied more especially to the Medians.(238) The word _arya_, therefore, though not contained in the name of Armenia, can be proved to have existed in the Armenian language as a national and honorable name.

West of Armenia, on the borders of the Caspian Sea, we find the ancient name of _Albania_. The Armenians call the Albanians _Aghovan_, and as _gh_ in Armenian stands for _r_ or _l_, it has been conjectured by Bore, that in _Aghovan_ also the name of Aria is contained. This seems doubtful. But in the valleys of the Caucasus we meet with an Aryan race speaking an Aryan language, the _Os_ of _Ossethi_, and they call themselves _Iron_.(239)

Along the Caspian, and in the country washed by the Oxus and Yaxartes, Aryan and non-Aryan tribes were mingled together for centuries. Though the relation between Aryans and Turanians is hostile, and though there were continual wars between them, as we learn from the great Persian epic, the Shahnameh, it does not follow that all the nomad races who infested the settlements of the Aryans, were of Tatar blood and speech. Turvasa and his descendants, who represent the Turanians, are described in the later epic poems of India as cursed and deprived of their inheritance in India. But in the Vedas Turvasa is represented as worshipping Aryan G.o.ds. Even in the Shahnameh, Persian heroes go over to the Turanians and lead them against Iran, very much as Coriola.n.u.s led the Samnites against Rome. We may thus understand why so many Turanian or Scythian names, mentioned by Greek writers, should show evident traces of Aryan origin. _Aspa_ was the Persian name for _horse_, and in the Scythian names _Aspabota_, _Aspakara_, and _Asparatha_,(240) we can hardly fail to recognize the same element. Even the name of the Aspasian mountains, placed by Ptolemy in Scythia, indicates a similar origin. Nor is the word Arya unknown beyond the Oxus. There is a people called _Ariac_,(241) another called _Antariani_.(242) A king of the Scythians, at the time of Darius, was called _Ariantes_. A cotemporary of Xerxes is known by the name of _Aripithes_ (_i.e._ Sanskrit, _aryapati_; Zend, _airyapaiti_); and _Spargapithes_ seems to have some connection with the Sanskrit _svargapati_, lord of heaven.

We have thus traced the name of _arya_ from India to the west, from aryavarta to Ariana, Persia, Media, more doubtfully to Armenia and Albania, to the Iron in the Caucasus, and to some of the nomad tribes in Transoxiana. As we approach Europe the traces of this name grow fainter, yet they are not altogether lost.

Two roads were open to the Aryans of Asia in their westward migrations.

One through Chorasan(243) to the north, through what is now called Russia, and thence to the sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea and Thrace. Another from Armenia, across the Caucasus or across the Black Sea to Northern Greece, and along the Danube to Germany. Now on the former road the Aryans left a trace of their migration in the old name of Thrace which was _Aria_;(244) on the latter we meet in the eastern part of Germany, near the Vistula, with a German tribe called _Arii_. And as in Persia we found many proper names in which _Arya_ formed an important ingredient, so we find again in German history names such as _Ariovistus_.(245)

Though we look in vain for any traces of this old national name among the Greeks and Romans, late researches have rendered it at least plausible that it has been preserved in the extreme west of the Aryan migrations, in the very name of _Ireland_. The common etymology of _Erin_ is that it means "island of the west," _iar-innis_, or land of the west, _iar-in_.

But this is clearly wrong.(246) The old name is _eriu_ in the nominative, more recently _eire_. It is only in the oblique cases that the final _n_ appears, as in _regio_, _regionis_. _Erin_ therefore has been explained as a derivative of _Er_ or _Eri_, said to be the ancient name of the Irish Celts as preserved in the Anglo-Saxon name of their country, _iraland_.(247) It is maintained by O'Reilly, though denied by others, that _er_ is used in Irish in the sense of n.o.ble, like the Sanskrit _arya_.(248)

Some of the evidence here collected in tracing the ancient name of the Aryan family, may seem doubtful, and I have pointed out myself some links of the chain uniting the earliest name of India with the modern name of Ireland, as weaker than the rest. But the princ.i.p.al links are safe. Names of countries, peoples, rivers, and mountains, have an extraordinary vitality, and they will remain while cities, kingdoms, and nations pa.s.s away. _Rome_ has the same name to-day, and will probably have it forever, which was given to it by the earliest Latin and Sabine settlers, and wherever we find the name of Rome, whether in Wallachia, which by the inhabitants is called Rumania, or in the dialects of the Grisons, the Romansch, or in the t.i.tle of the Romance languages, we know that some threads would lead us back to the Rome of Romulus and Remus, the stronghold of the earliest warriors of Latium. The ruined city near the mouth of the Upper Zab, now usually known by the name of Nimrud, is called _Athur_ by the Arabic geographers, and in Athur we recognize the old name of a.s.syria, which Dio Ca.s.sius writes Atyria, remarking that the barbarians changed the Sigma into Tau. a.s.syria is called Athura, in the inscriptions of Darius.(249) We hear of battles fought on the _Sutledge_, and we hardly think that the battle field of the Sikhs was nearly the same where Alexander fought the kings of the Penjab. But the name of the _Sutledge_ is the name of the same river as the _Hesudrus_ of Alexander, the _Satadru_ of the Indians, and among the oldest hymns of the Veda, about 1500 B. C., we find a war-song referring to a battle fought on the two banks of the same river.

No doubt there is danger in trusting to mere similarity of names. Grimm may be right that the Arii of Tacitus were originally Harii, and that their name is not connected with arya. But the evidence on either side being merely conjectural, this must remain an open question. In most cases, however, a strict observation of the phonetic laws peculiar to each language will remove all uncertainty. Grimm, in his "History of the German Language" (p. 228), imagined that _Hariva_, the name of _Herat_ in the cuneiform inscriptions, is connected with Arii, the name which, as we saw, Herodotus gives to the Medes. This cannot be, for the initial aspiration in _Hariva_ points to a word which in Sanskrit begins with _s_, and not with a vowel, like _arya_. The following remarks will make this clearer.

Herat is called _Herat_ and _Heri_,(250) and the river on which it stands is called _Heri-rud_. This river _Heri_ is called by Ptolemy ??e?a?,(251) by other writers _Arius_; and _Aria_ is the name given to the country between Parthia (Parthuwa) in the west, Margiana (Marghush) in the north, Bactria (Bakhtrish) and Arachosia (Harauwatish) in the east, and Drangiana (Zaraka) in the south. This, however, though without the initial _h_, is not Ariana, as described by Strabo, but an independent country, forming part of it. It is supposed to be the same as the _Haraiva_ (Hariva) of the cuneiform inscriptions, though this is doubtful. But it is mentioned in the Zend-avesta, under the name of _Haroyu_,(252) as the sixth country created by Ormuzd. We can trace this name with the initial _h_ even beyond the time of Zoroaster. The Zoroastrians were a colony from northern India.

They had been together for a time with the people whose sacred songs have been preserved to us in the Veda. A schism took place, and the Zoroastrians migrated westward to Arachosia and Persia. In their migrations they did what the Greeks did when they founded new colonies, what the Americans did in founding new cities. They gave to the new cities and to the rivers along which they settled, the names of cities and rivers familiar to them, and reminding them of the localities which they had left. Now, as a Persian _h_ points to a Sanskrit _s_, _Haroyu_ would be in Sanskrit _Saroyu_. One of the sacred rivers of India, a river mentioned in the Veda, and famous in the epic poems as the river of Ayodhya, one of the earliest capitals of India, the modern Oude, has the name of _Sarayu_, the modern _Sardju_.(253)

As Comparative Philology has thus traced the ancient name of arya from India to Europe, as the original t.i.tle a.s.sumed by the Aryans before they left their common home, it is but natural that it should have been chosen as the technical term for the family of languages which was formerly designated as Indo-Germanic, Indo-European, Caucasian, or j.a.phetic.

LECTURE VII. THE CONSt.i.tUENT ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE.

Our a.n.a.lysis of some of the nominal and verbal formations in the Aryan or Indo-European family of speech has taught us that, however mysterious and complicated these grammatical forms appear at first sight, they are in reality the result of a very simple process. It seems at first almost hopeless to ask such questions as why the addition of a mere _d_ should change love present into love past, or why the termination _ai_ in French, if added to _aimer_, should convey the idea of love to come. But, once placed under the microscope of comparative grammar, these and all other grammatical forms a.s.sume a very different and much more intelligible aspect. We saw how what we now call terminations were originally independent words. After coalescing with the words which they were intended to modify, they were gradually reduced to mere syllables and letters, unmeaning in themselves, yet manifesting their former power and independence by the modification which they continue to produce in the meaning of the words to which they are appended. The true nature of grammatical terminations was first pointed out by a philosopher, who, however wild some of his speculations may be, had certainly caught many a glimpse of the real life and growth of language, I mean _Horne Tooke_.

This is what he writes of terminations:(254)-

"For though I think I have good reasons to believe that all terminations may likewise be traced to their respective origin; and that, however artificial they may now appear to us, they were not originally the effect of premeditated and deliberate _art_, but separate words by length of time corrupted and coalescing with the words of which they are now considered as the terminations. Yet this was less likely to be suspected by others.

And if it had been suspected, they would have had much further to travel to their journey's end, and through a road much more embarra.s.sed; as the corruption in those languages is of much longer standing than in ours, and more complex."

Horne Tooke, however, though he saw rightly what road should be followed to track the origin of grammatical terminations, was himself without the means to reach his journey's end. Most of his explanations are quite untenable, and it is curious to observe in reading his book, the Diversions of Purley, how a man of a clear, sharp, and powerful mind, and reasoning according to sound and correct principles, may yet, owing to his defective knowledge of facts, arrive at conclusions directly opposed to truth.

When we have once seen how grammatical terminations are to be traced back in the beginning to independent words, we have learnt at the same time that the component elements of language, which remain in our crucible at the end of a complete grammatical a.n.a.lysis, are of two kinds, namely, _Roots predicative_ and _Roots demonstrative_.

We call _root_ or _radical_, whatever, in the words of any language or family of languages, cannot be reduced to a simpler or more original form.

It may be well to ill.u.s.trate this by a few examples. But, instead of taking a number of words in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, and tracing them back to their common centre, it will be more instructive if we begin with a root which has been discovered, and follow it through its wanderings from language to language. I take the root AR, to which I alluded in our last Lecture as the source of the word _Arya_, and we shall thus, while examining its ramification, learn at the same time why that name was chosen by the agricultural nomads, the ancestors of the Aryan race.

This root AR(255) means _to plough_, to open the soil. From it we have the Latin _ar-are_, the Greek _ar-oun_, the Irish _ar_, the Lithuanian _ar-ti_, the Russian _ora-ti_, the Gothic _ar-jan_, the Anglo-Saxon _er-jan_, the modern English _to ear_. Shakespeare says (Richard II. III.

2), "to ear the land that has some hope to grow."

From this we have the name of the plough, or the instrument of earing: in Latin, _ara-trum_; in Greek, _aro-tron_; in Bohemian, _oradto_; in Lithuanian, _arklas_; in Cornish, _aradar_; in Welsh, _arad_;(256) in Old Norse, _ardhr_. In Old Norse, however, _ardhr_, meaning originally the plough, came to mean earnings or wealth; the plough being, in early times, the most essential possession of the peasant. In the same manner the Latin name for money, _pecunia_, was derived from _pecus_, cattle; the word _fee_, which is now restricted to the payment made to a doctor or lawyer, was in Old English _feh_, and in Anglo-Saxon _feoh_, meaning cattle and wealth; for _feoh_, and Gothic _faihu_, are really the same word as the Latin _pecus_, the modern German _vieh_.

The act of ploughing is called _aratio_ in Latin; _arosis_ in Greek: and I believe that _aroma_, in the sense of perfume, had the same origin; for what is sweeter or more aromatic than the smell of a ploughed field? In Genesis, xxviii. 27, Jacob says "the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed."

A more primitive formation of the root _ar_ seems to be the Greek _era_, earth, the Sanskrit _ira_, the Old High-German _ero_, the Gaelic _ire_, _irionn_. It meant originally the ploughed land, afterwards earth in general. Even the word _earth_, the Gothic _airtha_,(257) the Anglo-Saxon _eorthe_, must have been taken originally in the sense of ploughed or cultivated land. The derivative _ar-mentum_, formed like _ju-mentum_, would naturally have been applied to any animal fit for ploughing and other labor in the field, whether ox or horse.

As agriculture was the princ.i.p.al labor in that early state of society when we must suppose most of our Aryan words to have been formed and applied to their definite meanings, we may well understand how a word which originally meant this special kind of labor, was afterwards used to signify labor in general. The general tendency in the growth of words and their meanings is from the special to the more general: thus _gubernare_, which originally meant to steer a ship, took the general sense of governing. _To equip_, which originally was to furnish a ship (French _equiper_ and _esquif_, from _schifo_, ship), came to mean furnishing in general. Now in modern German, _arbeit_ means simply _labor_; _arbeitsam_ means industrious. In Gothic, too, _arbais_ is only used to express labor and trouble in general. But in Old Norse, _erfidhi_ means chiefly _ploughing_, and afterwards labor in general; and the same word in Anglo-Saxon, _earfodh_ or _earfedhe_, is labor. Of course we might equally suppose that, as laborer, from meaning one who labors in general, came to take the special sense of an agricultural laborer, so _arbeit_, from meaning work in general, came to be applied, in Old Norse, to the work of ploughing. But as the root of _erfidhi_ seems to be _ar_, our first explanation is the more plausible. Besides, the simple _ar_ in Old Norse means ploughing and labor, and the Old High-German _art_ has likewise the sense of ploughing.(258)

?????a and _arvum_, a field, would certainly have to be referred to the root _ar_, to plough. And as ploughing was not only one of the earliest kinds of labor, but also one of the most primitive arts, I have no doubt that the Latin _ars_, _artis_, and our own word _art_, meant originally the art of all arts, first taught to mortals by the G.o.ddess of all wisdom, the art of cultivating the land. In Old High-German _arunti_, in Anglo-Saxon _aerend_, mean simply work; but they too must originally have meant the special work of agriculture; and in the English _errand_, and _errand-boy_, the same word is still in existence.

But _ar_ did not only mean to plough, or to cut open the land; it was transferred at a very early time to the ploughing of the sea, or rowing.

Thus Shakspeare says:-

"Make the sea serve them; which they _ear_ and wound With keels."

In a similar manner, we find that Sanskrit derives from _ar_ the substantive _aritra_, not in the sense of a plough, but in the sense of a rudder. In Anglo-Saxon we find the simple form _ar_, the English _oar_, as it were the plough-share of the water. The Greek also had used the root _ar_ in the sense of rowing; for ???t??(259) in Greek is a rower, and their word t??-??-??, meant originally a ship with three oars, or with three rows of oars,(260) a trireme.

This comparison of ploughing and rowing is of frequent occurrence in ancient languages. The English word _plough_, the Slavonic _ploug_, has been identified with the Sanskrit _plava_,(261) a ship, and with the Greek _ploion_, ship. As the Aryans spoke of a ship ploughing the sea, they also spoke of a plough sailing across the field; and thus it was that the same names were applied to both.(262) In English dialects, _plough_ or _plow_ is still used in the general sense of waggon or conveyance.(263)

We might follow the offshoots of this root _ar_ still further, but the number of words which we have examined in various languages will suffice to show what is meant by a predicative root. In all these words _ar_ is the radical element, all the rest is merely formative. The root _ar_ is called a predicative root, because in whatever composition it enters, it predicates one and the same conception, whether of the plough, or the rudder, or the ox, or the field. Even in such a word as _artistic_, the predicative power of the root _ar_ may still be perceived, though, of course, as it were by means of a powerful telescope only. The Brahmans who called themselves _arya_ in India, were no more aware of the real origin of this name and its connection with agricultural labor, than the artist who now speaks of _his art_ as a divine inspiration suspects that the word which he uses was originally applicable only to so primitive an art as that of ploughing.

We shall now examine another family of words, in order to see by what process the radical elements of words were first discovered.

Let us take the word _respectable_. It is a word of Latin not of Saxon, origin, as we see by the termination _able_. In _respectabilis_ we easily distinguish the verb _respectare_ and the termination _bilis_. We then separate the prefix _re_, which leaves _spectare_, and we trace _spectare_ as a participial formation back to the Latin verb _spicere_ or _specere_, meaning to see, to look. In _specere_, again, we distinguish between the changeable termination _ere_ and the unchangeable remnant _spec_, which we call the root. This root we expect to find in Sanskrit and the other Aryan languages; and so we do. In Sanskrit the more usual form is _pas_, to see, without the _s_; but _spas_ also is found in _spasa_, a spy, in _spash?a_ (in _vi-spash?a_), clear, manifest, and in the Vedic _spas_, a guardian.

In the Teutonic family we find _spehon_ in Old High-German meaning to look, to spy, to contemplate; and _speha_, the English spy.(264) In Greek, the root _spek_ has been changed into _skep_, which exists in _skeptomai_, I look, I examine; from whence _skeptikos_, an examiner or inquirer, in theological language, a sceptic; and _episkopos_, an overseer, a bishop.

Let us now examine the various ramifications of this root. Beginning with _respectable_, we found that it originally meant a person who deserves _respect_, _respect_ meaning _looking back_. We pa.s.s by common objects or persons without noticing them, whereas we turn back to look again at those which deserve our admiration, our regard, our respect. This was the original meaning of _respect_ and _respectable_, nor need we be surprised at this if we consider that _n.o.ble_, _n.o.bilis_ in Latin, conveyed originally no more than the idea of a person that deserves to be known; for _n.o.bilis_ stands for _gn.o.bilis_, just as _nomen_ stands for _gnomen_, or _natus_ for _gnatus_.

"With respect to" has now become almost a mere preposition. For if we say, "With respect to this point I have no more to say," this is the same as "I have no more to say on this point."

Again, as in looking back we single out a person, the adjective _respective_, and the adverb _respectively_, are used almost in the same sense as special, or singly.

The English _respite_ is the Norman modification of _respectus_, the French _repit_. _Repit_ meant originally looking back, reviewing the whole evidence. A criminal received so many days _ad respectum_, to re-examine the case. Afterwards it was said that the prisoner had received a respit, that is to say, had obtained a re-examination; and at last a verb was formed, and it was said that a person had been respited.

As _specere_, to see, with the preposition _re_, came to mean respect, so with the preposition _de_, down, it forms the Latin _despicere_, meaning to look down, the English _despise_. The French _depit_ (Old French _despit_) means no longer contempt, though it is the Latin _despectus_, but rather _anger_, _vexation_. _Se depiter_ is to be vexed, to fret. "_En depit de lui_" is originally "angry with him," then "in spite of him;" and the English _spite_, _in spite of_, _spiteful_, are mere abbreviations of _despite_, _in despite of_, _despiteful_, and have nothing whatever to do with the spitting of cats.

As _de_ means down from above, so _sub_ means up from below, and this added to _specere_, to look, gives us _suspicere_, _suspicari_, to look up, in the sense of to suspect.(265) From it _suspicion_, _suspicious_; and likewise the French _soupcon_, even in such phrases as "there is a soupcon of chicory in this coffee," meaning just a touch, just the smallest atom of chicory.

As _circ.u.m_ means round about, so _circ.u.mspect_ means, of course, cautious, careful.

With _in_, meaning into, _specere_ forms _inspicere_, to inspect; hence _inspector_, _inspection_.

With _ad_, towards, _specere_ becomes _adspicere_, to look at a thing.

Hence _adspectus_, the aspect, the look or appearance of things.

So with _pro_, forward, _specere_ became _prospicere_; and gave rise to such words as _prospectus_, as it were a look out, _prospective_, &c. With _con_, with, _spicere_ forms _conspicere_, to see together, _conspectus_, _conspicuous_. We saw before in _respectable_, that a new word _spectare_ is formed from the participle of _spicere_. This, with the preposition _ex_, out, gives us the Latin _expectare_, the English _to expect_, to look out; with its derivatives.

_Auspicious_ is another word which contains our root as the second of its component elements. The Latin _auspicium_ stands for _avispicium_, and meant the looking out for certain birds which were considered to be of good or bad omen to the success of any public or private act. Hence _auspicious_, in the sense of lucky. _Haru-spex_ was the name given to a person who foretold the future from the inspection of the entrails of animals.

Again, from _specere_, _speculum_ was formed, in the sense of looking-gla.s.s, or any other means of looking at oneself; and from it _speculari_, the English _to speculate_, _speculative_, &c.