SS^SSSSSSSSSSSSSSs K :.■.... «« .■■.•■.■;-•■..';.;•■■.'■; THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES •1:1 Mill li m ill ; . "5: >^ I:=5S Hsssi Miss? I**M1 b:s:e - BY THE SAME AUTHOR. THE PHILOSOPHY OF WORDS. A POPULAR INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. Second Edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. "I iead it with much interest, and recommended it to the young men at Oxford." — Max M tiller. Wm. C. Prime, in the New York Journal of Commerce : " It will pay young and old persons to read it." R. H. Stoddard, in the New York Mail and Evening Express: " A book of universal interest and sterling worth. . . In its field it is probably unrivalled." George Perry, in the New York Home Journal ; "One of the best introductions to the study of English in the light of the latest advances in philology which we have seen." The New York Independent : "The author's style is clear, strong and simple. He spends no time in chasing illusions or airing novelties, and his book is a model in its class." The New York Graphic : " For its scope it may be said to be invaluable." A. LOVELL & CO., NEW YORK. THE Fortunes of Words LETTERS TO A LADY BY FEDERICO GARLANDA, Ph.D. AUTHOR OF "THE PHILOSOPHY OF WORDS." NEW YORK, A. LOVELL & CO. / Copyright, 1887. BY F. GARLANDA. CONTENTS. FIRST Letter. — Introduction — The Science of Lan- guage — Its Importance — Its Connection with the Study of Man and History — Words and Things. ..... Page I Second Letter. — Etymology and History of Words — Words and Their Life — Linguistic Maps — Beauty and Difficulty of the Science of Lan- guage. ..... Page 12 Third Letter. — Method and Facts — Analysis and Comparison — Ancient Etymologists and their Stumblings — Roots and their Growth — The Indo- European Languages- — The Position of the En- glish Language — Etymological Instances. Page 18 Fourth Letter. — The Idea of Root — Grimm's Law — The Root ak and its Derivations — The Root pa — The Root bha— The Root wid. . . Page 31 Fifth Letter. — Continuation: Growth of Roots — Latin aud Anglo-Saxon Words in the English 1 IV CONTENTS. La7iguage — The Root bhar — The Root luk — The Root da — The Root tar — The Root yu — The Root ma — The Root bhadh — The Root spak. Page 44 Sixth Letter. — Importance of the Study of Roots — Roots and Dictionaries — History of Several Fa- miliar Words: reception and capable ; y>\\\>\\ (stu- dent) and pupil (of the eye); charming; mercy and market; villain; valet; pontiff; miss and magis- trate; wig and perruque. . . Page 51 Seventh Letter. — Continuation : to escape, to dis- mantle, artillery, coquetry, dupe, to arrive, press and express ; gossip and commerage ; hypocrite ; throne, angel, government, alms. — Changes in personal and local names: Ingleford, Cape Hvarf, Chateau Vert, Beauchef, Grand-Font, etc. — Names of Ships — Signs of Inns. . . . Page 61 Eighth Letter. — Some more Researches in the His- tory and Contiection of Familiar Words. — Tear and larme ; dies, jour and Tuesday ; chair, cathedral and session ; tile and detective ; coin in English and in French ; aurora and combustion ; altar and ori- gin ; initial and count ; surgeon and gardener ; arrows and intoxication ; temple and anatomy ; tide and demon ; timber and domestic ; symposium and poison ; a ' buxom ' woman ; syllable and syllabus ; deluge and laundry ; prose and verse ; hectic and sail ; village, parish and diocese ; chaperon ; com- CONTENTS. V plexion ; beauty and bounty ; reasons and ra- tions. ..... Page 71 Ninth Letter. — Common Words Derived from Local or Persona/ Names — Names of Trees, Ani- mals, Minerals, Fabrics and Money — Influence of the Arabs, the Flemings, and the Italians — Lum- ber, cravat, spencer, sandwich, dollar, tariff, etc. ..... Page 91 TENTH Letter. — The New Method of Language- Study and the Ways of old Etymologists com- pared — Instances of their vagaries — Skinner, Mdnage, Blackstone, etc. . . Page 99 Eleventh Letter. — Application of Linguistic to Prehistoric Studies — Primitive Nature of Human ' Tools and Dwellings as shown by their Names — Cooking, Grinding, Weaving, Writing — Books and Book-Making : Parchment, Paper, etc. — The Limbs of our Body and their Names ; the Head t the Hand, the Nose, the Eye, etc. . Page 105 Twelfth Letter. — The Development of Ethical Feelings Studied in Words — Ethics, Customs and Morals — Law and Bight — Virtue and Vice ; * Malice, Perversity and Depravity — Murder — Shame — Truth — Verity — The Ideas of Labor, Pov- erty and Suffering in Latiguage. . Page 1 19 Thirteenth Letter. — The Color-Sense, and the Names of Colors — Importance of this Subject — Linguistic and Physiological Researches. Page 1 27 vi COX TENTS. Fourteenth Letter. — Names of Numbers — The Pro- gressive Development of Calculation Studied in the Names of Numbers — Results from Different Lan- guages. ..... Page 136 Fifteenth Letter. - The Superstitions of Lan- guage — Familiar words whose fundamental mean- ing is incompatible with our tenets, religious, moral or scientific. . . . Page 147 Sixteenth Letter. — Why Words Change their Meanings — Influence of Progress — Religious, So- cial and Political Crises — The Advetit of Chris- tianity — The French Revolution — Great Inventions and Discoveries — Influence of the Learned and of the Unlearned. .... Page 153 Seventeenth Letter. — Slang — Its Merits and Demerits — Purity of Language ; Strength and Beauty — How to Preserve and Promote Them. Page 169 Eighteenth Letter — Synonyms. — When and by Whom They are Used — Reason of their Use — In- adequacy of Language— International Synonyms. Page 185 Nineteenth Letter. — Language and Folkpsychol- ogy — Philosophy of Language — Comparative Stud- ies — The Idea of "Love" in the Latin and in the English Language. . . . Page 199 Twentieth Letter. — Conclusion. Page . 215 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS FIRST LETTER. Introduction — The Science of Language — Its Importance — Its Connection with the Study of Man and History — Words and Things. DEAR FRIEND— Ever since I began to communicate with you on the subject of my studies, there is no kind of encouragement that I have not received from you. You arc so earnest, your mind, instinct with womanly love- liness, is so eager and open to wide and noble sympathies, that your very listening is an in- spiration. I never can think of you without my mind going back to the great women of the Renaissance, who could hold their own in dis- cussing Greek philosophy or mathematics with the greatest savants of the time, and yet did not lose one point of that delicacy and sweet- ness, of that instinctive love for beautiful and 2 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. graceful things, which are the crowning charms of womanhood. I am sure you will not bear me any grudge if I try to put on paper, with as much order as will be possible, some of those re- sults of the science of language about which we have talked so often, and address these letters to you. On my part it is simply a debt of grati- tude. It was in my conversations with you that the idea of these letters originated. Let, then, the fruit go back to her who had so large a part in the planting of the tree. It would be altogether superfluous to dis- course to you upon the importance of these studies. They have always been very impor- tant, since studies in words are, after all, studies in things. Besides, they sharpen one's mind and accustom it to observation, comparison, fine analysis and subtle discrimination. In the words of Scaliger, the great antiquarian and philolo- gist, " the sifting of these subtleties, although it is of no use to make machines for grinding corn, frees the mind from the rust of ignorance, and sharpens it for other matters." But nozv, in the light of modern researches and methods, it is a new world entirely that opens before us. THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 3 He who follows, even superficially, the move- ment of modern studies and compares it with that of the last century, cannot fail to notice a wide difference. Philosophizing was the prom- inent characteristic of the eighteenth cen- tury. They discussed and dreamed about man- kind, religion, law, language and the universe. Systems were evolved out of general principles which too often had no foundation except in the fancies of their authors. To-day, on the contrary, the tendencies of all science are strict- ly historical. We have grown sceptical and diffident of philosophical systems. We do not care so much to listen to abstract and subject- ive theories about the nature of society, of law, of religion, of the world, as we strive to know how these things were formed, where they come from, how they grow and live. We have a feel- ing that only by being able to account for their origin and growth, we may be able at all to learn their essence. Hence that spirit of ob- servation and research which, as it was aptly remarked, has made of history a science and of all science a history. It was Goethe, I think, who said that the day would come when 4 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. we would not ask the ox why it has its horns, but how it has come to have them. That time, we may say, has come. New sciences spring up, all in accordance with this new spirit: geology, palaeontology, embryology, comparative anat- omy, all aim to give us a history of life in the world. We all have an impression that there is a universal and lawful continuity in all the phenomena of life, in the biological as well as in the moral world. The adage of the ancients that natura non facit saltns never was so thor- oughly understood as it is nowadays. Now, more than ever, we are aware of the absolute dependence of to-day on the yesterday ; and (let me make this remark in passing) they do not read well the spirit of their age who, for whatever cause and in whatever field, preach revolution instead of insisting on a continuous gradual development. Whenever a crisis happens in the commercial or political world, the first thing we require is to investigate how it grew, what brought it about. A physician is not satisfied with his diagnosis if he does not go back for years and generations and hunt out all that can be THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 5 known about the preceding maladies of his pa- tient, his father, mother and ancestors. This feeling that to know one thing truly implies to know its origin is so general, that we have changed the sense of the word ' etymology.' ' Etymology ' means exactly the exposition or explanation of the true meaning of words {etyvws, true) ; but we have bent it to mean the ' origin of words.' In fact, if the ' true meaning ' of a word and the ' origin ' of a word are not exactly convertible terms, the lat- ter is always a good clue to the former. We must add, however, that modern philology is no longer satisfied with the origin of words alone ; it wants to know their entire history. This way of looking at the world historically is the most far-reaching achievement of the modern mind. Whether we shut our eyes or keep them open, there is written on everything 'why?' but the 'why' cannot be answered if the 'how?' and 'whence?' are not known. The philosopher says: 'All that is, is,' but the proposition, ' all that is, was not,' or at least, 'all that is, was not as it is,' is equally true. Hence the question which suggests itself 6 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. at all moments of our life : ' How has it come to be so ? ' The trees and flowers which adorn your garden did not exist once, nor did their ancestors have the same shapes and colors; how did they become what they are ? Your beautiful horse, of which you are so fond and so proud, would find in his pedigree strange and unlooked-for relations. So would the dog which lies at your feet and looks up at you with eyes so mild and loving, forgetful entirely of the primitive fierce savagery of his kin. The laws which govern us, this world of society with which we trammel and fetter each other on all sides, have not always been what they are ; what were they, then ? How did they change? Indeed, we have only to reflect, to lift our- selves a moment above the material and com- mon-place pursuits of our dull lives, to have the historical problem facing us from everywhere. We do generally concern ourselves with the future far more than with the past ; which, after all, is a good and sensible thing. But we should not forget that the future is but a continuation or a consequence of the present, and the present is in its turn both a continuation and a conse- THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 7 quence of the past. We do not know what a man is going to do if we have not seen him at work before. We cannot tell how high a water course is going to run uphill if we do not know from what height it fell. In the physical as well as in the moral world, the key to the future is in the past. Concerning the enormous problem of the origin of life, I heard once a lecturer go off on a sentence like this : " I do not care to know the preface to my cradle, but I would like to know the appendix to my grave." It was re- ceived with clamorous applause, as such oxy- morons generally are ; but it was mere rhetoric after all. In his own clumsy metaphor, if we could read the preface to our cradle, the ap- pendix to our grave would read by itself. It is this universality and necessity of the historical problem that gives the new science of language an importance and a reach inferior to no other science. The whole man, his mind, his heart, his understanding, his beliefs, his passions, all that he is and has been, is to be found in language. Let us be more exact ; not the tvJiole man is in language, because a great 8 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. many things there are in ourselves which are not known, or but dimly known, to ourselves, which, therefore, are not expressed by words. But it is safe to say that all that part of man which is known to man, is to be found in language. In language, then, we have one of the greatest, the most direct, the most intimate means for the study of man. By tracing words back to their primitive formation and meaning, we may learn how some deep and most complex ideas embodied in our words were first formed and conceived. All the words pertaining to the life of the soul can, thus analyzed, throw floods of light on the history of our moral conceptions. On the other hand, by following words downward from their origin to their present use, we can watch the human mind in its action, surprise it in its inmost ways of working ; to say nothing of the great historical, ethnographical and literary problems which are connected with and en- lightened by such investigations. Even putting the practical utility of these studies aside, what a satisfaction to have before the eyes of our mind the linguistic map of the civilized world ; THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 9 to see the mainsprings from which the streams of modern speeches flow ; to follow them step by step, when they cross or diverge, widen or narrow, merge into others or disappear. What a satisfaction for the geologist to look at a hill and to be able to tell in what age of the earth and how it was formed, what materials it is made of, what kind of vegetation it was covered with, what animals sought shelter in its dens or lay under the shade of its trees ! The same does the glottologist with words. (Allow me to introduce into English this word, which is bet- ter and not so misleading as ' linguist.' Linguist should be called he who knows and speaks several languages ; ' glottologist ' is the student of the science of language. There are linguists who speak half a dozen languages or more, but do not know anything about the science of language. The glottologist does not care to learn to speak several languages ; what he aims at, is to see into the grammatical structure and word-formation of as many languages as he can get hold of.) With a fragmentary and well- worn word, which, to the untrained, means very little, the glottologist goes back centuries and io THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. centuries, to the first form of that word ; then he follows it in all its metamorphoses and derivations ; traces out its connection with hundreds of other words in different languages, its original meaning and the various other meanings with which it has been clothed in its centennial life. You read in your Bible (Deut. xxi., 4), " And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley, which is neither eared nor sown." If you ask what this eared is, grammarians will tell you that it is the past form of an obso- lete verb, to ear, which means ' to plough.' Ob- solete is about all that they can tell you. If you take a Greek or Roman coin to an antiquarian, and he tells you that it is an ancient coin, an obsolete coin, no longer accepted in common currency, would you be satisfied? Still, it is astonishing how many persons are ready to shut their dictionary and declare " they know all about it " when they have learnt that a word is "obsolete." A glottologist will tell you that this obsolete verb ' to ear,' was in Middle English ericn, from the Anglo-Saxon THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. II erian, which is to be referred to an Indo- European root ' ar,' meaning ' to plough.' From this same root we have the Greek verb ar-oo, to plough, the Latin ar-are, and ar-a-trum, the plough ; our adjective ar-able, that can be ploughed, and very likely the substantive earth, the 'tilled.' Nor are these researches without a practi- cal bearing. Imagine a student who under- takes to learn a foreign language. If he has not even the slightest training in comparative philology, he is obliged to learn almost all words one by one, mechanically, as so many algebraic signs. By the light of the science of language, on the contrary, he can recognize in each word a member of a certain family, a blossom, a leaf, a branch, which he can easily refer to the trunk with which he is familiar. SECOND LETTER. Etymology and History of Words — Words and their Life — Linguistic Maps — Beauty and Difficulty of the Science of Language. 1HAVE no intention to follow rigorously, in our conversations, any logical order, because I know that you would not like it. In your eagerness for all intellectual food, you retain an amiable, almost, I would say, pert independ- ence of spirit, which is so thoroughly feminine, and makes you so lovely even in your outbursts of impatience. We shall go on leisurely, let- ting the subject itself lead us onward, rather than break it up and enchase it into a prefixed frame ; just as we did that evening on the piazza, in your villa by the sea, while the skies were aglow with the glories of sunset, the wind was sighing through the pine-trees, and the breakers were dashing their foam at our feet, surging and chanting all the while their eternal monotone ; do you remember ? I hope you THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. *3 have not forgotten those delightful hours ; / never will. The breakers were ever coming, and breaking, and roaring, and seemed to sing: " We are strong, strong, strong ! We come from afar, far, far ! " The lengthening shadows were bending over them, and all Nature seemed to blend and merge in that immense embrace. There was a pause in our conversation, as hap- pens. You gazed awhile over the dark waters, thoughtfully, and then you said, half shudder- ing, and drawing closer your wraps (that pretty red shawl, so lovely on your white dress) : " I wonder where they come from ! " The mood of the hour was so serious that I ventured upon a joke. " Where they come from ? that's the business of etymology." And you, sharply, " O, you horrid pedant ! ' Still, I know it did not displease you very much, as you turned soon, laughing, and said : " Go on, please ! " Why do I thus prattle on, away from my sub- ject ? In truth, I don't know, unless it is because one likes to go over as often as possi- ble the hours that one did enjoy the best. In the future, however, I will be more severe with myself and keep closer to our subject. 14 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. I mentioned that we must not be satisfied with knowing the origin of words, but we must investigate their whole history. Their origin, important as it is, is only the first link of the chain. But from that distant point, how did words travel down to our days? Through what metamorphoses of sound and meaning did they assume their present forms and significations? It is important to know the fountain-head of a river, but to have a full knowledge of the river itself, we must follow it down its course, see by what affluents its waters are swollen, through what lands it runs, down what falls it leaps, into what sea it pours and merges. This is not an idle comparison. It is exactly what glottology aims at : to present, as in a clear map, the course of languages ; to show us whence they start, whither they run, how they mingle and separate, how they live and die. Glottology, aided by ethnology and palaeon- tology, has carried the lamp of investigation far back into ages where all history is silent. In its light, the most sequestered valleys, the most insignificant villages have given up their secrets : THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 15 " We were," they say, " the abode of such and such a race ; such and such a family of men lived here and left their names with us before other families came which drove them away, to be driven in their turn by others." The brooks, the cliffs, the mountains, tell us, by their names, the story of races, of whom we have scarcely any other memory left ; while in the arid col- lections of words, where, as in faded herbaria, are recorded and classified the spoils of lan- guages long since dead, we can read the earliest history of our own race and the civilization of an age so remote that, in comparison, Rome and Greece seem to become our contemporaries. To what does the antiquity of Caesar and Cicero dwindle away, since we can go back to a time when the remote forefathers of those who were to people Italy and subsequently to found Rome, were still pasturing their flocks in the high plains of Asia? Indeed, the philological and archaeological researches of this century have so lengthened the domain of history that they seem to have altered our perspective of time, and made very near to us that which once appeared to be so far away. To one who is 1 6 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. familiar with the Vedas, Virgil and Horace seem to belong to modern literature. It happens with time, after all, as it happens with space. The ideas of farness and nearness depend en- tirely on habit. In Europe it seems quite a journey to go from Paris to Rome, and a good deal of preparation and leave-taking is gone through before setting out. The travelled Am- erican, familiar with the distances of a bound- less continent, crosses the ocean as one would go to his country-seat, and does not think much of taking a trip to Australia. Thus it is that the science of language, itself an historical science, is one of the most valid auxiliaries of history. Those who think of it as a dry, uninteresting study of roots with a sleepy accompaniment of declensions and con- jugations, do not understand it aright ; or if they have got some knowledge of it, they fail to see the great green fields which it leads to. One might, however, deceive one's self by thinking that because the results and prospects of the science of language are grand and alluring, their pursuit also is always delightful, easy and entertaining. We must remember that the Hill THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. *7 of Science has at the top a green refreshing plain, lighted by the sun of Truth and sweet to rest upon. But its slopes are awfully steep, thick with stones and thorns, and altogether such that years of hard work and good will and mutual help are required to advance a few steps. The science of language is no exception to the rule. Rather, if we look back to the way in which even the greatest minds, when dealing with language, went stumbling around, down to the present century, we must conclude that its path is even harder than others, and thick with difficulties, snares and pitfalls. THIRD LETTER. Method and Facts — Analysis and Comparison — Ancient Ety- mologists and their Stumblings — Roots and their Growth — The Indo-European Languages — The Position of the English Language — Etymological Instances. IN the Science of Language, as in all sci- ence, to reach a positive result was not possible before a method was found. In science, as well as in life, method is everything. 'Method* is " the way after " (metd, after ; hodos, way), the way of following up a clue, an idea, orderly, clearly, consistently, without jerks or jumps or deviations. It is the thread out of the laby- rinth, without which even the most willing, the most skilful and keen-eyed, will go round and round, tiring themselves, tearing their own flesh and bleeding, to find themselves, at last, ex- THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 19 hausted and powerless, there whence they started. A method for the science of language was found when it was at last proposed to apply to it the great principle of common-sense, namely to proceed from what we know to what we do not know ; to begin to study the facts which lie around us before devising systems to explain them. Quite simple, you will say ; why did they not apply it at the very start ? Yes, as simple as the egg of Columbus, and equally difficult. To poor, awkward, human minds, are not things most simple the most difficult ? Have they not always been so ? In the political field, for instance, what is more simple and at the same time more useful than the idea that neighboring states should live at peace and help each other to increase their wealth and happiness, rather than live like cats and dogs and give the best strength of their minds and bodies to thoughts and works of mutual destruction ? Still centuries elapsed, full of unspeakable misery, hatred and wars, until, about one hundred years ago, to a few good 20 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. bourgeois the idea occurred that perhaps an ar- rangement could be devised by means of which some states might live side by side in peace, and some good sense be brought also into the transaction of international affairs. Hence, from this simple and very plain idea, the con- federation of the United States of North America, the grandest phenomenon in the political history of the world. And in social life, for instance, what would be more simple than to do away with many of the useless, ridiculous, tedious regulations which embitter, and take away nine-tenths of the sweetness and real, soul-felt enjoy- ment of social intercourse, which are a nui- sance to the thousands, a subject of laughter and ennui to the clever, an advantage to nobody? Still, far from getting rid of them, we seem bound to increase them every year, and to get farther and farther from that ' plain living,' which is the inseparable companion of ' high thinking.' We must not wonder, then, much less feel tempted to look down on our predecessors, THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 21 because they stumbled long in their way in the pursuit of science, and did not see the clue which lay quite at their feet. At the same time, it will not be useless to look at their method and some of their mistakes. Their mistakes will at least teach us how to avoid them, and their method, with its necessary results, will be a good test for our own. But, first, let me state briefly what the new method is, and which are the new instru- ments of research that are put at our disposi- tion. It is necessary, as I have just mentioned, to start from the study of facts. The facts to be studied are words in all their forms, namely, vocabularies and grammars. The method is analytical and historico-comparative. When we take up a word, we must not only consider its present form ; in many cases nothing could be made out of it. We must investigate through what successive forms it has gone, and, secondly, we must compare it with cognate words in cognate languages. We must not imagine intermediate forms ; we must really go 2 2 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. to the historical documents of languages, and collect and compare the forms which are found to exist or to have existed. There is an abyss between the old school, if they deserve such a name, of etymologists and the modern meth- ods. The former, as a rule, did not trouble themselves with researches of this kind ; when they wanted to know the etymology of a word, they looked around for another word which had with it some affinity either in sound or meaning, and having once assumed that this was the original word, they simply imagined the intermediate forms which had to serve as links between that and the supposed deriva- tion. The chief results strictly linguistical obtained by the new science may be reduced to two : one concerns the words in themselves, the other languages in general. First, it has demon- strated that every word has at its kernel, as its essential element, a root, that is to say a sound with a general indefinite meaning. These primitive sounds are not many, and from them all our words are formed. In the second place, THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 23 it has been able to give a classification of lan- guages, at least of the most important of them. A great result this, indeed, if we consider that rational classification is the final scope and crown of all science ; a result which sums up all the work done at the same time that it lays down the plan and ppints the way for the work to come. I will not repeat here the general classification of languages. I have given it, as I am sure you remember, in the " Philosophy of Words," and, at any rate, it can be found in every book on the science of language. But I think it worth our while to exhibit briefly the classification of the Indo-European languages, because into this field chiefly our subsequent investigations will proceed. The Indo-European or Aryan languages com- prehend the most important languages spoken nowadays in Asia, Europe, and America, by the most civilized peoples. They are divided into seven great groups : 1. Sanskrit, ) \ Eastern group. Asia. 2. Iranic, I 2 4 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 3. Hellenic, 4. Italic, 5. Slavonic, 6. Teutonic, 7. Celtic. Western group. Europe and America. It appears that all of Jhese groups descend from one common mother language, now ex- tinct, which was spoken in the high plains of Central Asia, from which the people who spoke these several languages separated and went upon their migrations, two branches eastward, and five westward. These separations did not take place all at one time, but first one branch split and then another, and another, the latter pressing the former onward, farther from the common stock. These seven languages then are sisters, or rather they were, as all of them are now dead ; and the languages that sprang from them are also cognate, although their kinship is of a more remote degree and less easy to de- tect. If we care to see at a glance what languages THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 25 are derived from each of them, the following diagram will help us Indie, v p tx B o rt Iranic, Celtic, Italic, Hellenic, Letto-Slavic Teutonic, Vedic Sanskrit, Modern Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit (spoken in India). !Zend, Cuneiform Inscriptions, Persian. j Cymric, ( Gaelic. ( Oscan, - Latin— ( Umbrian, Neo-Latin Languages. ' Italian, French, Spanish, ^ Portuguese, Proven cal, Walachian, Rumansch. Greek (four dialects), Modern Greek. Old Prussian, Ecclesiastical Slavonic, Russian Language. ( Old High German, High German, - Middle High German, ( Modern High German. 'Gothic, Anglo-Saxon {English), Low German, -{ Old Du'ch, I Old Frisian, (^ Old Saxon. Scandinavian. Please give particular attention to two of these groups, the Italic and the Teutonic. See 26 THE FOR TUXES OF WORDS. how prolific they are, how numerous and vari- ous their dialects. Remember that they repre- sent the languages of some of the strongest and highest nations in the world. Much indeed of what is great and worthy in modern civilization is represented by these two families. Let me insist also on the exceptionally fortunate posi- tion of English. While the other intellectual languages of modern Europe belong entirely either to the Teutonic family, as German, or to the Latin family, as French, English shares the good things of both families. Its grammar and, so to say, its substructure, are Teutonic, but its vocabulary belongs in great part to Latin. The above diagram, where we have the pedi- gree of all the Indo-European languages, shows where we have to look for the etymology of our words. If we have, for instance, a word belonging to a French dialect, we must com- pare it with the forms it has assumed in other French dialects, then in the other Neo-Latin dialects, then with the form it had or the word from which it is derived, in Latin. The Latin word we can compare with cognate words in the seven Indo-European groups, and finally THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 27 we can determine the Aryan root from which all those forms are derived. Take, for instance, the French word " pere," father. This word occurs in an endless variety of forms in all the Neo-Latin dialects. The typical forms, however, are these: 'Pere,' Northern Italian dialects ' pare,' Italian ' pa- dre,' Latin pa-tre{m). The Latin stem is prop- erly pa-ter, where -ter is a suffix, to be found in all Aryan languages, denoting the ' agent,' and pa- is a primitive Aryan root meaning ' to feed,' 'to support.' Hence 'pater' is the 'feeder,' the ' supporter.' Following up this same word in other Aryan languages, we find patc>r in Greek, pidar in Persian, pitri in Sanskrit, and (according to Grimm's law, of which I shall say more hereafter), fadar in Gothic, feeder in An- glo-Saxon, father in English, Vater in Ger- man, each one of which has given rise to many derivations, such as ' fatherly,' ' father- land,' ' patria,' ' paternal,' etc. So, taking one simple root {pa), we can follow it step by step through all its transformations and prolifi. cations in all the dialects directly or indirectly connected with the primitive Aryan speech. It 28 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. is easy to see then the wide scope of modern linguistic researches. Their method is a well- grounded, matter-of-fact proceeding, their field is immense, but at the same time so well de- fined and explored that the glottologist goes over it with the same surety as an intelligent traveller goes through a land of which he holds in his hands a good map. It is also very easy to see that the results of these investigations must be such as the poor attempts of former etymologists, feeling their way in utter dark- ness through a labyrinth of which they knew neither the end nor the beginning, neither the be- longings nor the plan, have nothing to compare with for a moment. They had no idea of roots, and very confused ones about suffixes and pre- fixes. Their treatment of the phonetic princi- ples was rude and empirical. Even when they happened to hit upon a right point, they did not know it, as they had no criterion by which to test the value of their discovery. They were just like a sea-captain who has lost his compass, and, through the darkness of the night, cannot find his position ; he will steer to the right or to the left, as chance suggests, but when can he \ THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 29 tell that he is right ? A mere cabin-boy knows just as much as he. To see better the difference between the old and the new methods, let us look into the etymology of the words 'pere' and 'father,' as given by two old etymologists. Menage, the celebrated etymologist, throws ' father,' 1 pere,' ' pater,' ' padre,' etc., together with 'papa,' of which he says: " II est forme (comme maman) par la nature dans la bouchc des enfants, et il n'en faut pas chercher ailleurs l'etymologie." As for the suffix ter, " II n'est qu'une addition, ou pour mieux dire, une cor- ruption du mot, laquelle nc vient point de leur nature, mais de l'institution des homines." Skinner, in his " Etymologicon Linguae An- glicanae," derives English ' father,' Anglo- Saxon 'faeder,' German ' vater,' etc., all "immediately from Latin 'pater,' mediately from Greek ' pater.' ' The Greek word then is derived either from paomai, to acquire, or from speiro, to sow. About the formation of the word pater, whether it consists of several ele- ments or not, nothing is said. The English father, he adds, may also be very easily (com- 30 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. modissime) derived from the Danish verb feder, to nourish, ox fodcr, to generate. It would not be easy to accumulate more mistakes in so few lines. FOURTH LETTER. The Idea of Root — Grimm's Law — The Root ak and its De- rivations — The Root pa — The Root bha — The Root wid. T T 7~E have just seen how from words which are V V constantly on our lips we can go back to the primitive Indo-European root from which those words descend. The root that is thus reached is never the root of that word alone, but is the kernel, so to speak, round which cluster families of words, all having therein a common starting point. It is the seed from which a trunk grows up with branches, leaves, flowers and fruits. The method we have applied is the method of one who starts from the mouth of a river and follows it up to its very source. It is the method by which sources and causes are dis- covered, and science is made. But it is useful sometimes to follow the reverse course, namely, to start from the source, or, in our case, from the root, and follow it downward in all, or at least in its main directions. Let us apply this course to a few roots, chosen at random from 32 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. among the linguistic stock of the Indo- European nations, and let us follow them in their route in two at least of the most import- ant families, the Latin and the Teutonic. We will assume as the best representatives of the Latin family (the best or the most apt for our purpose, at least) Latin itself and French; for the Teutonic family, the English language. The field, thus circumscribed, is still wide enough, and I am sure you would not care to have me muster before you an endless array of Old Slavonic, Old High German, Celtic, or Zend words. But you must not be impatient with me if, before entering upon this investigation, I tarry a little, calling your attention to certain facts which, although they may seem somewhat dry, are, nevertheless, of the greatest interest. In the first place, we must remember that a root is "that combination of sounds which remains when a word is stripped of everything formative." The Indian grammarians called a root dhdtii, from dhd, to nourish. DJidtu means any " primary or elementary substance " ; hence the primary element of words. It was wise and keen to call roots by a word meaning 'to THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 33 nourish.' Roots are indeed the feeding ele- ment of languages. To be more exact, we must take here feeding in the broad sense which we find in the root pa (whence fa-t 'her), meaning both feeding and breeding. The endless variety of our words is but a growth out of a compar- atively meagre stock of roots. We can have a good idea of the vital power of roots when we remember that all the Indo-European speeches do not presuppose more than 500 roots. The number of roots for the English language given by Mr. Skeat, at the end of his etymological dictionary, is 461. The discovery of roots is only one of the glories of the science of language. It has also found out the laws (although at first there seems to be nothing but inextricable confusion) ac- cording to which the various Indo-European languages reflect the sounds which constituted the roots in the mother tongue. A most im- portant law is that which, from the name of the great German philologist who discovered it, is known as Grimm s law. It is a law on the "rotation of consonants" in the Indo- European languages. A common, although un- 34 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. scientific, classification of our consonants^ divides them into hard (P, T, C, as in cost), soft (B, D, G, as \ngo), and aspirates (H, Ph (f), Th). Grimm noticed that if we put Sanskrit, Greek and Latin on one side, Low German (Gothic, Anglo-Saxon and English) in the middle, and Old High German on the other side, then an aspirate in the first group is represented by a soft in the middle group, and by a hard in the other group ; a soft in the first group is repre- sented by a hard in the middle, and by an aspirate in the other; and finally, a hard in the first group is represented by an aspirate in the middle, and by a soft in the last group. Accord- ing to J. Peile's suggestion we may call an as- pirate A, a soft S, a hard H ; then Grimm's law may be represented as follows, the word ASH serving as a mevwria tec/uiica for the whole : Sanskrit, Greek, Low German, Gothic. Old Latin. Anglo-Saxon, English. High Geiman A S H S H A H A S I will not enter into further details, as on this matter I had occasion to dilate elsewhere (" Phil- THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 35 osophy of Words," p. j6 f.). But the following table will give an easy and comprehensive exhi- bition of the bearings of Grimm's law : LABIAL. DENTAL. GUTTURAL. In Greek and generally in Sanskrit and Lat- in, the letters. .. p b ph f t d th k (c) g kh Correspond in Gothic (Anglo-Saxon, En- ph (0 p b th t d kh (h,g) k g And in Old H. Ger- b (v, f) ph,f p d th(z) t g (h) kh k Now let us hasten to investigate the course of some particular root. Let us take first the root AK, which has a wide filiation indeed. If I should say that the word eye comes from this root, you would perhaps laugh at me. But I shall not say it ; facts say it for me. This root means properly ' to pierce,' ' to be sharp,' and (meanings closely allied) ' to see,' ' to be quick.' From it we have the Latin verb ' ac-u- ere,' to sharpen, from which ' ac-utus,' our ac-ute, sharpened, sharp. Ague is only a trans- formation of 'acute,' from Old French agit, sharp, feminine ague. It was once called febris acuta, sharp, stinging fever. Latin ac-us, tf THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. needle, and our ac-id, ac-idity, come from the same root. Ac-va in Sanskrit comes from the same root, and means ' swift,' but it became the name of the horse; Latin, 'aek-vus,' 'equus,' horse; whence our 'equine,' 'equestrian.' The Greek hippos, horse, was once ik-kos. Eager, sharp, keen, desirous, is from Latin ac-er, keen ; Middle English egre, Old French eigre, aigre. Our ac-me is the Greek cik-mc", a point, the highest point. From the same root we have Old Latin oc-us and the diminutive oc-idus, eye, Old Greek ok-os, Russian oka, Gothic augo, German aitge, Anglo- Saxon eage, Middle English eighe, e/y, eye. This is a good specimen of the life of roots. Starting from the simple and general mean- ing of ' sharpness,' it winds itself through many languages, under many forms. It gives us the name of a fever, of a noble animal, of a house- hold utensil, of an intellectual quality, of the organ of sight. In all these meanings it is easy to trace out the primitive general ' meaning' of the root, but only by careful comparative THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 37 analysis can one detect the ' form ' of the root itself. Still, the results of slow but continuous evolution are neither more wonderful nor more difficult to trace here than in any other field. Who would at first sight believe, for instance, that the marvellous works of our architecture, the churches, the arches, the palaces, are but a slow growth and improvement from the hut of the savage ? Let us take up again the root PA, which we met in- father. The primitive meaning of this root is ' to feed,' ' to nourish,' hence, to support, to protect. We have from it the words pa-ter, father, the 'feeder,' the 'protector'; hence, ' paternal,' ' patrocinium,' ' patrocinate,' ' patri- mony,' ' patria,' the fatherland, ' patriotic,' ' patrician ' ; ' pa-bulum,' food ; ' pa-sc-ere,' to feed, from whose past pa-s-tum we have ' past- ure,' the French ' repas,' meal, ' pastor,' ' pas- toral,' etc. We have the same root in the adjective pot-is, that has power, that protects, and pot-ens, power- ful. Hospes, whose stem is hos-pit, is the ' pro- tector of the stranger, of the host ' ; hence, ' hospital,' ' hospice,' etc. 38 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. From this form pot, we have the Italian pot- cre, Old French pocr, pooir, and, to avoid the hiatus, povoir, Modern French pouvoir, English power. These formations from the root pa, belong- ing to the Latin family, are very different from those that belong to a Teutonic branch. Ac- cording to Grimm's law, the root pa is reflected in Gothic by fa. Hence we have the English forms, ' fa-ther,' 'food,' ' feed,' ' fodder.' The root BHA. This is also an important root, and means to 'shine,' to 'make shine,' and generally to ' make appear,' to bring to manifestation. The Indo-European form bha is reflected in Latin and Greek by fa. In Greek we have the verb fa-mi, to say ; fe-mc, saying, rumor, fame ; pro-fe-tes, ' fore-teller,' prophet ; fo-ne, voice (' tele-phone,' ' phono- graph,' 'phonetic,' 'euphony,' etc.); fa-i-no, to appear, to shine hence, fain-dmown, that which appears, manifestation, ' phenomenon ' ; fan-tasia, ' that makes visible,' ' that brings forth,' imagination, ' fancy.' Connected with faino, we have also ' diaphanous,' pellucid ; ' epiphany,' apparition. THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 39 From the same root we have also fa-os (fos), folds, light, whence our ' photograph,' ' photog- raphy,' etc. In Latin we have fa-ri, to speak ; ad-far i or affari, to address somebody ; hence, ' affable,' that speaks to people, kind ; effari, to utter ; 1 in-effable,' unutterable, indicible ; prae-fari, to say before ; hence, ' preface,' that which is said before the beginning of a work ; ' in-fant,' that does not speak. Fas is the divine law, that which is divinely spoken ; hence, ne-farws, ' nefarious,' against the divine law, horribly wicked. Fa-ma, ' fame ' ; fa-tum, ' fa-te,' that which is spoken, prediction, destiny; ' fa-tal,' belonging to fate, destined. Fatua, a goddess foretelling, foresaying ; to ' infatuate,' to be- witch ; ' infatuated,' that is under a spell, out of his wits, crazed. We have also the verb fa-t-eri, to say, to de- clare ; hence con-fit-eri and pro-fit-eri, which, through their past forms confessus, professus, give our ' to confess,' to say to others, and ' to profess,' to state before others ; ' confession,' 1 profession,' etc. ' Profession ' must have been said at first only of declared opinions or views, 4° THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. the standing of a man in regard to some points of religion, morals or politics ; hence it was applied to his general standing, his art, his ' pro- fession.' 'Professor' is 'the public declarer'; the teacher. From the same root is fa-bula, ' fa-ble,' a le- gend, a story. Connected withfatum is fata, the goddess of destiny; hence Italian fata, a supernatural being, an elf, Portuguese fada, French fre (compare, aime'e from aviata dicte'e from dictata, etc.), English fay. From fe'e we have in French fierie, a work of the 'fee,' an enchantment ; hence Middle English faerie, fairye, and then fairy, which, through a popular mistake, received the meaning of elf, instead of enchantment or ' elfery,' so to speak. The root wid, to see, to know. You already know the origin of the word ' his- tory.' In Greek from the root vid, and the suffix -tor, we have the forms vid-tor, hid-tor, his-tor, he who sees, who knows. (These different forms are explained elsewhere : " Philosophy of Words," p. ioo-ioi.) From Jiistor we have the verb hi'storeo, and the substantive historia, ' history,' THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 4 1 the narration of him who has seen, who knows. The Sanskrit Veda, knowledge, doctrine, comes from the same root. So does the Latin verb vid-ere, to see, from which ' vi-sion ' (for vid-tion), ' visual,' ' supervision,' ' revision,' ' vis- ible,' ' visit,' ' visitation,' etc., etc. From the Greek form id we have also the word idea, properly ' that which is seen,' an image in our mind, a conception ; hence, ' ideal,' 'idealize,' etc. Idol is closely connected with ' idea ' ; it means also a ' little image,' a statue. In the Teutonic family the root wid assumes the form wit, and from it we have words which at first sight nobody would suspect of any affin- ity or kinship. First, we have the Anglo- Saxon verb wit-an, English to wit, to know ; and the adjective wise, knowing, learned, dis- creet. The words witch and wiseacre belong also to this root, but they need some explana- tion. We find in Anglo-Saxon the word wit-e-ga, a prophet, a seer, formed with suffixes denoting the agent from the verb wit-an, to see, to know. From witega we come to the common abbre- 42 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. viated forms witga, wicca, feminine wicce, Mid- dle English tviccJic, the old form for witch, a woman (formerly also a man) supposed to be endowed with superhuman knowledge, with magic power. We meet with the same fact in Icelandic, where from vita, to know, we have vitki, a wizard, and vitka, to bewitch. Wiseacre is a good specimen of what strange transformations words may undergo, especially when a word is transplated from one language A- into another and the new people that use it, not knowing its true origin are only too much inclined to see in it some connection with oth- er words familiar to them, and, therefore, so treat it in pronunciation and spelling as to suit their etymological instinct. Wiseacre is in Old Dutch wiis-segger, which is a strange travesty of the German zueissager, a ' sooth-sayer,' as if it meant " wise-sayer." But the German word itself is only a product of ignorant manipulation at the hands of the people, and has nothing to do with the verb sagen, to say. The verb weis-sagen is in Middle High German wizagon, which is derived from the substantive wiz-a-go, a prophet. This wiz- THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 43 a-go is formed, with suffixes denoting the agent, from the Old High German verb wiz-an, to see, exactly as wit-e-ga is from the Anglo-Saxon verb wit-an, to see. Wiseacre, then, is merely the rather hybrid product of a German mistake and English phonetic corruption. It has nothing to do either with wise or with acre. It is a name of the agent formed from the verb wit-an, to see, and means, or, to be more exact, meant " seer. FIFTH LETTER. Continuation : Growth of Roots — Latin and Anglo-Saxon Words in the English Language — The Root bhar — The Root Ink — The Root da— The Root tar — The Root^w — The Root ma— The Root bhadh — The Root spak. 1HOPE you are not tired yet, as I want to lay before you some more instances of the development of roots. I am well aware that these researches, interesting as they are in themselves, at length become rather wearisome. In fact, what does not become wearisome if too long persisted in? But, pray, be patient. We shall soon have done with this, and shall pres- ently come to other parts of our subject, which are more varied and, I dare say, more directly interesting. Concerning the striking variety of words which grow out of one root, we must keep present to our minds two particular facts : First, an Aryan root is differently modified in passing THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 45 over into one of the different branches of the Aryan languages ; secondly, once the root is moulded, so to speak, according to the partic- ular genius of a language, it follows, also in all its further developments, the tendencies and laws of that language. Thus, if we compare the developments, or the words sprung from one root, in two or three different languages, we must expect to find very wide dissimilarities. For instance, the Aryan root pa remains /#, as we saw, in Latin, and becomes fa in the Teu- tonic languages ; a difference which becomes greater if we compare the development of this root in these two branches, as we have pabulum and pasture on one side, food and fodder on the other. In English there are very many words trans- planted from Latin which, although they are reallv doublets of Teutonic words, yet seem to have with the latter no genealogical connec- tion whatever. In fact, the bulk of the English vocabulary is made up of Anglo-Saxon stock and of words of Latin origin. What is the dif- ference between these two component parts? The Anglo-Saxon words arise from primitive 46 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. Indo-European roots and came down to us di- rectly through the Teutonic family ; the Latin words come from Indo-European roots as well, but, before being transplanted into the English field, they were developed, moulded and elab- orated by the Latin tongue. Moreover, most of them were not transplanted directly from Latin into English either, but underwent a second elaboration at the hands of the French people, from which finally they came into the English language. We might say that the Anglo-Saxon words in the English language are like plants grown up from Indo-European seed on Teutonic ground, in a Teutonic ' milieu,' fos- tered and developed by Teutonic men. Its Latin words, on the other hand, are like plants grown up from Indo-European seed also, but on Latin soil and in Latin surroundings, trans- ported afterwards to French and finally to English soil. Of course, the plants that are thus brought back to England from distant and different climes, must have developed into varieties which at first make it difficult to rec- ognize them as sisters of the plants that have grown from the same seed on Teutonic soil. THE FORT OWES OF WORDS. 47 This is what makes Latin and Anglo-Saxon words, which are derived from the same root, look so different. Now, let us resume our investigation of the course of some roots. Root BHAR, tobear, to bring. As the root bha is in Latin and Greek fa, bhar is in Latin and Greek far. Hence the verb fer-re, to bear, to bring ; from which we have to ' in-fer,' to ' pre-fer,' to ' re-fer,' to ' de-fer,' etc.; the adjective ' fer-tile,' that brings forth, fruitful ; and the second part of such words as ' odori-ferous,' ' sopori-ferous,' ' morti-ferous,' " voci-ferous ' (whence ' voci-ferate '), etc. For-s {for-t-is) ' that which is brought about,' chance ; for-tune, ' fortune,' ' case,' destiny ; the goddess of chance ; 'fortunate,' ' fortuitous,' etc. This root is, in the Teutonic family, bar, from which the Anglo-Saxon ber-an, to bear; and ' burden,' ' birth,' ' brother.' ' Brother ' answers to Latin ' fra-ter ' : both are formed from the Indo-European root bhar; but one is the result of Latin cultivation, so to say, the other, of Teutonic. Bier also belongs to the same root, as well as 48 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. Latin fer-e-trum, a hearse. (As some wag would find some connection between ' bier ' and ' beer,' we may observe here that ' beer ' has nothing to do with our root. It is probably connected with the root of the word ' barley,' meaning to ' ferment.') The root LUK, to shine. We have the Latin verb luc-ere, to shine ; lues, light ; luc-men, lu-men, light (hence 'luminous,' 'illuminate,' etc.); luc-na, lu-na, the moon ; luc-idus, shining ; lac-strare, lu- strare, to make shine, to ' illustrate,' ' illustri- ous,' shining, etc. From this root we have also in German lich-t, light, Anglo-Saxon, Icoht, English ' light.' The root DA, to give. It is one of the most prolific. Selecting from the numerous words that can be traced to it, we find, for instance, date, properly ' given.' The letters of the Pope are still marked ' datum Romae,' ' given ' in Rome, such and such day. We find also the Latin do-n-um, gift, and our ' donation.' The Latin dos (dot-is) is what is given to the bride, ' dower ' ; dot-arc, to endow ; in Low Latin we find dotariutn, 1HE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 49 Old French doaire, afterwards douaire, English ' dower.' The same root is to be found in many com- pound Latin verbs ending in -dere, as tra-dere, which is from trans, across, over, and dare, properly ' to give over,' and also ' to betray.' From it we have Italian traditore, Old French traitor, English ' traitor.' ' Treason,' Middle English traison, Old French traison, is also from the same source. The root SPAK, to see, to spy. This is also one of the richest in its growth. We have, for instance, in Sanskrit spag-a, a spy. In Greek it has undergone a curious metathesis ; it occurs under the form shop (instead of spok) ; hence skop-os, what one looks at, aim, ' scope ' ; 4 epi-scop-os,' ' over-seer,' popularly disguised under the form ' bishop ' ; skep-t-omai, to see, to look in, to enquire, gives us the word scep-tic, which at first meant simply 'observer,' ' inquirer,' hence 'doubter,' and later, ' unbeliever.' In Latin we have no end of words from this root. Spcc-ics is the appearance, the type, the 4 species.' It is important to note the analogy, on which the Greeks formed the word meaning 2 sfat, 5° THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. ' species ' (eidos), from the root vid meaning also ' to see.' Spec-ula, a place to look from, has given us 'speculate,' 'speculation,' etc., which, from looking out for the weather, stars, and comets, have been transferred to other meanings with which celestial bodies have not much to do. From the supine spec-turn, we have such words as ' in-spect,' to look into ; ' pro-spect,' to look out, to look ahead ; ' su-spect,' to look under, lest something lie there hidden; ' ex- pect,' ' respect,' 'respectable,' * spectacle,' etc., etc. Auspices is in Latin au{i)-spicium from avis, bird, and spec, to see; the looking at the flight or other movements or doings of birds in order to guess at future events. Spite is a shortening from despite, as ' sport ' from 'desport.' It is in Old French despit, and comes from Latin de-spectus, a 'looking down,' contempt, scorn. Hence despise, despicable, etc. SIXTH LETTER. Importance of the Study of Roots. — Roots and Dictionaries. — History of Several Familiar Words : reception and capa- ble ; pupil (student) and pupil (of the eye) ; charming ; mercy and market ; villain; valet; pontiff; miss and magistrate ; wig and perruque. IT is evident that we could thus go on exam- ining roots in all their derivatives until we had exhausted our dictionary. But you need not be afraid. I do not dare to put your patience to such a trial. All I want is to have you notice two facts: First, that all the words we have examined — in fact, all the words in our language — even those that convey the most abstract ideas, come from roots whose meaning is simple and entirely concrete. If you go over the cases we have enquired into, you will not find an exception to this principle. Second, the root-material underlying all linguistic growth is not large. There are but a few hun- dred roots round which all Indo-European 52 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. words cluster, as in so many families. It fol- lows that it is of the greatest importance in all studies of words to go back to the root. Our trouble will be amply compensated, since words, thus examined, tell us the story of their lives, and display before us their pedigrees, with all their connections and relations. And I hope that you will fully agree with me when I say that we should have dictionaries in which words are arranged not alphabetically, but by their roots. Think what a help it would be, if we could take up a dictionary divided into four hundred and odd paragraphs, according to the number of roots from which the substance of the language has developed, and take in at one glance the filiation of each root! In forty or fifty days — ten roots a day — we could go over the whole field of any language. The study of dictionaries would become as systematic as the study of comparative anatomy, or botany, or geology, and in great part a matter of reason- ing, rather than of memory. Besides, it would give us an insight into the true meaning of words, such as now scarcely one person in a thousand has. An alphabetical list at the end THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 53 would help us to find every word the root of which we do not know or have forgotten. Now, putting aside this genealogical study of words, let us, for the sake of variety, pursue our researches rather desultorily, as chance or pleasure leads us, among our everyday words, inquiring what connections they have with one another, what garments they were successively clothed with, and what meanings they have assumed in their long peregrinations. Take, for instance, 'reception,' 'recipient] receive, receipt, accept, acceptable, capable, capac- ity, captive. That capable and capacity are con- nected with each other, it is self-evident ; so are accept and acceptable, receive and receipt, etc. But it is perhaps not so evident to everybody that all these words are derived from the same root, and there is therefore a general meaning which underlies all their meanings, however dif- ferent they may be. Capable has preserved the root in its best form ; -able is merely a suffix to be found in hundreds of words (sal-able, speak-able, port- able, etc). Cap is the root, and we have from it the Latin verb cap-ere, to take, to take in, to LoJ(iXuU> - (ptiAMMj 54 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. contain. Hence cap-acions, ' that can contain '; cap-able, that can take in, that can understand ; therefore 'able,' 'skilful.' In the compounds, the root cap is attenuated, so to say, into the form cip, just as fa c is reduced to fie, fiat to fit, tag to tig, etc. Hence the verb rc-cip-ere, to take again, to receive, which was in Old French recever ; and recipient, he who receives. (In Italian, recipiente is said only of things, that take, that contain, as barrels, casks, etc.) From the supine (Lat. re-cep-tum) we have such forms as receipt, reception, except, accept, etc. To except is to take out, to accept is to take to (one's self), to admit. Captive is the man who is taken, a prisoner. In French captive has given also cJu'tif, which meant at first, like the Latin captivns, a prisoner of war. By a natural transition it came to mean 'miserable,' 'to be pitied,' and now it means 'poor,' 'paltry,' 'puny'; English caitiff (Captain, from Low-Latin capitanens, is from the stem capit of caput, the head, the man who is at the head, who leads.) Prince (Italian principe, Latin prin- cipeni), is from prim (prin before c) for primus, first, and the root cap, to take ; prince, ' he THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 55 who takes the first place,' a prominent person, a leader. Hence principal, of first importance, and principle, a beginning, a leading tenet. We speak of a studious boy as a good pupil, and we speak of the pupil of the eye. Is there any connection between these two words ? Yes ; they are the very same word. We have in Latin the word pupus, which means a little boy, a child, (feminine pupa, a little girl, a doll, a puppet). From pupus the diminutive pupillus is derived, from which our pupil, a boy, a scholar, and pupil of the eye, that is the little image or picture which we see in the center of our eyes. When you say of one of your friends that she is ' charming,' you hardly think that, had you said this some centuries ago, your friend would have run a great risk of being burnt alive. From a root kas, we have in Latin cas-men, later car-men, which means a sound, a song, a poem. It was said especially of the religious verses recited or murmured by priests in the performance of their rites, and of the formulas used to conjure up the spirits of the dead. 56 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. From this we have the French verb cJiarmer, to conjure, to enchant. The English charm comes from Latin carmen, through a French channel, and meant properly to enchant, to cast a spell. Charming was then a real synonym of ' bewitching ' ; but what is to us an expression of personal magnetism, of fascination, to the superstitious and, if I may say it, witch-ful mid- dle-ages was a terrible accusation of commun- ion with evil spirits, to be atoned for by death. The word magnetism, which I have just used, has also a long story. Magnet, the loadstone, was so called from the city of Magnesia, where its peculiar properties were first observed. Hence, ' magnetic,' that has great attractive power, great personal influence. Mercy, merciless, market, commerce, merchant, merchandise, mercatorial, all come from one and the same root. We have the verb mer-eri, to receive a share, to gain, to deserve ; mer-i-tum, is that which is deserved, desert, merit. We have also in Latin merx (accusative mcrcem), that which is obtained, which is purchased ; hence our mercer or dealer, merchant and mcr- V THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 57 chandise. We have also merces (accusative mer cedent) that which is obtained (not by- money), compensation, reward. From merces we have mercy, which gradually lost its mean- ing of a regular, legal compensation, and as- sumed that of concession or reward given out of a sense of fairness and charity. A lawyer would say that the word, from a strictly juridi- cal meaning, passed over to one of equity, and finally, having left the field of law entirely, took shelter within the pale of charity and sympathy. Villain has been an unfortunate word. It was in Latin villanus, the inhabitant of the villa, the countryman. Subsequently it as- sumed the meaning of rustic (which is from rus, the country), and its downward course once begun, could not be stopped. Thus it came to mean ill-bred, ill-natured, just as ' rough ' came to mean rascal, rogue, black- guard. The French word valet has also lost a great deal. It was once written vaslet, a diminutive &4A 58 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. form of vassal, vassallet. It was applied, dur- ing the feudal days, to any young warrior, any young vassal, whose duty it was to follow his chief and assist him with his services. The son of a king might have been called a vaslet, or valet ; but now, hardly! Other words, on the contrary, have taken an upward road, and have gained in their meaning. Pontiff, French Pontife, Italian Pontefice, brings us back to the Latin pontifcx. It was once taught in schools that pontifcx meant properly bridge-maker (pons is bridge), and the Romans, with a philosophic and broad-minded sense of of the utility of inter-communications, had entrusted them to the highest religious author- ity, so as to give this extremely important department a kind of religious prestige. This, however, is more ingenious than true. Pons at first meant simply a ' path,' and it is more prob- able that pontifcx, "the path-maker," meant the leader in processions and other religious ceremonies. Sire, as we saw elsewhere, comes from Latin senior, which means simply elder, elderly. From THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 59 the same word we have signorina and senorita, the Italian and Spanish words for miss, which mean, however, according to their etymology, 'little old woman. ' Who would believe that there is any connec- tion between miss and magistrate ? Still a mere glance at their history will dispel all doubts of their common origin. Latin magis- tratns is from magistcr, which, being a doubly comparative form, means properly ' more greater ' and conveys ideas of authority and superiority. From magister, through the fre- quent loss of the consonant between two vow- els, we have the Old French maistre, and our master, from which mastress, mistress. Now miss, as I have shown in the " Philosophy of Words," is merely a slight transformation of the word misses, our pronounciation of mistress. It is not easy, at first, to see any connection between the word season, as winter, fall, etc., and the seasoning of a salad. There is the same connection as in French between the substantive saisoii, the season, and the verb assaisonner, to season. The French saisou, from which the English 60 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. season, is from Latin sationem, the sowing time, the spring. But how from this meaning we went to that of seasoning a dish, is well ex- plained by Littre in his " Pathologie verbale." The proper meaning of assaisonner, to season, is to cultivate in the proper season, to ripen in time. " Viande assaisonnee " means cooked " a point, ni trop, ni trop peu, comme qui dirait murie a temps. Du moment que assaisonner fut entre dans la cuisine, il n'en sortit plus, et de cuire a point il passa a l'acception de mettre a point pour le gout a l'aide de certains ingre- dients." Did you ever suspect that our wig had any- thing to do with the French perruque ? The French word passed into English, where we find perwigge, and later periwig. Out of a false notion that this peri was the Greek prepo- sition, which we have in many other words, like ' perimeter,' ' Peripatetic,' etc., it was dropped in the course of time and we came to this poor wreck, wig. As to the French perruque, it is to be referred to the Italian pelucca, from pelo, hair. SEVENTH LETTER. Continuation : to escape, to dismantle, artillery, coquetry, dupe, to arrive, press and express ; gossip and commkrage ; hypocrite; throne, angel, government, alms. — Changes in personal and local names: Ingleford, Cape Hvarf, Chateau Vert, Beauchef, Grand-Pont, etc. — Names of Ships. — Signs of Inns. THE original meaning of the word ' escape,' French ecJiapper, had a humoristic tinge, of which we are no longer conscious. In Low- Latin they had a word capa to designate a kind of coat that covered all the body ; from this is the Italian cappa, a kind of mantle To escape (ex-capare), meant properly to get out of one's coat, as when one holds you by your sleeves, and you slip out, leaving your coat in his hands. It was really a slang term ; to ' ske- daddle,' we should say now. The verb is pre- served, but its original piquancy has been lost. Another verb we have taken, like escape, from the name of a coat. To dismantle, French de'maiitcler, is properly to take away a mantle, 62 TV/;? FORTUNES OF WORDS. an overcoat. But now we mean thereby to pull down, to destroy the ramparts of a city. The French d/manteler was first introduced in the sixteenth century, and Littre is right when he says that it is really ingenious to have com- pared the bulwarks of a city to the mantle that protects man against cold and bad weather. Once the word artillery had nothing to do with gunpowder or firearms. It is a collective substantive derived from ' art,' and it meant all the implements and engines of war, used for attack and defence. The invention of gun- powder put out of use all bows, catapults, and other instruments which were the artillery of old. The word, however, remained, and was applied to guns, cannons, and all the new machines of war introduced after that great invention. Attach and attackare etymologically identical. This is one of the many cases in which one word gives birth to two. By and by the natural selection of custom diversifies them in their meaning. Coquette is derived from the French cog, the English cock. One cannot help admiring the J THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 63 ingenious and, to use Littre's word, ' riante,' im- agination that has transferred the air and the appearance of our gallant chanticleer to the human kind, and has found there a happy expression, " pour l'envie de plaire, pourle desir d'attirer en plaisant." It is rather strange that in Italian the same idea should be expressed by the word civetta, which means ' owl.' Another word derived from the name of a bird is the French dupe. Dupe is an old name for the whoop, French huppe. This bird has the reputation of being very silly and very easy to catch. It has not been difficult, then, for the popular mind to apply the name of the biro to people who are easily deceived. In the same way we use goose, duck, gander, etc. The verb arrive, French arriver, brings us back to a Low-Latin adripare, where the word ripa, bank, is clearly visible. Arriver meant in Old French only to go or to push to the bank, to the shore. Littre quotes : " Li vens les arriva," the wind pushed them ashore. By and by, the idea of bank or shore was lost sight of, and to ' arrive ' came to mean to reach any place whatever. In French they went a step Ctr*ui4.vc*N <•<■'•«•''« « 64 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. further, and so they say of a fact that it reached a place, ' took place ;' ' il arriva que . . . ,' it happened that . . . The word ' compliment ' is not derived from ' a completione mentis ' nor 'a complete men- tiri,' " fully lying," as Fuller contends, " because compliments are usually completely menda- cious." It is simply a substantive made from the Old French verb complir, Latin complere, to fulfill, and meant at first " accomplishment." The acts and words of civility towards one's friends and neighbors were regarded as ' accom- plishments,' as the fulfillment of a duty. It is hardly possible to find two words which can teach us more about the evolution that words go through than " press " and " express." They are derived from the same word, they are similar in sound, and still their meaning is so wide apart. From prcssum, the supine of the Latin verb premere, to press, to weigh down, we have the verb to press, and the compounds to ' impress,' to ' repress,' to ' oppress,' etc. The verb to 'express' and the substantive ' expres- sion/ which means literally 'pressing out, aptly indicate the mental labor necessary to find THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 65 in words a fitting garment for our thoughts. The past participle ' express,' which means nothing but ' said,' came to have a peculiar strength, as when we say: 'He told us in ex- press terms,' namely, ' He really uttered these words, there is no doubt about it.' Hence such expressions as ' by his express command,' that is to say, 'by his special, particular command.' When we speak of an ' express train,' we use the word in the same sense, 'a special train.' In the same time the word /raw, which at first was said of a simple, rude contrivance to press down a piece of paper against some set types, took the meaning of all that came out of such pressure, so that the name of a poor, almost primitive. tool came to mean one of the greatest powers in the world. Imagine two diverging lines : they start from the same point, and at first they are so close to each other that naked eyes fail to perceive any interval between them. But let them go on, each in its direction, and they will run so wide apart that no imaginable space can enclose them. The same thing happens with the mean- ings of our words. 66 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. Gossip is another word the meaning of which has travelled very far, so to speak, from its birth-place. Chaucer spells it gossib, a trans- formation (romgod-sib. Sib means 'akin.' God- father and godmother are ' god-sib,' akin in God. It seems almost fatal for people who are akin to be fond of a good chat together, and of dissect- ing liberally common relations. The French commdrage (from commcre, god-mother) and the Italian comare, god-mother, went through the same evolution of meaning, and are now syno- nyms of gossip, idle at least, if not uncharitable. Hypocrite was not such a bad word at first as it is now. It is a Greek word and meant simply an actor, one who clothes himself with other people's personality for an artistic purpose. It is easy to see how from this we came to the present meaning of the word. Throne, on the contrary, had nothing lofty about it. It meant simply a stool. Use, by that selection which sometimes is not more ac- countable in language than in other fields, picked it out of many other words meaning a stool or chair, and reserved it for the chair where a king sits. THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 67 Nor had angel anything divine in its meaning. It meant simply a messenger. It was afterwards confined to the messengers of God. Nor had government, as I already had occa- sion to remark elsewhere, anything to do with the great art of the shepherds of peoples, to use Homer's phrase. We have in Greek the verb Kvfepvav, which means ' to steer.' ' Guberna- tor,' in Latin, was the pilot of a boat. By metaphor gubcrnator, gouvemeur, governor became the title of the man who steers the Ship of the State. There are some changes in words which are as many indexes of other important changes, social, political or religious. Take, for instance, the word ' alms.' This was once a noble word. Through the forms aelmaesse (Anglo-Saxon), almesse (Middle English), alines, alms comes from the Greek eleemosyne, from the verb clcco, to have pity, to have sympathy for the suffer- ing of our fellow-men. It had then a meaning essentially moral; it meant the sharing with one's soul of other people's grief. By and by it was narrowed down to the present meaning. Do you not think that this change is very sig- 68 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. nificant ? It does not speak well for the rich indeed if, as the story of this word tells us, a few crumbs of bread or a little money have taken the place of that genuine heartfelt sym- pathy which is the first of our duties. And the poor must have been very poor and wretched to accept, without grudge or complaint, the present meaning of the word alms, forgetful entirely of its noble meaning of old. It is note- worthy that in Italy, with the lower people at least, the word carita (charity) has suffered from the same degradation of meaning ; from the expression of that highest bond of love and sympathy which should bind all mankind, it sank to designate the crumbs of bread thrown indifferently or scornfully to a beggar. But of these changes which imply moral or social changes, we shall see more presently. Before passing over to other considerations, let us cast a glance at some queer changes which have taken place in proper names either of places or of persons. Such names are as a rule far more steady in their forms than other com- mon words. But sometimes, especially when they pass from one to another language and THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 69 when popular fancies about their etymology come into play, they show very striking trans- formations. (See Taylor, " Words and Places.") Ingle ford, for instance, or the ford of the Angles, has given Hungerford. " Cape Wrath was originally Cape Hvarf, a Norse name, indi- cating a point where the land trends in a new direction." In Oxfordshire Chateau vert has become Shot over Hill ; Beau chef, Be achy Head; Grand Pont, ' the great Bridge,' Gram- pound. Leighton Beau desert has become *Leighton Buzzard. Grammercy Square, in New York, you would at first suppose is of French origin. But in the old Dutch maps of the city its name is De Kromvie Zee, the crooked lake, and its site was occupied by a pond. Anse des Cousins, the "bay of mosquitoes," became Nancy Cousins bay. Hagenes, one of the Scilly Isles, became St. Agnes, and Soracte, the mountain dear to Horace, is now called St. Oreste. A tower, near Grenoble, that was called from St. Vcrena, is now called la tour Sans VENIN, the tower without poison, and the peasants are 7o THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. firmly convinced that no poisonous animal can live in the neighborhood of that tower. Sailors have changed H. M. S. Bellerophon into 'the Billy Ruffian'; the 'Andromache' into the 'Andrew Mackay '; the '^Eolus' into the 'Alehouse'; the ' Courageux ' into the 'Cur- rant juice,' and the steamer ' Hirondelle ' (the swallow), into the ' Iron-devil.' To this category belong the rather fantastic transformations of signs of inns ; for instance, of 'the Bacchanals' into 'the Bag o' Nails'; the ' Pige washael,' or the virgin's greeting, into ' the 'Pig and Whistle.' If you will allow me, I will conclude this list with the prodigious linguistic feat of that groom " who used to call Othello and Desdemona — two horses under his charge — by the names of Old fellow and Thurs- day morning." EIGHTH LETTER. Some more Researches in the History and Connection, of Familiar Words. — Tear and larme ; dies, jour and Tues- day ; chair, cathedral and session; tile and detective; coin in English and in French/ aurora and combustion ; altar and origin; initial and count; surgeon and gar- dener; airows and intoxication ; temple and anatomy; tide and demon; timber and domestic ; symposium and poison ; a ' buxom ' woman ; syllable and syllabus ; deluge and laundry ; prose and verse; hectic and sail ; village, parish and diocese; chaperon; complexion ; beauty and bounty ; reasons and rations. 1SAID I would put an end to this rather desultory review of words most notable for their changes in sound and meaning, in order to pass over to other, in my mind, more inter- esting parts of our subject. But you write me that you feel so much interested in these re- searches, and you like these curiosities so much, that 1 will take you at your word, and devote one letter more to this same branch, bringing you another batch of familiar words whose use has undergone striking transformations. 72 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. I. Taylor, in his excellent book on " Words and Places," asks (page 256) : " Who would imagine that the French word larmc is the same as the English tear : that the French jour is a lineal descendant of dies ; or that jour and the two syllables of Tuesday are all descended from the same original Aryan root ? " Is this true ? Let us see. From a typical Aryan form dak-ra, a tear, we have the Greek forms dakru, dakriton, dakruma, and Old Latin dacrima, which afterwards, with a change not unusual, passed into lacrima. From this we have the Italian lagrima or lacrima, and the French larme (as sacra-mentum has given ser- menf). According to Grimm's law, to the Aryan type dakra answers a Teutonic type tagra. Hence Gothic tagr, Danish taar, Anglo- Saxon tear, taer, English tear (Middle English tere). From Latin dies we have the adjective ' diurnus,' of day time; from which the Italian giorno,journ in the Northern Italian dialects, jour in French. The last part of Mr. Taylor's sentence is not correct. Latin dies descends from a root din, THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 73 to shine ; this root gives in Anglo-Saxon tiw, from which we have the name of the God Tiw : Tewesday, Tiwes-day, Tues-day. It is true then that jour, which is derived from dies, and the ' first ' syllable of Tuesday descend from the same original Aryan root; but the 'second' syllable of Tuesday, that is the substantive day, Middle English dai, dei, Anglo-Saxon daeg, Dutch dag, Gothic dags, German tag, is of an origin entirely uncertain, and has no connection with the root of Latin dies. Were these two words, day and dies, derived from the same Aryan root, the English word should begin by /, according to Grimm's law (compare duo, two; dacruma, tear). Besides, it would still be im- possible to explain the g of the Anglo-Saxon form daeg. So easy it is, even for scholars like Taylor, to be deceived by a resemblance of sounds ! Would you say that there is any connection between chair and cathedral? Still they are derived from the same root and word ; only one is a substantive, whilst the other has an adjec- tival form. There is more : the word session, which seems to be miles apart, belongs also to 74 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. the same root, and when we say ' a sitting chair,' we say twice the same thing, uncon- sciously, as ' chair ' means by itself something to sit upon. We have the Aryan root sad, to which an- swers the Teutonic sit. This root appears in Latin and Greek under the form sed. But in Greek, according to the tendency of that lan- guage to substitute an initial s with an aspirate (compare hus, Latin sus ; hals, Latin sal, etc.), the root sed became hed. From this root we have hed-ra (efya), ' something to sit on,' a chair, a seat. With the prefix katd, we have cathedra, a seat, a stool, a pulpit. Hence cathedral church, a church with a seat, a throne for the bishop. This word ' cathedral,' belonging to the eccle- siastical world and being introduced into our language by learned men, has preserved its entire form. But the word 'cathedra' itself, having become a popular word, underwent all those surprising, but at the same time regular transformations by means of which the people, unconsciously yet symmetrically and analogic- ally, mould foreign words according to the THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 75 types of their own language. Cathedra passing into the French language : First, had to change the sound ca into cha (English sha) ; compare chapcau from capellum, chateau from castcllian, etc. Second, th, reduced first to /, had to dis- appear. As we have often noticed, it is a law of the French language that a consonant between two vowels, in certain particular com- binations, disappears ; compare jeu from iocus, feu from focus, maistre, maitrc, from magister, etc. Third, d (or /) before r had to disappear ; compare pere, mere, frere, from patrcm, ma- tron, fratrem. Fourth, the final a had, as usual, to be reduced to e : table from tabula, lune from luua, etc. Through these changes which are constant in the French language, we have successively the forms : chalere, chaere, chair e, from which the English chair. The Latin verb sed-ere, to sit, makes in the supine sessuvi, from which the substantive sessio (-onis) is formed, and our session, namely a ' sitting ' of an assembly or other body. Is it not clear? 'Session,' 'cathedral,' and ' chair ' are all from one and the same Aryan 7 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. root {sad), however strange it may seem at first. Is there any connection between tile and detective ? You laugh. I know what you mean : you will say that one covers, while the other uncovers. Good ! ben trovata ! But I mean, is there any philological connection? is there any genealogical relation between the two words? They are cousins, so to say. One, tile, grew up in a Teutonic country; the other was brought up on Latin soil and then travelled to England, but both of them come from the same Aryan parental root. Detective, of course, is from the Latin preposition de, and the supine tectum of the verb teg-ere, to cover ; from which we have also ' tegument,' a covering. Teg-ere stands for steg-ere, as it can be inferred from the corresponding forms steg-ein in Greek, and sthag in Sanskrit. Tile (which occurs also in the form tigel) is in Anglo-Saxon tigele and cor- responds to Latin tcgula, also from the root teg: properly a covering. We find in Anglo- Saxon tigel-wyrhta, a tile-wright, a potter. There can be no doubt that coin is the same word as the French coin. But the latter means 'corner,' while the English word is applied to THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 77 old money. How is this? Coin is the trans- formation of Latin aniens, a wedge, and coins were called a certain kind of moneys, that were stamped with a wedge. The word, transported into English, dropped out of the living and familiar language ; it became, so to say, a fossil word, used merely as a definite scientific term, in accordance with its old meaning. In French, where it had become a familiar word, it under- went some of those modifications of meaning which are common with all living words. It came to be applied not only to wedges and moneys stamped with a wedge, but to any angular form, to the angle of two walls, to a corner. I am sure you would be surprised and amused, had we to go over our dictionary together, and pick up at random some of the most common words, which, although differing from each other greatly, are to be referred to the same root. Take, for instance, aurora and combustion. Would you believe that these words come from the same root? Still nothing is more certain. From an Aryan root ns, to burn, normally ampliated into the form ans, we have the Latin 7§ THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. ausosa, the archaic form of aurora. (As you know, Latin s, between two vowels, passes very frequently into r : remember honoris from honos, Jwnosis, etc.) Aurora means really 'burning,' 1 shining.' From the same root us, and with the same change of s into r, we have the Latin verb ur-ere, to burn, which, however, shows its true root in its supine us-tum. This verb, with the prefix comb, equivalent to cum, gives the verb comburerc, from whose supine combustion we have the substantive combust io, -onis, a burning up, a ' combustion.' It is also a fact that altar and origin come from the same root. Altar, Latin altarc, akin with alius, high, is from the root ar (-al), to raise. From this same root we have the Greek verb ' or-nymi,' to raise, to stir up, and Latin or-iri, to rise, to begin. From this the sub- stantive origo -inis is derived, a ' rising,' a ' beginning,' an ' origin.' The root i of the verb ire, to go, gives birth to so different words as ' initial ' and ' count.' From iu-irc, to go into, to enter, to begin, we have iu-itium, a begkining, and the adjective A THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 79 initial. From aim-ire, to go together, we have corn-item, * that goes together,' a ' com- panion,' whence French comte, and English count. The count was the companion, the follower of the prince or duke. Practically, a surgeon and a gardener have not much in common. But philologically they are consanguineous. ' Surgeon ' is a corruption from chirurgeon. We find the forms cirurgiau, Old French cirurgien, Modern French c/iirur- gien. It comes from the Greek cheirourgos, from cJiciro — (c/ieir, the hand), and ergeiu, to work ; the physician that works with his hands, that performs^ as we put it nowadays, " practi- cal operations." This word cheir, the hand, is from an Aryan root ghar, to seize, to hold, to grasp, to enclose. From this same root we have the German 'garten,' and the English 'garden,' whose primitive meaning was simply an 'enclosure,' an 'enclosed patch of ground.' ' Gardener,' of course, is a direct filiation from 'garden.' We associate the idea of intoxication with that of wine or liquor. But, strange to say, the word is derived from the Greek name of 80 7V/£ FORTUNES OF WORDS. the bow. The bow in Greek is called toxon ; toxa were the arrows ; tokikdn, (Latin toxicant) was called a poison with which the arrows were smeared. In other languages this word toxicon was applied to all kinds of poison ; ; toxicology ' is the branch of medicine that studies poisons. In English we have applied its derivations (' intoxication ' and ' intoxicate') to that particu- lar kind of poisoning which is due to the abuse of wine or other alcoholic beverage. Temple and anatomy have also a common origin. Latin templnm, from an original tem- ulum, is, like the Greek tem-enos, from the root tarn, to cut. It was at first a piece of ground cut off for religious purposes, a sacred enclosure. From this same root we have the Greek verb tetn-no, to cut ; tom-e, a section, a part of a work ; and, with the prefix and, anatomy, a cutting up, a dis-secting. The same communion of birth may be traced out in tide and demon. Daemon in Latin, dai- mdn in Greek, did not mean an evil spirit, but a god. The word is formed from the root da, to divide, to distribute; daemon was the dis- tributing, the ruling power. It was only in THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. 81 progress of time (very likely under the influ- ence of Christian ideas) that the name of heathen gods was applied to malignant spirits, to infernal deities. From the same root da, which in the Teu- tonic family assumes the form ta, we have, among others, the word tide, which at first meant a division, a portion of time, then espe- cially that portion of time that intervenes be- tween the flux and the reflux of the sea ; fin- ally it was applied to the flux and reflux itself. It corresponds exactly to the German Zeit (compare two and zwei ; ten and zehn; etc.) Again, the same connection can be shown to exist between domestic and timber. Domestic, as you know, is from Latin domns, a house, and this from the root dam, to build. This root is in the Teutonic family tarn which, with the suffix ra, gives us a word like taui-ra or tcm-ra, meaning ' material for building.' From this we have the Danish tdmmcr, the Swedish tim- mer, and, with the excrescence of a b (quite common between m and r), the English timber. In the same way is formed the German Zim- mer (compare two and zwei; tide and Zeit, rO "" 82 THE FORTUNES OF WORDS. etc.) The fact that a word meaning 'building material' has been restricted to signify wood, throws no little light upon the life of the an- cient Teutons, the nature of their dwellings and surroundings. Not many would be able to discover any connection between symposium and poison. But these two words come also from the same root. There is an Aryan root pa which means to drink. It occurs in Latin and Greek under the form po. From it we have the Greek po-tos, a drink, and the Latin verb po-tare, to drink, with the substantive /0-/z'0/£ * *7* V W UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. APR3 « 8 * if. 6PR C Y®» JAN 2 9 1985 D LD-UH, ffifflH DFC2119 7 jrm L9-50to-4,'61(B8994r4)444 . 1 v'fe 3 1158 01002 910 : ■■- AA 660351509 5 -