After some explanations on the roots of words, Professor Bopp goes on to a detailed analysis of the declensions. He distinguishes most carefully, in every word, between the root, the formative or derivative suffix, and the termination of the cases, and shows how all the Arian languages have employed the same elements for expressing the different relations of substantives to substantives and to verbs. Instead of following him into this minute analysis, where often many pages are devoted to one single letter, we shall give one instance, which will show the affinity of the Sanskrit declensions with those of the classical languages and the Gothic, without requiring long expositions as to the changes and losses of letters. From this our word fee, pecu-nia. πατράσι (Dat. ) † As the Greek language has lost the common Arian word for brother (oparhp), it was necessary to take Tarp as the Greek paradigm. It is very characteristic of the genius of the Greek language, that the old word (bhrâtar) is not used there in the sense of brother. There can be little doubt that the Greeks knew this common Arian word, for the Homeric ppúrpa is clearly derived 1851. Declension. Numerals and their Accents. 27 The first volume of the Comparative Grammar further comprises the Adjectives, the Degrees of Comparison, and the Numerals. The numerals form a most interesting page of Comparative Philology. Their general similarity in the Arian languages, with a few exceptions in the words for one' and nine,' is too striking to admit of any doubt with regard to their common origin. It is true that, in some cases, these words, which have been in continual use for the last four thousand years, passing from mouth to mouth in the transactions of daily life, have almost lost their original stamp, and, like old coins, require an experienced eye to recognise them. In most cases, however, they have resisted most wonderfully the wear and tear of centuries. It is not unlikely that several Arian numerals go back as far as the times when the Arian and Semitic families were not yet separated; and, in this case, it would follow, according to Chevalier Bunsen's before-mentioned theory, that the old Egyptian language of the hieroglyphics ought to have the same, or even an older form. This seems, indeed, to be borne out by a comparison of the Egyptian saf-x, seven,' on the Arian side, with Sanskrit sap-ta, Zend haptan, from it. But the Greeks must very early have extended the ties of brotherhood from the exclusiveness of family life, to the broader range of political society. There were brothers-in-arms, brothers in warlike expeditions; brothers, not as born of the same mother, but as men whose common mother was their common country: they were to each other real pparépes, fratres, companions and friends. Now, if pparýp had once taken the meaning of clansman, brother-in-arms, it was no longer fit to express the particular relation between children of the same parents, and therefore another word was coined for this meaning, ἀδελφός (for ἁμαδελpos),-corresponding to the Latin co-uterinus, and the Sanskrit sa-garbha, i. e. of the same womb. This way of accounting for the absence of the word pparp, in Greek, is most strikingly confirmed by a reference to the modern languages. The laws which affect the growth of language are the same in ancient and modern idioms. But in modern languages the process of formation is almost historical,— we can prove it by documents, and trace it from century to century; while in the ancient languages we must begin with conjectures, and try to confirm them by critical research. Now, why has the old Latin word for brother, which the French has preserved in frère, been lost in Italian and Spanish?-Because in Spain and Italy the classical word, frater, took so entirely the technical sense of a brother of a religious order,'-a monk (friar), that the Italian frate and fra, as well as the Spanish frey (freile, fray, fraile), could no longer be used for brother in its original sense, and had to be replaced by fratello and hermano. The same accounts for the substitution of sorella for the Italian suora, and of hermana for the Spanish sor. Greek TT-Tá, Latin septem, Gothic sib-un: and, on the Semitic side, with Hebrew shib-xâh, Ethiopio sabâxe-tu, and Arabic sabatun, which explains the Hebrew Sabath, the seventh day of the week.' The following list will show the similarity of the Arian numerals: How the difference of form in these words may be accounted for by phonetic laws, can be seen from Professor Bopp's elaborate investigations. Nothing, however, shows better the close relationship of the Arian numerals, than a comparison with the numerals of different families of languages, as may be gathered from the subjoined specimens of Turanian numerals: How far the identification of the Arian numerals can be carried, appears from this, that even the accent, which has so long been despised as an invention of grammarians, while it is, indeed, the very soul of words, is ascertained to be the same in the Greek and Sanskrit numerals. At the time, when Professor Bopp wrote his Comparative Grammar, it was not yet known that the Sanskrit had preserved its system of accentuation in manuscripts. None of the works written in the so-called classical Sanskrit are accented; and the late Dr. Rosen had not marked the accents in his edition of the first book of the Rig-Veda. The new edition of the Rig-Veda, however, which is now publishing under the patronage of the East India Company, shows that the Vedic literature of the Brahmans is accented; and Professor Bopp promises a supplement to his Comparative Grammar, in order to prove the common origin and true principles of the Sanskrit and Greek accents. rules on the accent in Sanskrit are contained in the Prâtis'âkhyas, works which are quoted by the famous Indian grammarian, Pânini, and are therefore anterior to the fourth century B. C. They coincide in their general bearing with the Greek The 1851. Pronouns. Conjugation. 29 rules.* In the numerals, for instance, the only two which are oxytona in Greek, are also oxytona in Sanskrit (Sansk. ashṭán OKTO, eight, saptánέπTá, seven); while pánchan =TÉVTE, návan=¿vvéa, dás'an=déka, are paroxytona, both in the Veda and in Homer. This should be a fact of some interest to those who extend their criticism, or rather scepticism, both to 'the language of Persia and the Indo-gangetic languages of • Hindostan.' The second volume begins with the Pronouns, which as we now know, form the oldest elements of language, although they have long been considered as mere expedients to avoid too frequent a repetition of substantives. The apparently irregular forms in the declension of pronouns, are proved by Professor Bopp to be, on the contrary, the most regular, in so far as they have preserved the old Arian terminations with greater fidelity than either nouns or adjectives. It is, indeed, one of the principal results of Comparative Philology to have proved that, in language, there is nothing irregular, in the usual sense of the word. Former grammarians considered everything as irregular which did not conform to rules which they had themselves invented and it was seriously maintained, for instance, that, in the Teutonic languages, all verbs were originally irregular.' A language, however, as Archdeacon Hare remarks, could no more coalesce out of irregular words, than a world could out of the indeterminate atoms of Epicurus. The coincidences between the Arian languages with respect to the so-called irregular forms of the pronouns, are most striking, and extremely instructive in their applications to Greek and Latin grammar. How great an interest has been taken in these venerable relics ' of language,' may be seen from the considerable number of works exclusively dedicated to a comparative analysis of the pronouns. We shall only mention the two most important,that by W. von Humboldt On the Relation of Local Adverbs ' with the Pronouns of different Languages,' and by Bopp 'On 'the Influence of Pronouns on the Formation of Words in San'skrit and the Cognate Languages.' Greek Sanskrit. όψε = vâkshú. ὄπας = vâ'chas. và vâgbhyâ'm. The most difficult, but at the same time the most brilliant, part of Comparative Philology, is the Verb. Before the appearance of his Comparative Grammar, Professor Bopp had written on the formation of the Verb, and his Conjugations-System was translated into English as early as 1820, in the Annals of Oriental Literature (Analytical Comparison of the Sanskrit, "Greek, Latin, and Teutonic Languages'). We may dispense with giving a detailed account of Professor Bopp's theory on this subject, as the principal results of these researches have been put before the public by several eminent English writers, whose works have either modified or more fully illustrated some points of Bopp's system. We allude in particular to Donaldson's Cratylus, and the Rev. R. Garnett's valuable Articles.* But with regard to the general tenor of Bopp's investigations, if his object had been no higher one than to prove the connexion of the Arian conjugations, a few paradigms would have been sufficient, instead of the 825 paragraphs devoted by him to this subject. Coincidences like those which run through the principal tenses and moods of the verb in all Arian languages, put the question as to their common origin beyond the reach of reasonable doubt. Bopp's great merit, however, does not consist in having pointed out these coincidences, but in having explained them, by tracing most minutely the origin and progress of verbal forms in the different languages of the Arian stock. A classical scholar, there * Published in the Transactions of the Philological Society. |