Scaliger says (prima Scaligerana, p. 114): "mutam semper Galli tollunt inter duas vocales." This is very often justified by the transition from Latin to French in the case of gutturals and dentals. Between two vowels c is sometimes dropt; thus the Icauna becomes the Yonne, Tricasses becomes Troyes; and similarly the Sequana is turned into the Seine.

Another change in the Romance languages is the omission of c when it is followed by a T: comp. dictus, It. ditto, Fr. dit; pectus, It. petto, Fr. poitrine, &c. c also disappears in French when in the Latin form it was followed by R. Compare lacrima, sacramentum, &c., with larme, serment, &c. It is neglected in the same language when it stands between two vowels, especially when one or both are u (o) or i: compare apicula, corbicula, focus, jocus, locus, nocere, paucus, vices, &c., with abeille, corbeille, feu, jeu, lieu, nuire, peu, fois, &c. An omission of the hard c is sometimes strangely compensated by the introduction of o before i; thus we have poix from pix, Poitiers from Pictones, &c. We must distinguish this from foyer by the side of focus which has an o already.

In some cases the French converts the tenuis c into the medial G. Compare aigre, aveugle, maigre, &c. with acer, aboculus, macer, &c.

G is often omitted in the middle of French words: compare Augustus, Augustodunum, Brigantio, Lugdunum, legere, Ligeris, mais, maistre, noir, paien, reine, &c., with Août, Autun, Briançon, Lyon, lire, Loire, magis, magister, niger, paganus, regina, &c. Similarly, we have dais or dois (dasium) from dagus dach, i. e. the canopy over the high table in the hall. Compare also our pronunciation of Augustin as Austin, and of Magdalen as Maudlin. The same omission took place in old Latin; thus we find ma-vis magis-vis.

=

=

The French and Italians generally neglect the guttural H. The old hard sound of this aspirate is quite unknown to them.

Although the sibilant is in some cases akin to the dental class, the Latin sibilants x and s must be considered as belonging altogether to the gutturals. The Romans had a dental sibilant in their R, of which I shall speak directly; but these two seem to have in themselves no connexion with the dentals, beyond the circumstance that R is frequently derived from s by the substitution of a dental articulation, in the same way as stands for o

in θάλασσα for σάλασσα, &c., and as the lisping Englishman says yeth for yes.

If we consider x in its common acceptation, it is a direct combination of the guttural c or G with the sibilant s. This must, of course, be its power in rexi, flexi, &c. But it was not always equivalent to this combination either in sound or in origin. Sometimes it stands for the dental (= dj, as in rixa compared with ἔριδος, ερίζω, &c. And even when it was derived immediately from a guttural and s, the sibilant seems to have overpowered the guttural, which was either lost altogether or pronounced only as an aspiration. We have traces of this in the modern Italian pronunciation of Alessandro, vissi, &c. The Greek derived its name from the Hebrew shin, and perhaps occasionally represented it in sound. A sibilant or aspirate often changes its place: thus the Gothic hv is in English wh, the Greek hr is the Latin rh, and the Greek = xσ- might occasionally be σ- compare the transposition in the oriental words Iscander, Scanderoon, Candahar, all derived from the Greek Αλέ-ξανδρος. 'Aλé-avopos. The last of these words is a mutilation which

reminds us of the modern Scotch division of the name Alexander into the two abbreviations Alick and Saunders or Sandy. When the transposition was once effected, the softening of the guttural was obvious and easy: compare oxÉTALOS, "scathe," schade; Xapun, "s-kirmish," schirm, &c. χάρμη,

The Latin s is principally remarkable as standing at the beginning of words, the Greek equivalents of which have only an aspirate compare sal, sex, septem, sol, sylva, simul, sedere, sequi, somnus, &c., with ἅλς, ἕξ, ἕπτα, ἥλιος, ὕλη, ἅμα, ἕζεσθαι, ἕπομαι, ὕπνος, &c. Though in some cases even this aspirate has vanished: as in άvač, ei, éλλós, &c., compared with senex, si, sileo, &c. It frequently happens that in the more modern forms of the Roman language an original s has been superseded by the dental sibilant R. Thus Quintilian tells us (I. 4, § 13) that Valesius, Fusius, arbos, labos, vapos, clamos, and lases (cf. Fest. s. v.), were the original forms of Valerius, Furius, arbor, labor, vapor, clamor, and lares; and it is clear that honor, honestus, are only different forms of onus, onustus. It is rather surprising that the Jurist Pomponius (Digg. I. 2, 2, § 36) should have attributed to Appius Claudius Cæcus (consul I. A.U.C. 447, B.C. 307; consul II. A. U. C. 458, B.C. 296) the inven

tion of a letter which is the initial of the names Roma and Romulus. He can only mean that Appius was the first to introduce the practice of substituting R for s in proper names, a change which he might have made in his censorship. It appears, from what Cicero says, that L. Papirius Crassus, who was consul in A.U.C. 418, B. c. 336, was the first of his name who did not call himself Papisius (ad Famil. IX. 21): "How came you to suppose," says Cicero, writing to L. Papirius Pætus, "that there never was a Papirius of patrician rank, when it is certain that they were patricii minorum gentium? To begin with the first of these, I will instance L. Papirius Mugillanus, who, in the year of the city 312, was censor with L. Sempronius Atratinus, who had previously (A. U. c. 310) been his colleague in the consulship. But your family-name at that time was Papisius. After him there were thirteen of your ancestors who were curule magistrates before L. Papirius Crassus, the first of your family that disused the name Papisius. This Papirius was chosen dictator in A.U.C. 415, with L. Papirius Cursor for his magister equitum, and four years afterwards he was elected consul with K. Duilius.' We must conclude, therefore, that Appius Claudius used his censorial authority to sanction a practice, which had already come into vogue, and which was intimately connected with the peculiarities of the Roman articulation. In fact, the Romans were to the last remarkable for the same tendency to rhotacism, which is characteristic of the Umbrian, Dorian, and Old Norse dialects.

§ 4. The Dentals.

The Romans had five dentals or linguals: the mutes D and T, the liquids L and N, and the secondary letter R, which in most alphabets is considered a liquid, but in the Latin stands for an aspiration or assibilation of the medial D. Grimm's law, as applied to the dentals, stands thus:

The following examples will serve to establish the rule.

1st column. Initials: dingua, lingua, tuggo, zunga; deus, O. N. tŷr, O. H. G. ziu; dens, dentis, Goth. tunthus, O. H. G. zand; domare, tamjan, zemen; dolus, O. N. tál, zâla; ducere,

Goth. tiuhan, O. H. G. ziohan; duo, tva, zuei; dextra, taíhsvó, zësawa. Midlde sounds: sedes, sedere, sitan, sizan; edere, itan, ëzan; videre, vitan, wizan; odium, hatis, haz; u-n-da, vató, wazar; sudor, sveiti, sweiz; pedes, fotjus, vuozi.

the medial is found.

2d column. The Latin has no ; and when the R stands for the D, there are generally other coexistent forms in which For the purpose of comparison Grimm has selected some Latin words in which a Latin F stands by the side Initials: fores (Oúpa), daúr, tor; fera (Onp), O. N. dýr, O. H. G. tior. Middle sounds: audere, ausus (Oappeîv), gadaúran, turran; mathu, Tusc. (Gr. μé0v), Anglo-Sax. mëdo, 0. H. G. mitu.

of the Greek 0.

3d column. Initials: tu, Gothic thu; O. H. G. dû; tener, O. N. thunnr, O. H. G. dunni; tendere, Goth. thanjan, O. H. G. denen; tacere, thahan, dagen; tolerare, thulan, dolen; tectum, thak, dach. Middle sounds: frater, bróthar, pruoder; rota, O. N. hradhr (" celer”), O. H. G. hrad (“rota”); a-l-ter (Umbr. Tusc. etre), anthar, andar; iterum, vithra, widar.

Of the commutations of the dentals one with another in the Latin language alone, the most constant is the interchange of D with L or R. D becomes L in delicare (Fest. pp. 70, 73), impelimenta, levir, Melica, (Fest. p. 124), olfacit, for dedicare, impedimenta, Sanp, Medica, odefacit; and is assimilated to L in such words as mala, ralla, scala, sella, from ma-n-do, rado, sca-n-do, sedeo: the converse change is observable in 'Odvoσeus, Πολυδεύκης, δάκρυον (dacrima, Fest. p. 68), δαψιλής, dingua (Mar. Vict. p. 2547) (O. H. G. zunga), Capitodium, meditari, kadamitas, adauda, &c., the more genuine forms of which are preserved in Ulysses (óλiyos), Pol-lux (comp. devκés, Hesych. with lux), lacryma (liqueo), lapsilis (λáπтw), lingua (λeixeiv), Capitolium, ueλetâv, calamitas, alauda, &c.: déw, on the contrary, is a more ancient form than ligare, (see N. Crat. § 155). This change takes place within the limits of the Greek language also: comp. δείδω with δειλός, δας (δᾷδος) with δαλός, &c., though in many of these cases there is the residue of an original assimilation, as in kaλós, root kad-, cf. káłw, &c. The change

is also observable in the passage from Latin to the Romance languages; thus Digentia has become Licenza, the people of Madrid call themselves Madrilenos, and Egidius becomes Giles. The other dentals, T and N, are also sometimes converted into L: as

in Thetis, Thelis; Nympha, Lympha, &c. (See Varro, L. L. VII. § 87). In some cases there is a passage from 8 to λ in Greek, as in adŋv, aλis (compare satis); and the Greek in Owpn is represented by an 7 in lorica. There is an inter

change of N and R in æreus, æneus; in murus, munio; in dŵpov, donum; πλýρns, plenus; Londres, London; Havre, Hafen ; &c. The ablative or adverbial D has become n in longinquus, propinquus, from longe[d], prope[d]; compare antiquus, posticus, from antea, postea, amicus from amo (amao), &c. In the corruption Catamitus from Ganymedes, both N and D are changed into T, and in caduceus from knρуkeιov we have the converse change from R to D. D is dropt when flanked by two vowels, as es for edis, est for edit, esse for edere, item for itidem, &c. So also the dental liquids L and N are liable to excision; compare vis volis, and the numberless omissions of the final -nt as in fuêre=fuerunt, regna = regnont.

=

The change from D to R has been often pointed out, in such common instances as au-ris compared with aud-io, apor for apud, meridie for medii die, ar-vocat for ad-vocat, &c. The verb arcesso, which is also written accerso, furnishes a double example of the change: the original form was ad-ced-so accedere sino; in arcesso the first d is changed into r, and the second assimilated to s in accerso the first d is assimilated to c, and the second changed to r. In the Romance language D is changed into R in the Spanish lampare from lampada, and conversely in the Italian rado from raro, fedire from ferire; compare the English paddock for parruc, A. S. for park.

As a final letter, D became more and more liable to proscription. With the exception of the proclitics ad and apud, sometimes written et or at and aput, ar and apor; the conjunction sed, also written set; and the adverb haud, also written haut and aut (cf. autem); we have no D in auslaut in classical Latinity. In the ablative, D was absorbed before the rise of Roman literature, and -ad for -nd or -nt in the neuter plural was finally represented by -ǎ only.

N is principally remarkable in Latin from its use as a sort of anusvârah (see N. Crat. p. 303). In this use it is inserted, generally before the second consonant of the root, as in tu-n-do, root tud-; fi-n-do, root fid-, &c.; but sometimes after it, as in ster-n-o, root ster-, stra-; sper-n-o, root sper-, spre-; si-n-o, root si-, &c.