1849.] Nasal Stems. 479 and gâ, to go; bhas and bhâ, to shine, compare qάoxo and paw; sthal and sthâ, to stand, to put, compare o7ɛλhew and stare; ir and î, to go, compare iva and ir-e; dru, drav, and drâ, to run; all still in use in the Sanskrit; the latter corresponds to dquo; dhri, dhar, and dhâ, to set; compare zinu (dadhâmi); from dhar comes dhârâ, earth, while terra cannot be traced to a Latin root; pal and pâ, to rule, to spread abroad; compare pellere; the former appears again in the Causal, and in pallis, seat of government, as appended to the name of a city; this throws light on the hitherto unexplained derivation of nóg. Again, the language sought to multiply its roots by increasing their vowels with Wriddhi; as, gî and gai, to sing; dhî and dhyai, to meditate, etc.; or by changing them into the corresponding semi-vowels, in which case the other languages of the family have often retained the purer form; as, sud, sved, to sweat, sudare; sun, svan, to sound, sonare; sup, svap, to sleep, sopire. Still further, we find a tendency in the roots to become dissyllabic; thirteen such exceptions to the general rule are enumerated, and the mode of their origin illustrates the efforts of the language to enrich itself. Its further development would assuredly have afforded us more of such roots; they would in part form denominatives, (as from duskha, pain, has come a verb dukh, to be in pain, and as katha, to relate, is derived from the interrogative katham, how? and so properly means, to make known the grounds of a matter; a derivation hardly recognizable in inquit and the English quoth,) and in part would arise from the blending of prefixes with the root, as has been the case with the few dissyllabic roots. The last step was to relinquish the radical vowel, of which the Sanskrit presents us comparatively few instances. It never allows of such changes as, for instance, in brach, brechen, brich, gebrochen, bruch, but holds fast to its vowel at all events, and at the most only allows of a strengthening by Guna and Wriddhi. Yet the interchange of â and î is frequent and of ancient date; e. g. pâ, piv, and pî, to drink, which explains the common origin of zów bibere, and ivo; again, âp and îp, to obtain, ad-ip-isci; with the previx abhi it means, to hope, op-tare; with pari, to be handy, ap-tum esse. Before leaving this part of my subject, which is evidently of the highest importance to the thorough investigation of the classic languages, and, as relating to the very ground work of the Sanskrit, seems to require a degree of detail in its treatment, I must make reference to those stems which, in some of their inflected forms, introduced a nasal, because they furnish a common origin and point of union to the corresponding Latin and Greek verbs; as lih, and linh, to lick, Leize and lingere; chhid and chhind, to split, oxižev and scindere; ud and und, to flow, doop and unda; labh and lambh, to attain, laß and laußávo; yuj and yunj, to unite (yuktas), jungere and jugum; pij and pinj, to paint (piktas), pingere and pictus; and sak and sank, to be holy, which explains sacer and sanctus, for which Kärcher and others, of late, could find no root. The Latin, in particular, gains from the Sanskrit a fixedness and certainty in its etymology, which none other of the kindred languages furnish it; would we settle the dispute among grammarians, as to whether vehemens should be spelt with an h, the Sanskrit stem vah, to carry, vehere, decides it in the affirmative; would we trace to a root aevum and air, we find it in the Sanskrit iv, to endure; dies is in Sanskrit dyâ (like the Cretan Aia), and comes from div, to shine; proelium, is pralaya, dissolution, from pra-lî; the teeth, o8órras, dentes, are adantas, the eaters, from ad, edere; the Sanskrit likewise assures us that the old derivation of vidua from the Etrurian iduare, is incorrect; widow here is vidhava, literally, without a husband (dhavas); and so in innumerable other cases. But it is time to leave these naked stems, the germs of the verbs, and turn our attention to the verbs themselves. The division into the so-called conjugations is based upon the dif ferent methods in which the personal endings are united to the root. There are ten of them, but they differ only in respect to the first four tenses. The first introduces an a between the root and the termination; pach, to cook, pach-a-ti, he cooks; analogous to the Greek Lɛin-o-uɛv, for Leinuɛv. Nearly half the whole number of verbs belong to this conjugation. The second is properly the primitive conjugation, for it adds the personal endings immediately to the root; ad-mi, I eat, vedmas, we know; Doric idues; pâ, to rule, pâmi, pâsi, pâti, declined precisely like pau. The number of roots in this conjugation is some sixty or seventy; in the Greek and Latin it is still less. The third takes a reduplication; dâ, to give, dadâmi, like didou; dhâ, to set, dadhâmi, zívŋui. The fourth introduces a y; vas, to clothe, vasyanti, they clothe; we may find formations analogous to this in the Gothic and Althochdeutsch, though not in the Greek. The fifth adds nu to the root; ap-nu-mas, we obtain; compare deixvv. The sixth The seventh includes the is much like the first, but is uncommon. stems already mentioned, which admit a nasal; yuj and yunj, to unite. The eighth adds u; as tan, to stretch, tan-u-mas, we stretch; so Tav-v-o. In the Latin tendere, a d is introduced, as in pro-d-ire, and other words. The Greek sometimes prefixes a d; e. g. Sanskrit raras, dew, ros; Greek, doooos; Sanskrit asru, tear; Greek, dáxov, etc. The ninth appends ni; lû, to loosen, lu-ni-mas, we loosen; compare dáxvo, idaxor. The tenth agrees with the fourth in introducing a y. 1849.] Tenses of the Verbs. 481 Every verb is either transitive (parasmaipadam, passing over to another) or reflexive (âtmanepadam, returning upon the actor). From the first are formed passives, which have the inflexions of the middle. Likewise are found modifications of the roots into Causals, Frequentatives, and Desideratives; the latter formed by reduplication, as in Greek; e. g. pîpâs, to wish to drink; compare ningú¤×ш, didász. The moods and tenses are ten, arranged as follows. The Present; the Potential, corresponding to the Subjunctive and Optative; e. g. from pâ, to rule, pâyâm, pâyâs, pâyât, I might or could rule, etc.; compare pain, gains, pain; dadyâm, I would give, didoiny. The Imperative; pâtu, let him rule; dadatu, let him give; like gázw, didózw. The Imperfect with an augment; apâm, apâs, apât, I ruled; par, pas, pa; adadam, I gave, ¿dídoor. The Perfect with a reduplication; tutopa, I have struck, zizuna. Two Futures, one periphrastic, formed with help of the auxiliary, to be; datâsmi, for data-asmi, a giver am I; the other regular, with the character s: dasyami, I will give; compare dwow. The Precative; this, with the other tenses following, is of rare occurrence: dâyasam, I would give, doinoar. The Conditional, used in hypothetical propositions; adâsyat, if he gives. Lastly, an Aorist, with an augment: adam, like door. Each tense has a singular, a dual, and a plural, and in the dual a first person, which all the other members of the family, save the Lithuanian, have lost. It may be remarked, however, that the Indian regards our first person as the third, because the I is last taken cognizance of by consciousness; and so their declension runs; he loves, thou lovest, I love. Finally, from every mood and tense are formed participles, entirely analogous to those of the classic languages. I shall not, however, enlarge further upon the nature and inflection of the verb, as what I have already said will suffice to give some idea of its structure, and this part of the subject has been learnedly and thoroughly treated of by Bopp. Neither will it be necessary to take up the declension of the noun, however interesting would be its comparison with that of the kindred tongues, upon which moreover it casts much light. There are eight cases; namely, besides the classic six, an instrumental and a locative. The latter ends in i, which, with final a of the root, becomes e deve, in God. In domi, ruri, this character is still perceptible; in zoom, Romae, and the like, it has become confounded with the genitive and dative. Both noun and pronoun have also a complete dual. The Indian grammarians treat the noun as they treat the verb, inasmuch as they assume for it a fundamental form, which only becomes a noun by the addition of case endings; accordingly we find in a vocabulary not Devas, God, but deva, as the nominative is formed VOL. VI. No. 23. 41 by affixing an s: not nama, name, but naman, the n, rejected to form the nominative, appearing again in the declension. It is as if the Latin were to give homin, and pulver, as fundamental forms for homo and pulvis. These forms are mostly traceable to the verbal-stems, and are very variously derived from them: by the before-mentioned strengthening of the vowel (Guna and Wriddhi); as from yuj, to unite, yoga, union; or by simply adding a vowel; as from tal, to count, comes tâla, number; or by the addition of an infinite number of deriva tive syllables, suffixes, which give to this language a copiousness such as belongs to no other. I will name here but a few of them: âlas, â, am, form general nouns; from sthâ, to stand, sthâla, anything that stands, a dish, a stool, etc.; from pî, to drink, piyâla (name of a tree), compare pian; from chand, to shine, candidum esse, chandala, lamp, chandelle : tra indicates the instrument; pâ, to drink, pâtra, cup bhas, to shine, bhâstra, window, old Latin, festra; vas, to clothe, vastra, clothing, Greek ¿georgis tri denotes the actor; sû, to sew, sutri, the sewer, sutor; kri, to make, kartri (kartaram), creator; jan, to beget, janitri, genitrix: ras, â, am, forms adjectives; madhu, honey, μέvv, meth, mead; thence madhuras, sweet, ripe, maturus: ikas has the same office, vasantikas, spring-like; compare noixós, etc.: înas, â, am, signifies a relation; kula, family, kulinas, belonging to a family; compare leoninus, vivos: tas, not inflected, serves to express, adverbially, a relation of place; devatas, from God; compare coelitus, divinitus; tas, â, am, or nas, nâ, nam, form past passive participles; dâtas, â, am, given, dânam, gift, donum; the same suffix makes of aris, enemy, arina, discord; compare gurrós. The final means by which the Sanskrit arrives at great copiousness and elegance is composition. The various methods of composition are reduced by the native grammarians to fixed classes, and of some of these classes only single examples are to be found in the classic languages, so limited in comparison is their capacity for forming them. Most frequent is that class of which a limiting adjective constitutes the first member, a substantive the second, Bahuvrihi, which Schlegel terms qualitative composition; e. g. mahâtman, of lofty spirit, like magnanimus, gododάxzvλos. Another class is Tatpurusha, the energic composition, whose first member is dependent on the second in a way usually expressed by a case; devadânam, God's gift, for dânam devasya; Râmâyana, Rama's adventures; analogous to nazgozzóvos, aurifaber. A compound whose first member is a numeral is called Dviga; panchanâvas, having five ships, like nevraeris, septicollis. Another, Avyayîbhâva, unites a particle with a substantive; anugangam, what is along the Ganges, like nagάxoris, confinis. When a ῥοδοδάκτυλος. 1849.] Character of the Language. 483 qualifying adjective is connected with a substantive, the compound is termed Karmadhâraya; mahârâja, the great king; Mayakózolis; the Latin affords no examples. The last class unites two or more, often many, substantives as asyndeta; e. g. pânipâdan, hands and feet; so Aristophanes forms Tisameneophainippus, and perhaps the Latin suovetaurilia is of the same character. All these compounds are easily recognized in Sanskrit, because the case ending is only applied to the final member, all the others retaining the ground-form. Some have, however, ignorantly mistaken the euphonic connection of words for composition, and maintained accordingly that there were to be found words of several hundred syllables. For the Sanskrit, having only regard to euphony, adapts the final consonant of one word to the initial of the next, and writes both together; as if the Greek were to write the sentence τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν λαμβάνειν, τημπολιγια την αρχηγλλαμβάνειν. This grammatical sketch may suffice to enable us to judge in some measure of the character of the Sanskrit; that this character is of high antiquity, we are assured not merely by the close and minute analogy discernible between it and the kindred languages, particularly the classical (and that this is not a casual resemblance, the entire diversity of structure of the Semitic family proves), but also by the fact that the productions which Solomon obtained from India are called by names which admit of a regular derivation from roots of this language, and that all geographic appellations, and more especially Indian words, which we receive from Alexander's Greeks, are, however much corrupted they may be, explainable in Sanskrit. One more very remarkable circumstance tends to prove the same thing, and moreover corroborates our theory of the influence of Indian on Egyptian civilization, namely, that the ancient Egyptian names allow of an easy and natural explanation by the Sanskrit, while the etymologies which Jablonsky, Loega, Champollion, and others, have attempted from the Coptish, vary widely from one another, although their signification ought to be but one, and of evident probability. It is, however, but an uncertain matter at best, to guess at the derivation of names whose meaning is not given, and such attempts have ever constituted the most slippery ground of etymology. The Indians regard Panini as their oldest grammarian; yet he compiled from still earlier works his short aphorisms or sutras, 3996 in number, and the Bhagavadgita makes mention of grammatical forms, thus showing that abstract grammar even then had an existence. Katyayanas wrote a commentary on Panini's sutras; a brother of Vikramaditya also applied himself to their elucidation, and during the |
