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Early Journal Content on JSTOR, Free to Anyone in the World This article is one of nearly 500,000 scholarly works digitized and made freely available to everyone in the world by JSTOR. Known as the Early Journal Content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other writings published in more than 200 of the oldest leading academic journals. The works date from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. We encourage people to read and share the Early Journal Content openly and to tell others that this resource exists. People may post this content online or redistribute in any way for non-commercial purposes. Read more about Early Journal Content at http://about.jstor.org/participate-jstor/individuals/early- journal-content. JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Vol. xxiii.] Semitic W'ords in Greek and Latin. 35 II.- On Semitic Words in Greek and Latin. BY W. MUSS-ARNOLT, PH.D., JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. TIME was when even respectable scholars like GUICHARD (I606), THOMASSIN (I697), COURT DE GEBELIN (I775), Jo. A. ERNESTI and others, believed the Hebrew language to have been the mother tongue of all ancient and modern languages, the lingua primaeva.l Following the lead of earlier Jewish commentators,2 they attempted to prove this assertion by such arguments as these: (I) That the nouns and proper names before the confusion of tongues were of a distinctly Hebrew origin, e.g. I: ('adim), 'man,' or =^, (hebel), 'breath, transitoriness.' It did not occur to them that these names were formed by the Hebrew nation, and thus of no high antiquity. (2) That there are in almost all languages traces of Hebrew words, which they considered a convincing proof of the common origin of all. (3) By an historical exegesis of Gen. ii. 23. Thus they tried to derive every Greek, Latin, and German word from a Semitic prototype. Such hypotheses have been advanced even by men of the nineteenth century; e.g. MATHIAS NORBERG3derived e0vo0 from m' ('am), 'people,' with epenthesis of 0; Xeyco by metathesis from ?1p (q7l), 1 Etienne Guichard 'Harmonie etymologique des langues, ou se demontre que toutes les langues sont descendues de l'h6braique' (Paris, I606); Louis de Thomassin 'Meth6de d'enseigner la grammaire ou les langues par rapport a l'1criture sainte, en les reduisant toutes a l'hebreu' (2 vols. Paris, 1690-93) and 'Glossarium universale hebraicum' (Paris, I697); Court de Gebelin 'Le monde primitif, analyse et compare avec le monde moderne' (9 vols. Paris, 1775-I784); Johann August Ernesti ' De vestigiis linguae hebraicae in lingua graeca, Opuscula philologica critica' (L. B. 1762), 178 ff. 2 Onkelos and Targum Hierosolymitanum ad Gen. xi. I; also Josephus, Antt. I, 4; IO, 2. 3 Opuscula, II. Dissertationes 15 and I6 (Londini Gothorum, 1818). 36 W. Muss-Arnolt. [I892. voice, /vOewoas well as 3aoaLXeiofrom the same(7. (mdadl), 4 'to liken and to rule'; again, J. BRAUN derives 7rvelevafrom Hebr. 1S (pegnzum),5Aad/og from Lamech, and Katvev' from Kain. Shortly after the discovery of the Sanskrit language scholars sought to find a genetic connection between this and the Semitic languages, e.g. ADELUNG (Mithridates I. 149-76), comparing Skt. ddima, 'first,' with Hebr. sK; raja, 'king' with Hebr. ttYK (r3o, res), 'head, prince.' There are, it is true, even to this day not a few philologists- and among them some authorities deserving the highest respect - who hold that correspondences enough have been found between Indo-European and Semitic roots to prove the ultimate connection of these two families of language.6 Here we have to mentioh above all I. RUDOLF VON RAUMER, 'Ueber die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indoeuropaischen Sprachen.'7 The main substance of von Raumer's arguments consists in a series of correspondences between weak or geminate Hebrew roots and Indo-European words; and he claims respecting them that, both in number and in degree, they are altogether beyond what could be explained as the result of chance or of anything but genetic connection. This claim is by no means to be admitted, says an authority such as WHITNEY (Proceedings of Phil. Assoc., I876, 27). A few examples may suffice to illustrate his method of procedure: Hebr. 31 (bub), 'be hollow' = puppis. Again, ,13 (bdkdh), 'cry, shed tears, drip'= 7rrrj/; Y33 (nabd'), 'pour out, bubble forth,' with 4'Naturgeschichte der Sage; Riickfiihrung aller religiSsen Ideen, Sagen, Systeme, auf ihren gemeinsamen Stammbaum und ihre letzte Wurzel' (Miinchen, I862). 5 No such Hebrew word is known to me; perhaps he meant '71, 1penu-ed. 6 W. D. WHITNEY, 'Language and the Study of Language,' 394. 7 In his ' Gesammelte Sprachwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen,' 1863, pp. 461- 539, and its four 'Fortsetzungen,' pp. 24, 35, i8, and 22, published Frankfurt a. M. in 1867, i868, I871, I873; also his answer to SCHLEICHER'Scritique in ' Herr Professor Schleicher in Jena und die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indo- europaischen Sprachen, ein kritisches Bedenken,' 1864, pp. 17; ' Sendschreiben an Herrn Professor'Whitney iiler die Urverwandtschaft,'etc., 1876, pp. 20; Zeit- schrift fiir vergleichende Sprachforschung (= KZ.), 22, 235-249. Vol. xxiii.] Semitic Words in Greek and Latin. 37 vdwir7; J (saEgdr), 'lock up,' with sacer. Had Raumer known Assyrian he would have found a great many more examples, e.g. /,eXoq and Assyrian beld, pl. bFl, 'implements of war,' etc. 2. More scientific than Raumer's are FRIEDRICH DE- LITZSCH'S studies.8 But he has given up for many years the views proposed in his book, and no longer believes in the possibility of establishing proof for a connection between Semitic and Indo-European. 3. Also ERNST NOLDECHEN'S9attempt to prove that the two great families are descendants of the same parent speech, has not gained its point. His comparison of such words as 'M. (kefir), 'young lion,' and caper (he-goat); 3D (ndfel), 'untimely birth, abortion,' and Skt. napan (read napdt), Lat. nepos, 'grandchild'; 018 (ra_ddm),'sleep soundly,' and Latin dormio; =:I" ('arbda), 'four,' and the Skt. arbha, 'lowly, few'; 1g" (itfa'), 'go out,' and Skt. vais, 'become light' (rise, said of the sun), class him with Raumer and others.10 4. JAMES F. MCCURDYpublished in I88i his views on 'the Aryo-Semitic Speech' (Andover, pp. 176), in which he claimed to have made an advance upon any of his predeces- sors in the same inquiry. In the first place, the morphology of the Proto-Semitic as well as of Proto-Aryan roots is fully discussed; secondly, it is postulated that if the two families of speech were ever one, the only evidence of their identity is to be adduced from their expressions for primitive and simple ideas. The method employed in the book is to take such elementary notions, and see how they have been ex- pressed in the two systems of speech. Some few instances 8 'Studien iiber indogermanisch-semitische Wurzelverwandtschaft' (Leipzig, 1873, pp. 119; II. edition, 1884). 9 'Semitische Glossen zu Fick und Curtius,' Marburg, 1876 and 1877 (2 Pro- gramme, Q. pp. 94). " Ein indogermanisch-semitisches Urvolk mit ausgebildeter Rede oder gar Mythos ist iberhaupt nicht zu erreichen; wir gelangen, h6chstens, um mit Renan zu reden zu zwei nackten Kindern, welche nahe bei einander geboren wurden und schon bald nach ihrer Geburt sich v8llig trennten. Nur die naturwissenschaftliche Ethnologie kann eine Urverwandtschaft beider Rassen beweisen, wenn solche je existirte" (F. DELITZSCHin Zarncke's Lit. Centralblatt, 1877, col. 79I, 792). 38 W1 Mu1itss-Arnolt. [1892. will show this method: I-E. bhas, 'shine,' is compared with Hebr. ,'r2 (bjfdh), 'egg,' primary notion being that of ' white- ness, shining;' also Arabic bdsara, 'be joyful' (literally 'have a smooth, unwrinkled face'), and Hebr. '"ty (bdsar), 'flesh,' belong to this same root; again, Hebr. t=S (bacsal), 'cook,' is connected with Lat. frigo, Greek 0ppvy-o, 'roast' (p. 127). But Skt. bh.rj, Lat. frigo, is = bhzr.go or bhrogo. Skt. mars is connected with Assyrian marfu (}'), 'be vexed, suffer, suffer patiently' (p. 139); or Skt. sad, 'go' (Greek 6860), with Arab. fddda, 'turn aside,' Hebr. '?1 (fad), 'side' (p. I49);1 with this goes also 'T1 (fdadd), 'go up or down, proceed, march,' and perhaps ijt (afddaq),2 originally 'go straight on, do right.' The best part of McCurdy's book are cc. I. and II. containing a good r6sum6 of 'the past and present treatment of the subject,' and ' criteria of relationship' (pp. 1-52). Had he remembered the warning of Gesenius,13 he would have seen that most of these so-called root-affinities are purely a matter of chance, and in many cases the result of false interpretation of Semitic or Indo-European words. These similarities of sound are utterly unavoidable on account of the comparatively small number of human sounds of articulation. 5. Here belongs also AUGUST UPPENKAMP'S Programm 'Der Begriff der Scheidung nach seiner Entwickelung in den semitischen und indogermanischen Sprachen.' 14 As regards method, judgment, and sobriety, it is by far the best attempt to prove a genetic relationship between the two families. In many of his comparisons he follows his predecessors Raumer, Noldechen, and, above all, McCurdy (pp. I29-I36), of whose treatise he does not seem to be aware; but it will not do to connect Hebr. ,!D%(kdldFh), 'com- 11But the primitive meaning of TCt' (addfd) is to ' ensnare, trap,' as shown by the cognate Semitic languages (DELITZSCH,' Hebrew and Assyrian,' p.