# Studies in Lowland Scots/Farther Afield

V.—FARTHER AFIELD.
Of the two items here presented, that on French words in Lowland Scots calls for no apology. The old connection between Scotland and France is one of the few links with Mediaevalism that might be considered popular. This popularity could hardly be said to be the fruit of any extensive acquaintance with Scottish history. It would seem to owe much of its persistence to the genius of Sir Walter Scott in his "Quentin Durward."
The list, though probably not exhaustive, has the merit of showing a series of borrowings extending over many centuries. Arranged in chronological order, as far as possible, these borrowings show contemporary usage. Not a few of Scoto-French words must have got into the stream through well-known literary tradition from Chaucer and the alliterative poets onwards, but the contemporary usage, which the evidence here presented illustrates, stands outside of the convention of books and independent of any influence exercised by English. "While the great mass of the words cannot fail to appeal to the reader familiar with the Scots vernacular, a large proportion must have speedily dropped out of use. They are much in the position of those borrowings which we still owe to the war correspondent or the adventurous traveller in remote and little- known lands. They vanish with the conditions which led to their importation.
The second item, Primitive Aryan Civilisation, would seem, on a superficial view, to have only a remote connection with Lowland Scots. Closer study, however, will show it to be complementary to the opening article of the volume. That article aimed at linking on the vernacular to that primitive Teutonic influence which supplanted the prehistoric Celtic in the Lowlands. The present is an excursus into the wider field of ​comparative philology. It discusses the only accessible evidence for that matrix of culture, social custom and attitude to the facts of nature and life which moulded the vernacular of Scotland in common with its cognate European tongues.
The illustrations that I have here garnered owe much to the published researches and arguments of the late Professor Max Müller and to Professor Sayce. It was the writings of the former that most powerfully impelled me to follow up my youthful reading of Trench's charming studies into the wider field of comparative philology. But most of all is the article based on the teaching of the late Professor Aufrecht. He was the first holder of the Chair of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology in Edinburgh University. As these lectures have never been published, so far as I know, I believe I am doing a welcome service to linguistic study in incorporating them with my own researches.
1. Scoto-French in the Lowland Vernacular.
But slight evidence of the "Auld Alliance" has survived in the vernacular. Any influences exerted on the nation by it were at no time more than political. France used Scotland merely as a thorn in the side of her rival, England. The political movement came to a head during the Reformation struggle, but the battle of Langside (1568) dealt the final blow at the Catholic reaction. Even this political line of influence has left scarce a survivor in the vocabulary. The long reign of the Old Faith might have been more fruitful. On the evidence of language the hold of Catholicism on Lowland Scotland has been of the slightest. The once familiar Pasch (Easter) and a dairgie (Domine, dirige nos) are among the very few of its survivals.
Actual intercourse between the two countries was of the trading kind, but such interchanges as existed were carried on with Northern France through Dutchmen and Dutch ports, ​ mainly Campvere, or through the Huguenot city of Bordeaux, then also in the hands of Dutch traders. But the East Coast of England, particularly the port of Hull, came under similar influences, so that no list of word exchanges can claim to be in any special sense Scottish. Word exchanges under this industrial head have mainly a social significance.
In other two directions seventeenth-century influence might well have been very considerable and lasting. These were the military and the academic. The Scot abroad, under both aspects, has played a part in literature in no way bome out by the evidence of the vernacular. A typical soldier of fortune, Sir James Turner, tells us he went through all his Continental fighting without knowing French. Graham of Claverhouse, though he got his baptism of fire abroad, uses no French in his correspondence save such a word as allya (Fr. allié), an ally, relation by marriage, but it is often used by contemporary Scottish writers. In the arts of peace many youthful Scots gained posts in Huguenot colleges, such as the Melvills, Boyd of Trochrig, and others, but they use scarce any borrowings from French. Sir Thomas Hope, Lord-Advocate, through the critical times of the Bishops' War and the Solemn League and Covenant, himself the grandson of a Frenchman settled in Edinburgh, had some of his sons educated in France, but uses surprisingly few French words. Sir Thomas Lauder, again, later known as Lord Fountainhall, studied and travelled in France through the middle of the century, but he uses very little French. After his day, under the influence of the English Revolution and the Orange King William, the academic stream flowed towards Holland.
"Ledger of Andrew Halyburton" (1492-1503), ed. by Cosmo Innes.
This quaint old Edinburgh merchant was stationed at Campvere as "Conservator of the Privileges of the Scottish Nation in the Netherlands," and therefore at the gateway of traffic as it passed to and fro between Scotland and the Continent.
Callandis.—James Homyll, his brother-in-law and agent in Scotland, "payit me wi' challenges" (reproaches) "and evill wordis and onsufferabyll. God keip all guid men fra sic callandis!" In a French translation of "Tam o' Shanter" the "chapman billies leave the street," of the opening scene, appears as—
"Quand les chalands abandonnent la rue."
This word, said to be Flemish rather than French, has long been familiar as callant, a lad. In the days of old "Heriot's" in Edinburgh, the foundationers were known as callants.
Chamer; Fr. chambre. The Archdeacon of St. Andrews gets "a mat to his chamer" (1499).
Corf, a basket; Fr. corbeille, Lat. corbis—"A kynkyn of olives and a corf of apill orangis."
Cramoisie, cramasie, a cloth; O.Fr. cramoisin, cramoisie, a form of crimson.
Oralog (mendyn), a watch; Fr. horloge, a clock. Bishop Elphinstone, founder of King's College, Aberdeen, has his orolog repaired and fitted with a new case in Flanders through Halyburton's agency.
Pantonis, slippers—"Blak welvot to be pantonis to the Kingis grace." Akin to patten, an iron ring that could be slipped on to the sole of shoe or clog to admit of moving dry-shod about the miry surroundings of the untidy clachan; Mod.Fr. patin is a skate. The Accounts show the older form of the word. Diez connects it with Fr. patte, a paw.
Pasch, Easter; Fr. Pâque for Pasque—"Hydis, I trow, salbe the best merchandise that comes here at Pascha, for thar is mony folkis that speris about thaim" (1502). This word had long been familiar through the Romish services of the Church.
​Say (red), silk; Fr. soie, bought for the Archdeacon of St. Andrews for a frontal to an altar.
Taffetas, plain silk cloth; Fr. taffetas. Halyburton uses the French form.
Tapischere, tapestry—"Twa drauchtis fra Edinburgh to Striveling." Fr. tapisserie, tapis, a carpet.
Tassis of silver, cups; Fr. tasse.
"Ye'll bring me here a pint of wine, A server and a silver tassie."—Old Song, 1636.
Twis—"Twis, to put all the silver weschell in." Fr. étui, a case. Common in German as a borrowed word.
"Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer," vol. vii., 1538-41.
As this volume contains the expenses of James V.'s visit to France, it is unusually rich in foreign words, but few have lived or come into common use.
Babuttis, bibs—"For making of twa collaris of welvot plattis, twa babuttis, twa litill collaris." Fr. bavette, from bave, slaver; Sc. bavard, worn out, bankrupt; Fr. baveur, a driveller.
Boge—"Ane chandellair callit the boge." Fr. bougie, wax-candle, so named from a town in Morocco.
Buye, a water vessel—"Ane grete watter buye." O.Fr. buie. Bain, a tub, now firmly rooted in some districts of Scotland, may be the Gael. bainne, milk.
Curchessis, night-caps—"Curchessis to the kingis grace." Fr. couvre-chef.
Disjonis, breakfast—"To by milk to hir disjonis." Fr. déjeuner. This word lived a long time. The item here referred to was for the "barn Elizabeth," a natural child of James V.
Dornick, linen cloth, made at Tournay, whence the name.
Dule-weid, mourning dress; Fr. deuil, mourning.
Fleggearis, arrow makers paid "For the foddering of ijᵐ auld ganzeîs" (arrows) "for the croce bow." Fr. flèche, an arrow, hence Fletcher.
Tailzeour, telzour, tailor; vernac. teelyir, tiler; Fr. tailleur.
After the Union of 1603 James I. made strenuous efforts to foster trade and home industries in the poor country he had ​left. The records of his Privy Council, sitting in Edinburgh, tell the story of how his masterful chancellors tried to carry out his wishes on the lines of a benevolent protection. In this connection the tariff of 1612 is of much social import. From its items I cull a number of French names of articles, which, if not in actual use, might probably be imported at the same time as the article.
Buist, a needle-case; sand-buist, sand-box, used instead of blotting-paper, as it is still in Germany. The mark Brandenburg was called the Sand-Büchse of the Holy Roman Empire; O.Fr. bostia, boiste, a box; Mod.Fr. boîte, boisseau (whence bushel).
Babeis or Puppettis, dolls; Ital. babbeo, a blockhead; and Fr. babiole, whence the baby clown on the head of the staff with which the Elizabethan stage fool excited laughter. There was deep contempt in Cromwell's "Take away that bauble (the mace)." Puppettis is the Fr. poupée, a doll. Children used to fashion a miniature stage of paper on which tiny figures were moved. Eyelets gave a peep of the play to the invitation, "A preen to see the puppie-show."
Chaffing dishes, braziers, warming-pans; Fr. chauffer, to warm by rubbing
Chandlers, chandeliers, candlesticks; chandelle, a candle.
Grogram, Fr. gros-grain, a coarse cloth.
Tripans, Fr. trépan, a surgical instruinent.
Trencher, wooden platters, a word in universal use; Fr. tranchoir.
Turcusses, turkes, twisters, pincers, tourniquets; Ital. torciare, to twist (Lat. torquere); O.Fr. torser, to pack up, gives the familiar turs, to pack up in a bundle, to carry off hastily.
Turse.—The Exchequer Accounts have numerous entries for tursing household and other stuff (cf. truss, trousseau, torch; lit. a twist). To tirr has long been in use in the sense of raising or disturbing, for example, the soil of field or garden.
An interesting Commentary on the Tariff of Custom Dues (1612) is preserved in the library of Glasgow University in the shape of a shrivelled leather pocket-book which accompanied ​James Bell, a merchant burgess of Glasgow, on two business journeys to Holland, 1621-22. He was not what we would now call a foreign merchant, but took with him, on commission, the ready money of his clients for investment in trading ventures. The words of his entries must, therefore, have been in actual use at the Cross and Tolbooth of Glasgow.
Chandlers—"To by to Mairen" (so pronounced still) "Stewart sum chandlers" (candlesticks) "turnit." Fr. chandelier.
Chyres (grein), green chairs; Fr. chaire in sense of a pulpit; from Lat. cathedra, a seat, see of a bishop. Bell's spelling (sometimes chayres occurs) seems to follow the French pronunciation.
Cissills, probably chisels from Fr. "ciseler, to cut or carve with a chisel."—Cotgrave.
Frenyes, fringes; Fr. frange. Bell followed the Dutch pronunciation and spelling, frangie, where g has a y sound.
Gabarts, cappers, the lighters that brought the goods up the Clyde from Dumbarton; Fr. gabare, a lighter.
Plumbe damies, long the name of the damson in Scotland. Plumdammas is a character in Scott's "Heart of Midlothian." The form follows the French, prune de damas or Damascene plum.
Suker, sugar, interesting as following the Fr. pronunciation.
Tincler, wire, tinsel, thread; Fr. étíncelle, what glitters; from Lat. scintilla, a spark.
Travelloure, Fr. travailleur—"Giffin to Jhone Mortoun, travelloure, ane barl seap" (soap), pronounced as it still is in the vernacular. In the seventeenth century ea=ê in French, as it still is in Ireland; compare the Irishman's repeat and Fr. répéter. Almost the sole survival in English is great. In Pope's time tea was pronounced tay.
Trebuchet, a balance; "trie balks" or wooden beams, he elsewhere calls them. He uses the actual French word, not, as it appears, ever naturalised among us. As a noun trebuchet means a bird-trap ; as a verb, to stumble. The basic notion of a beam is found in the O.Fr. buc (bucket), a trunk.
​Turkes, grappling irons; cf. turcusses above, "hammer and turkes" for the blacksmith.
Annatto is a surprising exotic to reach Glasgow through Holland early in the seventeenth century. It takes the forms annotto, arnotto, and is the South American name for a tree, common also in Jamaica, the seed of which dyes silk a deep yellow, and is used for colouring butter, cheese, chocolate. I saw the preparation from it quite lately on an Ayrshire cheese farm.
Wirsat (worsted) passments, Fr. passementerie, a novel addition to the comforts supplied in a seventeenth-century booth.
Caprus, copperas—"ane trie caprus;" Fr. couperose; Lat. cupri rosa, rose of copper, used to dye black and make ink. The story goes that a Glasgow merchant sent to London an order for copperas, but his bad spelling was read as capers, of which the weight sent seemed completely to outrun the possible demand. Fortunately a shortage of capers followed and he cleared his stock at a thumping profit.
Chapelet is exactly the Fr. form, and diminutive form of chapel; Mod.Fr. has chapeau, a hat.
The old Latin grammars give long lists of vocables, supposed to be useful to the boys in the absence of dictionaries. The meanings given frequently throw light on the current vernacular. The French elements in them are few. The Vocabula have, from our point of view, little or no educational value, as they are not well adapted to aid either construing or speaking. They must have commended themselves to the compilers as instruments of torture.
Andrew Duncan, rector of Dundee Grammar School, regent in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, and minister of Crail, introduced the following in the Appendix Etymologiæ to his Latin Grammar (1595):—
Boise, vter, a wine boise (wine skin, bottle, jar); O.Fr. busse, buse, buce, a cask for wine. As Dutch buyse, the word was long known in Scotland as a buss or fishing-boat.
Bonet, riscus, a bowell (bole), or bonet caisse; Fr. bonnet.
Caisse, bowel, a basin, is still vernacular. Caisse is Lat. capsa, whence capsule.
​Bruit, rumor, fama; brute, bruit, noise.
Chicknawd, talitrum, a spang, a chicknawd (chiquenaude, a fillip, flirt or bob—Cotgrave); naude=nœud, knot, knuckle; Lat. nodus, whence nodule. "Talitrum, a rap or fillip with the finger."—Suetonius.
Hurcheon, herinaceus, a hurcheon; Fr. hérisson; Lat. ericius, the prickly one, the hedgehog. From it comes urchin.
Lowe, liceor, to lowe (bid at auction), to cheape; allouer, formerly alouer, let out to hire; Low Lat., to admit a thing as proved, place, use, expend; allocare; "the law allows (assigns) it to you," in "Merchant of Venice."
Mowles, pernio, the mowles in the heels (chilblains); Fr. mule, slipper, kibe.
Osill, merula, an osill; avis, the blackbird (merle); Fr. oiseau, and Shakspere's "ousel-cock." Also derived from Ger. Amsel, found in England as early as the eighth century (Murray).
Panton, crepida, a pontoun or mule (slipper); Fr. patin, Eng. patten. Creepie (crepida) is a low stool, "Ne sutor ultra crepidam," let the cobbler stick to his stool. Murray says of panton, "origin unknown, but certainly not from patin."
Parsell, petro-selinum, parsell; Fr. persil. Sir Thomas Hope, in his "Diary" (1641), speaks of a dream in which he is caught in a thick mist, in hortis petrocellanis, as if it were in the gardens of parsley. But he is not thinking of the Lat. petro-selinum, from which "parsley" is derived, but punningly refers to his pet name for his favourite mansion of Craighall, near Ceres, in Fife. On another occasion he enters a solemn vow when on the point of setting out ad Petro-cellam (Craighall).
Pertrik, perdix, a pertrik, paitrik, partridge; Fr. perdrix.
Pursie, anhelus, pursie or short-ended. Pursie is short-winded. Palsgrave has pourcif for Mod.Fr. poussif, so poulser for pousser, to push, from Lat. pulsare. End, breath, is very common in Barbour and old writers, but long obsolete. It is of Norse origin.
Sowder, ferrumen, sowder, solder; Fr. soudure; Mod.Sc. soother.
Suldarts, cohors, a band of suldarts; Fr. soldart, a soldier.
Triacle, theriace, triacle, remeid against poison. This is the modern treacle, a word with quite a history. Mod. Eng. a sove​reign remedy, from θηριακός, belonging to wild or venomous beasts. The late Dr. MacCulloch, of Greenock, made this linguistic "treacle" the subject of a delightful article in an early number of "Good Words."
Truncheor, orbis, a truncheor or round body; Fr. tranchoir.
David Williamson's "Vocabula" forms an appendix to his "Rudimenta Grammatices," published by Robert Sanders in Glasgow, 1693. His grammar was one of the latest of the many recensions of the Dunbar Rudiments. Originally compiled by the first of the post-Reformation pedagogues, Andrew Simson, schoolmaster in Dunbar, it had held its place in all the grammar schools for over a century. It was soon after superseded by the still more famous work, the first of the kind to be written in English, of Thomas Ruddiman (1714).
Allya, affinitas; Fr. allay, allié, ally, relation (by marriage), in very general use during the seventeenth century. Claverhouse introduces it in his letters.
Awmrie, repositorium, an ambrie; an awmrie, a chest or cupboard; awmous dish, a beggar's platter; Fr. aumônerie, aumône, Eng. alms.
Buist, pixis, a buist. Diez says that in the tenth century buxida, from accus. of the Greek pyx, a box, was corrupted into buxida, bustia, whence O.Fr. boiste, Mod.Fr. boîte.
Choffer, foculus mensarius, a choffer or choffing dish; Fr. chauffer, to warm. This preserves a trace of the old-fashioned brazier for the table. Chauffeur is the very latest importation of the word. But the Scots workman has long called his portable fire-grate a choffer.
Disjune, jentaculum, breakfast and disjune; Fr. déjeuner. This word is quite archaic now.
Pottage, puls, pottage, as if made from pea soup (pulse); Fr. potage.
Servet, mappa, a servet or any tablecloth; Fr. serviette.
Siedge, classis, the siedge; Fr. siège, a seat. Used in this sense by Spenser.
Trencher, quadra, a four-neuked trencher; a four-cornered wooden platter, hence "corner dish;" Fr. tranchoir.
From James Carmichael, of Haddington Grammar School, ​whose Latin Grammar (1587) renders some of his vocabula in the vernacular—
Chesbol, the poppy, from the ball-like capsule or seed-case; Lat. capsa; Fr. caissé.
Tirlets=cancelli, from Fr. tirailler, to pull about. He "tirled at the pin," the equivalent of our knocker, is a phrase in an old ballad. The cancelli were the movable cross slits of wood that did duty for glass in the old-time windows. In the Accounts for the city of Glasgow, 1713, is the item—"For new glass windows to the session-house and tirlies" of the Hie Kirk or cathedral ("Glas. Records," 1691-1717).
During the seventeenth century there was increased intercourse between the two countries, but there was little bond of national sympathy. On the absorbing Church and constitutional questions no link of connection could be formed. The exiled Royalists, and the Continental wanderings of the Scot abroad, whether for military service or learning, made no great linguistic impression. The following may be given as a sample of borrowings as they appear in some books of the century:—
From Sir Thomas Hope's Diary (1633-45)—
Abillzeaments, modern habiliments; Fr. habillement, from habile, ready.
| Bruttit (Fr. bruit) Capitane (O.Fr.) | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | "It is bruttit that Capitane Cokburne is deid." |
Essay (essai)—"It sall haif ane essay" (trial).
| Oblissis Oblischement | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | obliger. |
Travell (travailler)—"I sall travell to draw them to their tryall."
Valour (valeur)—"The valour of the tithes."
From a contemporary report by an Englishman on the Covenanters at Duns Law (1639)—
Bases. "The blue bonnets have blue woollen waistcoats, pair of bases of plaid and stockings of same, pair of pumps, mantle of plaid over left shoulder and under right arm, pocket before knapsack, pair of dirks on either side pocket. . . . We ​gazed in wonder at targes and dorlachs or quivers of mane of goat or colt with hair on and hinging behind so as to be like a tail." The garment in question here was worn between doublet and short hose in the fashion of the seventeenth-century kilt. Fishermen wore such a garment loose till the end of the eighteenth century. The connection of bases with Fr. bas, a stocking, is disputed. Murray says, "Apparently an English application of Base, bottom, lowest part."
From Row's Appendix to Blair's "Autobiography," on the execution of Hackston of Rathillet (1680) for the murder of Archbishop Sharp—
Panse, to staunch a wound; Fr. panser. "The Council had a singular care of him, causing panse his wounds, &c., lest he should die before coming to the scaffold." Also in Montgomery's "The Cherry and the Slae" (1628).
From the "Inventory of Goods of Sir Peter Young" (1628), pedagogue to James I.—
Muntar, a watch; Fr. montre.
From Spalding's "Troubles," on Charles I.'s entry into Edinburgh, 1633
Calsey, causey; Fr. chaussée; Revel—"The calsey was revelled (fenced) frae the Nether Bow to the Stinking Style, with staiks of timber dung in the end." This seems to be an English form, from Lat. revellere, meaning to draw or keep back, as "Revelling the humours from their body.”—Harvey in "Imper. Dict."
Scoryettis, burgess; O.Fr. escorcher, to pluck off the skin, to burn the surface of anything; Eng. scorch. Scoryettis was some kind of cake or confection.
From the diary of Sir Th. Lauder, when studying in France (seventeenth century)—
Bitch-full—"Eleventh Nov., St. Martin's, a very merry day in France for Swiss and Alemands (l'Alemande), who drink like fishes. Find only three good feasts,—St. Martin's, les trois Rois" (of Cologne, I suppose), "and Mardi Gras. All drinkes bitch full theis dayes." Burns has this expression for extreme intoxication. Fuller form is bicker-fou, i.e. full as the beaker, to the ​bung. Can this be Fr. becquée, a billful? If it be a metaphor from bitch in the ordinary sense it is unintelligible.
Bools—Pery—Tap—"Bairns in France have exercise of the tap (toupie, a spinning-top), the pery (pirouette), the cleking (small wooden bat like a racket), and instead of our gouf, which they (know) not, they haves hinyes." Add hools, marbles (Fr. boule); also in bowling, Lat. bulla, a piece of lead.
From "Glasgow Records" (1691-1717): Burgh Records Society, 1908. We have in these Records the familiar usage in a Scots burgh at the time of the Union—
Bilgets—"To the quarter-master for his pains of giveing bilgets for the localities" (1695). Here we have an attempt to render Fr. billets, the l'mouillé, in which was a familiar Scots sound. We have also frenzies for fringes, where the same sound is represented by z. Similarly the name Daniel is spelt Dainziell, cf. guinzees (guineas).
Chirurgeon, surgeon—"Helping him to satisfie the chirurgen and furnishing drogs" (1696).
Drogs, as above; Fr. drogues. The pronunciation has remained to this day.
Fond, a fund; Fr. fond.
Gadge, a measure—"The baxters have raised their dame a considerable hight above the gadge and measure concluded." The word is still so pronounced. It is Eng. gauge, gage, to measure the contents of a vessel, and of French and Low Lat. origin. It is not necessarily a borrowed word, but the pronunciation, gadge, and the derivative gadger, an exciseman, are distinctively Scots.
Lettron, a reading desk—"The lettron of the clerk's chamber." Fr. lutrin; Eng. lectern; O.Eng. leterone, lectrun, from Low Lat. lectrinum. "It has no connection with lecture (Skeat). As the precentor's desk it lived till that functionary was ritualised out of existence.
Nottor, a notary—"His pairtie called in a nottar" (1701); Fr. notaire.
Syer, a sewer—"Go no farder youth nor the north side of the syre between gavell and well" (1692) . . . "a strand or sayre" (gutter). The word is now pronounced syver. Skeat traces it ​to the O.Eng. sewe and shore in Shore-ditch, and derives from O.Fr. essuier, esuer, to dry, but the true sense is to drain dry; Lat. exsucare.
The "Records" yield an interesting group of Latin-derived words, mostly verbs, which, though most probably only a reflection of grammar-school influences, are curious as following French rather than English formation. They are these—
Accrese, Fr. accroissement; Eng. in-crease—"Conveniencie that might accrese to this burgh" (1696).
Compesce, Lat. compescere, to restrain—"To compesce these troubles" (1706).
Contigue, adjoining, contiguous; Fr. contigue—"Four seats contigue in the head of the trans or entry" (1702).
Dite, to write; Eng. in-dite; Lat. dictus; Fr. dit—"For paines in dyteing securities" (1700).
Evite, avoid; Lat. vitare, to shun; Fr. éviter—"Put to expense which they cannot evite" (1715).
Exerce, exercise; Fr. exercer; Lat. exercere—"Exerceing the said office" (1693).
Exoner, exonerate; Fr. exonérer—"It is but just that they be exonered and freed" (1716).
Expede, Fr. expédier, to despatch, expedite (cf. impede); Lat. expediri—"Expenses depursed for expeding the signature of the saids lands" (1696). The plural adjective, saids, is a curious survival of Norman-French usage.
Exeem, exempt; Lat. exemptus—"Fisher baats are exeemed by law" (1697). Fr. exempter is not followed here.
Obleidge, oblies; Fr. obliger, to bind—"Inact & obleidge themselves as shall be needcessitated” (1700). The pronunciation here is English of Queen Anne's time.
Suplee, supply; Fr. suppléer—"Power to lay on the suplee and public burden of this burgh" (1701).
The following words, from general sources, represent elements that still live in the vernacular:—
Ashet, Fr. assiette, a plate or dish, large platter on which meat is served.
​Barley, a truce in a game; Fr. parlez. Barley-break was an old English game.
Beaver, Fr. bevoir, boire, the merendum or lunch, otherwise four-oors. It was a grammar school vocable.
Bawbee—"Ane balbe," St. Andrews Kirk Session Records, ii. 683; Fr. bas billon, base coin.
Butry, bajan, a freshman at Aberdeen University, has been explained as from butor, a booby, and bejaune for becjaune, a nestling (lit. yellow-beak), a ninny.
Certes, my certie! Fr. certes, indeed, certainly.
Brace, a chimney piece—"A bracebrod in excise chamber" ("Glas. Records," 1706). This may be from Fr. bras, an arm. Compare jamb, a projection or wing; Fr. jambe, a leg, familiar as the jambs or sides of the fireplace.
Cheetie-pussie! Fr. chat.
Close, Fr. clos; vaucluse=vallis clausa, a square, a court.
Condie, Fr. conduit, a passage, pipe.
Fattrels, falderals; O.Fr. fatraille, trumpery; fatras, rubbish, trumpery.
Bowet, a hand lantern; Fr. boîte, a little box. Spalding says that when Cromwell ordered the Edinburgh burgesses to show bowets at their close-heads nightly, the effect was to bring back the day. Cf. moon, as Macfarlane's bowet for reiving purposes.
Cummer, kimmer; Fr. commère. Cummers' or gossips' feast (eighteenth century), described, as practised in Edinburgh, by Eliz. Mure of Caldwell (1712).—"Caldwell Papers."
Dyvour, a bankrupt; Fr. devoir; Lat. debtor. Murray rejects devoir and suggests Eng. diver in the sense of "plunger," not a very satisfactory explanation.
Fachous, facheuse, troublesome to do. "Its fachous wark pikin' a paitrik;" Fr. fâcheux.
Fent, in a lady's skirt; Fr. fente, a slit, cleft.
Fushonless, pithless; Fr. foison, plenty, in Shakspere.
Gag, in the game of "smoogle the gag;" Fr. gage, pawn, pledge; also in the form geg.
Groser, a gooseberry; Fr. grossier, coarse; but other native forms are grosart and grozet.
Haverel, a simpleton; Fr. poisson d'avril, an April fool. Also ​explained as from haver, to talk foolishly, itself of unknown origin.
Jigot, Fr. gigot, leg of mutton.
Jambs, sides of a fire-place; Fr. jambe, a leg.
Pace, paiss, peise=weights of a clock; Fr. peser, to weigh—regularly used in the seventeenth century, long obsolete.
Parish, Fr. paroisse. Mediæval English as well as Scotch.
Pend, and paund; Fr. pendre, to hang; an archway, a hanging round a bed, a valance.
Petticoat-tails, species of shortbread; as if from petits-gatelles (Fr. gâteau, a cake). See Meg Dods's "cookery" in "St. Ronan's Well."
Popinjay, Fr. papegai, the parrot. See "Old Mortality."
Puppie—"A preen to see the puppie-show," children's play; a puppet show; Fr. poupée, a doll.
Sklate, slate; Fr. éclater, to fly into fragments.
Spaul, the shoulder; Fr. épaule; Lat. spatula.
Sybows, a species of onion, young onions; Fr. ciboule; Lat. cepula, cepa, an onion.
Joist, a beam. "When the building is first joist heigh" ("Glas. Records," 1696); M.Eng. gyste, jist; O.Fr. gîste, place to lie on (Cotgrave); M.Fr. gîte, lodging, etymologically a support for the floor. Scots distinguishes joist (jaste), just (jüste), juice (jice).
Toolye, tuilzie, a broil, quarrel; Fr. touiller, to mix confusedly.
Turner, a coin once very common in Scotland=2d. Sc.=a bodle; Fr. tournois, because coined at Tours.
Tureen, a soup basin; Fr. terrine, an earthen pan; Lat. terra, earth.
Treviss (common in Scots and in Chaucer), division between stalls in a stable; O.Fr. tref; Lat. trabs, a beam.
Tweel—"Row weel the bonnie tweel, row weel the plaidie;" Fr. toile, cloth.
Scoto-French in Burns's Poems.
Burns was proud enough of his French to air it in his correspondence, but the words he blends with his native vernacular must represent the popular absorption of centuries.
​Aumous, alms, almesse; Pr. aumône. "She held up her greedy gab, Just like an amous dish."—"Beggars."
Awmrie, a cupboard; almonry, aumônerie. Almerieclos, in old Arbroath, stood on the site of the Court where was the awmrie or treasury of the Abbey.
Cadie—"E'en cowe the cadie" (Ch. Fox).—"Earnest Cry," Fr. cadet.
Castocks, kale stocks or runts; as if for chou-stocks, from Fr. chou, a cabbage; Lat. caulis. Stock is, of course, of native origin.
Corbie—"Corbies and clergy are a shot richt kittle."—"Brigs of Ayr." Fr. corbeau. Compare the "corbie-stepped" gable of old houses.
Dool, Fr. deuil, mourning. "O' a' the numerous human dools, Ill hairsts, daft bargains, cutty stools."—"Toothache."
Douce—"Ye dainty deacons, an' ye douce conveneers. To whom our moderns are but causey cleaners."—"Brigs of Ayr." Fr. doux, douce; chaussée.
Dour, Fr. dur, hard. "When biting Boreas, fell and dour."—"Winter Night."
Dyvour, a debtor; Fr. devoir. "Crash them a' to spails. An rot the dyvors i' the jails!"—"To Beelzebub."
Gree, prize; Fr. gré, grade, rank, degree; Sc. to bear the gree. "Where glorious Wallace aft bure the gree."—"To Wm. Simson."
Gusty, Fr. goût. "An' just a wee drap spiritual burn in, An' gusty sucker."—"Scotch Drink."
Hotch, to fidget. "Even Satan glowred, and fidged fou fain. And hotched and blew wi' might and main."—"Tam o' Shanter." Hocher, to jog, shake, toss.
Joctelegs, knives, from Jacques de Liege, famous cutler. "An' gif the castocks sweet or sour, Wi' joctelegs they taste them."—"Hallowe'en."
Mell, Fr. mêler, to mingle. "It sets you ill Wi' bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell our foreign gill."—"Scotch Drink."
Tawpie, foolish, thoughtless young folks; taupe, talpo, a mole. "Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks, and fools, Frae colleges and boarding schools, May sprout like simmer puddock stools, In glen or shaw."—Verses written at Selkirk. Gawkie; Fr. gauche; gowk, the cuckoo.
​Toy, toque, a bonnet. "I wadna been surprised to spy You on an auld wife's flannen toy."—"To a Louse."
2. Primitive Aryan Civilisation.
"There is no Aryan race in blood, but whoever, through the imposition of hands, whether of his parents or his foreign masters, has received the Aryan blessing, belongs to that unbroken spiritual succession which began with the first apostles of that noble speech, and continues to the present day in every part of the globe. Aryan, in scientific language, is utterly inapplicable to race. It means language and nothing but language; and if we speak of Aryan race at all, we should know that it means no more than x + Aryan speech." Thus does Professor Max Müller tell us that in attempting to reconstruct an ideal social unity for the Aryan race we must not look for aid to ethnology. The question is one which concerns the continuity of speech not of blood, an inheritance of mental attitude towards the world of spiritual and natural phenomena within and without us far subtler and profounder than any perpetuation of the characteristics of complexion and feature; for an Aryan speech writes its own history in virtue of those inherent principles which govern its growth and decay, or rather regeneration—principles which, by reason of their persistency of type and uniformity of action, alone go far to prove in this case a primitive social unity. What those principles are it is not my object either to investigate or prove, but rather to show how those mutual affinities, which are known to exist within a European unity of tongues, and connect themselves again with a certain well-marked Asiatic unity, point to a time when the makers of those tongues dwelt somewhere together, and developed a common civilisation whose leading characteristics are stamped upon Aryan progress down to the present day.
If we exclude, on the one hand, the Magyars of the Hungarian plain and the Osmanli of Turkey—both the remains of an irruption from Asia within the historic period—and, on the other, the prehistoric Basques of the Pyrenees and the nomadic Lapps and Finns of the northern mark, we find that all the ​ languages of modern Europe have well-established racial affinities. They group themselves round four centres, which, again, are further reducible to two. Let us regard the map of Europe as a rhomboidal figure with its greater axis lying east and west, and corresponding to the line of the Alps with their prolongations. In the lower half place the classical tongues—Greek right, Latin and her Romance sisters central and left. In the upper half, again, across the snowy peaks and stretching far northwards over the great central plain, lost amid elfin meres and gnome-haunted forest, roam the Teutons. By the eastern angle, pressing close for hundreds of years upon Roman and Teuton alike, come the Slavs of the Southern Steppes and the Sarmatian plain ; while, thrust far away into the western angle, the old-world Celt looks sadly on the mist-clad mountain and the melancholy western main. These four groups, with a wide range of dialectic variation peculiar to each, have yet innumerable features in common that constitute them a distinct European unity. They range themselves, however, under two distinct types—a Classical and a Teutonic. The Slav is a link of connection to east, Celt to west, but both lean to south, and, as far as phonetic affinities are concerned, are Aryan dialects of the Classical type.
The discovery of Sanskrit to western scholars, dating from the foundation of the Calcutta Asiatic Society (1784), revealed a singularly suggestive Aryan unity existing in the far east, and possessing in its sacred books a literature that was old long before the Homeric poems took definite shape. The ancestors of the Hindoos and the old Persians reached the Indus together, and there developed a common religious and social system. They named the great river (the Indus), Sindhu, the goer, the runner. The country beyond was named, from the river, Sindhya, the Scinde of Napier's punning despatch, Peccavi (I have sinned). After this people divided, the western or Persian branch developed phonetic laws of their own, such as the use of an h for a Sanskrit s, so that, when the Greeks came in contact with them, these transmitted to us the name of the river as the Hindus or Indus, and the country as Hindia or India. This Persian or Iranic branch spread over the plateau of Iran, and their speech is now known as that of the Zend-Avesta and the cuneiform ​ inscriptions of Darius. Their Hindoo kinsmen pnshed beyond the country of the seven rivers into the Dakshin-aranya, or great southern forest of the Deccan, calling the aborigines blacks, just as in later ages Clive's soldiers knocked their high- caste descendants on the head as niggers. A great religious schism seems to have accentuated some original distinctions between the two peoples. The Sanskrit deva, a god, became in Zend a demon, while the Hindoos retaliated by making Asura a giant at war with the Vaidic gods. The Persians, on the other hand, put Asura (root, as, to be) in the place of honour, who then became the Ahura-mazda or Ormuzd of Zoroastrian dualism. But the Sanskrit grammarians had no difficulty in inventing a derivation for the word, namely, a not, and sura a god.
The proofs of the connection between this Asiatic and the former European unity form the very kernel of comparative philology. They are invaluable, not alone in the phonetic aspect of the question (Sanskrit and Zend range themselves, as far as Grimm's law is concerned, under the Classical or southern European group), but still more, and of far deeper import, in respect of the clue they afford to the difficult problems of comparative grammar and mythology. Suffice it here to say that Sanskrit explains the significance of the name Aryan as an eponym for the whole family. In the Vedas the Aryas are believers in the Vaidic gods in opposition to their Gentile enemies the Dasyus. Later, it meant belonging to the three upper castes, and especially the third or cultivators of the soil. Its root is seen in Lat. ar-are, and English ear, to plough. The name points to that immemorial custom which loves to dignify a nation or a family by associating its origin with the possession of land, and proves the early existence of that Aryan earth-hunger which reaches its acme in Ireland, the Erin that is said to be just another form of the common race-name.
No one can ever venture to conjecture when all these races existed as a primitive unity, or why they broke up, or in what order, or whence sprung the initiative for that dialectic growth to which they owed their phonetic differences. But we have learned to know and distinguish the various branches of the stock, and to formulate the law under which all comparisons of them, one with another, must be studied. It remains now to ​apply this knowledge by comparing a few groups of cognate terms in the Aryan dialects in evidence of a linguistic unity, subsisting among the various members of the family, and of a relatively advanced stage of civilisation, reached by the proto-Aryans before their separation. Professor Max Müller has drawn up similar lists in his "Biographies of Words," and there he lays it down as a general rules that whatever words are shared in common by Sanskrit and Zend on one side, and any one of the Aryan languages on the other, existed before the great Aryan separation took place, and may be used as throwing light on Aryan civilisation, such as it was at that distant time." To this it has to be added that cognate terms, peculiar to one only of the unities (Asiatic or European), are evidence that they were developed after the primary schism, but existed antecedent to any secondary schism. Developments by growth within each unity from a common stock of primitive roots are evidence merely of the persistency of those distinctive Aryan peculiarities,—the inflexional system and that significant word-change whereby we continually specialise the general or generalise the special. Thus we confer epithets that in course of time become divested of their meaning—"the counters of wise men but the money of fools"—and consequently require an effort of literary emphasis to vitalise or supplant them, the secret, in short, of a rich and expressive vocabulary and a copious literature.
Contractions:—Vaidic, Sanskrit, Zend (Old Persian), Greek, Latin, Celtic (Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Gaelic), Slavonic, Lithuanian, Russian, Teutonic, Old High German, German, Icelandic, Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Scottish, Old and Middle English, shown by their initials. Where no meaning is given after a word it may be assumed to be identical with that of the head-word under which it stands. Roots and radical meanings are in italic type.
Authorities consulted:—Professor Aufrecht's Lectures; Max Müller, "Biographies of Words," 1888; Skeat, "English Etymological Dict.," 1884; Fick, "Vergl. Wörterbuch der Indo-ger. Sprachen," 1870; Curtius, "Grundzüge der Griech. Etymol." 1873.
1. Family Ties.
Child-Words.—Papa, S. and Gr. tâta, L. tăta, C. tat, Sl. teta, Go. atta. Mama, S. attâ, T. aithei. Foster-parent, Ved. nanâ, ​L. nonnus, nonna (nun), Ved, ambhâ, Icel. Embla=Ambhâlâ (ancestress of human race), Ger. Amme.
Father, Pa—, protector, S. pitár, Gr. and L. pater, T. fadar, M.E. fader. Mother, Ma—, manager, S. màtár, L. and Sl. mater, C. máther, T. modar, M.E. moder. Husband, ruler, S. pati, L. potis (able), Sl. pats, Go. fath. Wife=producer, Ved. Gnâ (wife of the gods), S.gânî (gana), wife, γυνή, Sl. jena, C. ben, Go. kwen, queen, quean. Son=begotten, or male child, Sl. and Go. sûnu, ὑίος (συιος), C. suth. Daughter=milkmaid, S. duhitar, θυγάτηρ, Sl. dukter, Ir. dear, Go. dauhtar. Brother, bearer, S. bhrâtar, L. frater, Gael. brathair, Sl. bratru, Go. bróthar. Sister, joy, happiness, S. svásar, L. soror (svosor), Ir. sethar, Sl. sestra, Go. swistar, M.E. suster. Father-in-Law, S. svaçura, ἑκυρος, L. socer (svocer), Cor. hveger, Sl. svekru, Go. swaihra, O.E. sveor, Ger. Schwieger. Widow, vindh, vidh=awanting, S. vidhávâ, L. vidua, W. gweddw, Sl. vidova, Go. widuwo, Ger. Wittwe. Orphan, bereft, Ved. arbha (little), L. orbus (a little one), ὀρφανός, C. arbe and T. arbi (inheritance). In addition, there are common terms for uncle, son, daughter, and sister-in-law, husband and wife's brother, grand-son, grand-daughter.
Aryan civilisation was distinctively social, based on the family unity. The terms expressive of the family ties are of two quite different kinds. The child-words (German Lall-wörter or prattle-words) seem to take us into the penetralia of word-making. They point to the monosyllabic stage of aboriginal speech, and do not conform to Grimm's law. The Semitic Abba claims kindred with them, while Nausikàä addresses her father as πάππα φίλε, O! dear papa, exactly as an English girl would. To our Celtic nurses we owe dad and daddy. In Wulfila the Goth began his Paternoster, "Atta unsar," whence the historic Att-ila or little father. Varro says that children in ancient Italy called food papa, father tata, and mother mama. Our spelling mamma is due to the mistaken connection with Lat. mamma, the breast. Nonnus and nonna were originally a mother's brother and sister. The Sans. akkâ is the Lat. Acca Larentia, mother of the Lares. The Ger. Oheim, Sc. eme, Boer ​oom, L. avus, avunculus (cf. uncle, nunkey), all point to a primitive type of family life. The other names for family relationship show a distinct advance on the monosyllabic type. We have now reached the significant or epithet stage. The affix -ter is a very common inflexion to show agency. Thus in the Vedas mâtar is used as a participle. The th in father and mother is thought to be due to the influence of brother. The Sans. vidhávâ, a widow, was early explained by the native grammarians as from vi=without, and a fictitious dhavâ=a husband. The initial gw in the Welsh is the general Celtic equivalent of Teutonic w, cf. guarantee=warrant, Guillaume=William. Under orphan, C. arbe appears in Sc. and M.E. orpiet=peevish, quarrelsome, and in the phrase, to erp=be constantly grumbling, "to harp upon a grievance." It will be observed that grandfather is unrepresented. The head of the family was the father, whether he was really so or not, and engrossed all attention. Grandson, however, was named, S. nápât, Ved. nap=offspring, and Lat. nepot (is), from a root nap=bind. With this our nephew and niece are cognate.
2. Man Generally.
Man=(a) thinker, Ved. Mánu, L. mâs (mans), T. Mannus, Go. mans;=(b) chosen, hero, S. vîra, L. vir, Ir. fear, Lit. vyras, Icel. verr, Go. wair, E. wor-ld, Ger. Wel-t;=(c) strong, S. nara, náry-a (manly), Oscan ner, Nero, Neria (wife of Mars) ἀνήρ;=(d) terrestrian, L. homo, Lit. zeme (land), Go. guman, yeoman, bride-groom. Young=guarded, S. yuvan, L. juvenis, Lit. jaunas, Go. juggo. Child=conceived, S. vi-garbha, Go. kil-thei, child, calf.
Of these terms the first (a) is specially Teutonic. The Hindoos and the Teutons both used the word, man, for the prototype or ancestor of the human race, and both recognised in man the possession of the god-like gift of reason that looks before and after. The commonest later names in Sans. are mân-ava and man-ushya. Go. mannisk is Ger. Men-sch, and is adjectival. The second (b) is the most widely diffused—S. vâra=suitor, vîrya=vires, vir-tus. Its compounds are extremely interesting: decurio and centurio contain it. Cantuarii is Latinised for Kent-were (men of Kent), wergeld was com​pensation for manslaughter, wor-ld is O.E. wer-old, the age of man, a seculum and sum of human experience, affording curious comparison with other modes of expressing such a wide generalisation. The third (c) is entirely awanting in Teut. and Slav. In Oscan ner was applied to the nobles in the State. The fourth (d) is not in Sans., and has had little vitality in Teut. The Go. guma Wulfila applies to Zacchams.
3. Home.
House=builded, S. damà, L. domus, Sl. domu, C. dam. Go. timrjan (build), timber, Gor. Zimmer. Door.—S. dvar (dhvar), θύρα, L. fores. Lit. durys (pl.), Go. daur. Straw-bed.—S. stara, L. torus, C. srath, Sl. straje. Go. strau-ja. Hamlet (1)=abode (viç=enter), S. veça, vaika, οἴκος, L. vîcus (veicus), Sl. visi, Go. weihs,—wich. (2) Fenced place.—(a) S. vara-ta. Worth (village), (b) O.E. tûn=town, Ger. Zaun (hedge), (c) S. pur (strong place), pura, πόλις, Lit. pilis, S. puru=plenus, plebs.
As the names for man show that the primitive Aryans had advanced far beyond the simple concepts that clustered round the hearth and child-life, and could cope with epithets that implied considerable powers of reflection and generalisation, so do those for house and home show a stage of comfort very different from that of the neolithic cave-dweller or the nomad Eskimo. One fancies in the terms for hamlet a distinction between northern and southern Aryans, due probably to the condition of the country over which each set had spread. In both cases a simple enclosure constituted a hamlet—outside, the village mark or common pasture land, and within, the homes. To this day in many parts of Germany the scattered homestead is unknown, the farmyard being a Hof in a village. The Sans. and Greek terms, however, add to the notion of a defended place that of a busy crowded populace that made its acropolis the rallying point for a more lively civic development in street and agora. Significant in this connection is the commonest later Sans. for a man, puru-sha, literally a townsman. The favourite Teutonic town, on the other hand, points to a more scattered backwoodsman kind of settlement. The North German plain is one vast monotonous expanse of wood and water, within whose ​limits the lonely settlers would develop a simpler bucolic society, slow of wit, dreamy, but home-loving. In Lowland Scotland a farm homestead is a town. Even a few houses standing apart and supposed to be, if not actually, enclosed within a hedge fence, form the cotton or cot-toun of the farm.
4. Domestic Animals.
Cattle=tethered, pastured.—S. paçu (pâça rope), L. pecus, Sl. peku, Go. faihu, A.S. feo, Ger. Vieh, fee, Sc. fe. Bull=strong.–Ved sthûra (bull), sthurin (beast of burden), sthula (strong), Gr. and L. taurus, Sl. turu, W. tarw, Go. stiur, steer. Ox=carrier.—S. ukshán, cf. L. veho (carry), W. y-chain (pl.), Go. auhsa (cf. wax, to grow), Ger. Ochse. Cow=(a) bellower.—S. go, gaus (m. and f.), Gr. and L. bos, Sl. gow, C. bo, M.E. cu, Ger. Kuh (for kavi); (b) milker, dhenu, θἴλυς (giving milk), L. filia, Lit. de-te (infans), Go. daddjan (suck). Sheep=(a) protected=youngling.—S. avi, avis (attached), Gr. and L. ovis, Lit. avi, Ir. oi, Go. awi-str (fold), awe-thi (flock), ewe; (b) clothed, invested—S. úrá (vara, woolly), urnâ (wool), urana (varuna, a wether), εἴρος (wool), L. vellus (fleece), Sl. vluna, W. gwlanen=flannel, Sc. flannen. Goat=agile.—S. aga (aga), agina=αἰλίς (goatskin), Sl. ozka. Horse=quick.—S. açva (akva), Z. aspa (Hydaspes) ἴππος, L. equus, Epŏna (goddess of horses), Lit. aszva, W. osw, Go. aihwa, A.S. ehu, Gael. and Ir. each. Foal=begotten.—S. pu-tra (son), pota (young), L. pullus, Go. fula, E. filly. Pig=(a) produced.—S. sú-kara, is, L sus. Lit. svini-ja, T. sv-ein; (b)=grubber.—S. grishvi (boar), ghrish-ti (piggie), χοἴρος (χορτιος) Norse and Sc. grice, E. Gris-kin. Dog–Ved. and S. çvan, κύων, L. canis (cvanis), Sl. szun, Ir. cu, Go. hunds.
These terms illustrate still more clearly the simple agricultural life of the Arpaus. They surround themselves with those domestic animals that still tenant every homestead, and name them with intelligent observation. All the dialects agree in giving a general significance to the name for cattle, and from the earliest period there is attached to it the sense of property, cf. cattle (capitalia), capital, and chattels. The beast of burden is the sturdy ox. In Sans. go-pa, a cowherd, gives a common word to rule or govern, and the Hindoo title Gaikwar still ​preserves the importance the original office. The Umbrian filia sus is a sucking pig. That so expressive and widespread a name as was given to the Aryan horse has not been preserved in common use among the Teutons is intelligible, and points to the east and open plain as its home. The Romance dialects have dropped the common Latin equus, while modern current Gael. and Ir. prefer capull and garron. That the initial aspirate in Greek is wrong is shown by such names as Aristippus.
5. Wild Animals.
Beast=O.E. deer, θήρ (θηρ) L. fera, Sl. zveri, Go. dius. Bear=shining, S. riksha (arksa), ἄρκτος, L. ursus (urcsus), Lit. lokis, Ir. art. Wolf=tearer, robber, S. vrika (Ved.=enemy). λύκος, L. lupus, Sl. vluku, C. fael, Go. wulfs. Mouse=thief, S. mûsh, μῦς, L. mus, Sl. misi, A.S. mûs, pl. —i, mys (mice=mise), L. mus-culus (muscle, creeping thing under the skin). Hare=cleft (nose), S. çaça (çasa), S. "man in moon" is hare in the moon, Sl. sasins, T. haso, hare. Serpent=(a) throttler, constrictor, S. ahi (aghi), ἔχις, (viper), L. anguis, Lit. angis, ἔγχελυς=anguilla (eel), C. escuing (water-snake), M.E. el (agla), Ger. Aal; (b) creeper, S. sarpa ἑρπετόν, serpens.
6. Birds.
Bird, generally, S. vi, οἰ-ωνός, L. avis, ovum, Sl. aje, T. ei (egg), pl. eigir.
Goose=gaping, laughing, S. hamsa (ghansa), χήν, L. anser, C. geiss (swan), Russ. gus', Bohemian hus (cf. John Huss), O.H.G. Kans, A.S. gós (gans). Duck, S. âti. L. anat—, νῖττα (ανετια), Lit. antis, O.H.G. Anut, Ger. Ente, O.E. ened, M.E. ened, d-rake (end-rik=duck-king). Crow=(a) noisy, S. kârava, κόραζ, L. corvus, O.H.G. Hraban, raven, L. crep-are, make a noise; (b) croaker, S. kruç (croak), Sl. kruk, C. cru, O.H.G. Hruoh, rook. Crane=calling, Z. krounkn, γέρανος, L. grus, C. garan, Sl. zervi, A.S. cran. Cuckoo, S. kokilá, κόκκυζ, L. cuculus, Sl. kukavica, C. cuach, T. kuckuk, Sc. gowk (gauche, gawky). Owl, S. uluka, ὀλολυγία, L. ulûcus, Sc. hoolet.
7. Plant Life.
Birch, S. bhûrga, Russ. bereza, Sc. birk, M.E. birche. Beech or Oak, [S. bhaga], S. bhaksh to eat, φηγός, L. fagus, O.H.G. Puohha (Buche), A.S. bók, O.E. bécen (adj.). Sallow=water-haunting, S. sara a pond, ἑλίκη, L. salix, Ir. saileach. O.H.G. Salahá, M.E. salwe, Sc. sauch. Osier, R. wi-, plait, S. veta-sá (reed), ἰτέα (willow), L. vitis (vine), W. gwden, Lit. zil-wittis (gray willow for baskets), Danish vidie, E. withe, wind, Sc. widdie. Reed, S. kaláma (reed-pen), κάλαμος, L. culmus (stalk), C. kalaf, Dutch halm, E. haulm (der. quill).
The last three groups are all important as affording some clue to the common home. The larger feræ naturæ are absent. Those we have here are familiar to the northern verge of the Temperate Zone. The ordinary features of the bear are overlooked here, and a name is given him that is connected with the place he occupies in mythology. Similarly, the name of the hare is accounted for by early folk-lore, in which he plays a large part all over the Aryan world. Under serpent-words it should be noted that there is no trace of any worship of the creature. In the larger forms it is dreaded, but for the harmless ones there is no change of radical meaning. From the Celtic clearly comes the Scotch ask or esk, the eft or newt. The bird-terms are few and all northern, notably the crane, which does not extend further east than Armenia. The use of the word as a machine, as well as bird, seems very old. These bird-terms are all of the imitative kind. Such creatures all attract attention first by their cries.
8. The Farm.
Field, R. ag—, drive, V. agra (agra, place where cattle are driven out), ἀγρός, L. Ager, Go. akr, E. acre. Path, R. pat-, spat-, stretch out, S. pathas, πάτος, L. pons (pathway), Sl. pati, T. fad, Sc. paeth. Plough, S. árya landholder, L. ar-are, Sl. orati to plough, Ir. ar-aim, I plough, S. irâ and urvarâ=ἔραζε ἄρουρα=arvum (ploughed land); S. ar-itra=C. ar-athor=L. ar-atrum (a plough), Norse aror, ἐρετμος=L. remus (oar); Go. ar-jan=M.E. erien=ear (to plough), oar. Sowing, R. sa-, cast, scatter, ​S. si-tâ (furrow), L. sero (seso), Go. saian. Wain, R. wah—, carry, S. váhana, ὄχος, L. vehiculum, Sl. vozw, C. fen, A.S. waegn and waen. Axle, R. ag drive, S. áksha, ἂξων, L. axis, C. echel, A.S. eax, O.H.G. Ahs-ala (shoulder), Sc. oxter (arm-pit). Yoke, R. yug-, join, S. yugá, ζυγόν, L. jugum, Lit. junga, W. iaw, A.S. geoc, ioc.
Farm-words show a simple, rustic, but by no means nomadic, life. The Vaidic agra reminds us of the old Scotch loanin or field kept in grass near the farm-town. The roads are simply footpaths leading to the out-fields or the village mark. The North-Western dialects agree in restricting the root ar- to plowing, but the common name for plough seems to have been lost, for the modern word has been developed within the Teutonic unity—Frisian and Sc. pleuch, Swedish plog, Russ. pluge. It is the same as plug, a block of wood. The familiar Teut. hoe, Sc. howk is in Sans. koka, a name for the wolf.
9. Food.
Corn=R. ju-, sustainer, S. yáva (barley), yávasa (fodder), ζειαἱ, Lit. yavas, C. eórna. Meal=(a) R. mar-ground, rubbed, S. malana (rubbing), μὑλη, S. mola, Sl. melja, C. melim, Go. malan (to grind); (b) R. kar—crumbled, S. kurna (flour), γῡρις, L. granum, Sl. zruno, C. gran, Go. kwairnus a quern, E. cor-n, ker-nel, churn (Sc. kirn). MEAD, S, madhu (sweet, honey), μἑθυ, L. mel, Sl. medus, A.S. medu, O.Ir. med (drunk). Water, R. wad-wet, S. udan, ὕδωρ, L. udus, C. dour, Russ. vod-kja=Ir. uis-ce (whisky), Go. wato. Salt, R. sar-flow, that which runs together, cf. serum, S. saras (lake), ἅλς, L. sal. Ir. salann, R. sole, Go, sal-t., Sc. Saline (place-name).
10. Occupations.
Build, S. dru (a tree), dâru (wood), δὁρυ (spear-shaft), Ir. daur, Sl. drevo, Go. triw-eins (adj.= treen), axle-tree. Cut, S. kartanî (scissors), κείρω, L. cul-ter, Go. hairus (sword). Plat, S. prik, πλἑκω, and L. plico, Go. flahta (plaited), Sc. flaik (hurdle), E. flax. Weave, S. va, ûrna-vâbhi (wool-spinner, spider), ὑφή (web), L. vieo, Sl. viti. Sew, R. nah=sna, bind, S. nah, Gr. and L, ne-re, Ir. snathad (needle), Ger. nähen, E. needle. Knead, ​R. dhigh, handle, form, S. dih, L. fingo, Go. daigs=dough. Dress, S. vas (clothe), ἐσθής=L. vestis, Go. vasti.
The food-grains seem to have been a late development, and are named on separate lines, the primitive staple being a kind of spelt playing such a part as we find in Homer and among the Jews and Arabs. Grinding was done by the simple old-world hand-mill, and the action involved in it is expressed by two distinct roots. Mead implies a knowledge of fermentation. From the existence of a common root for salt, it does not follow that the primitive Aryans had any acquaintance with the sea. Our word tree retains its original reference to the use of timber as the only building material. The use of osier-twigs in plaiting, of wool in spinning, and of clay as a plastic material, and the naming of them from common roots, prove an early common acquaintance with the primitive arts of basket-making, weaving, and pottery.
11. Seasons.
Spring.—Orig. same as the dawn=ushas (vasas=aurora), R. vas-, give light, S. vasanta, ἔαρ, L ver (veser), Sl. vesna, Ic. vair, A.S. Eastre (austara), the spring goddess, E. east (auost). Winter.—S. hima (cold, snow), hêmanta, χιών (snow), χειμών, L. hiems, Lit. zima, Norse gymbr (year-old sheep), Sc. gimmer. Snow, R. snigh—, wet.—S. sneha (moisture), Z. çnizh (to snow), νίφα, L. (s)niv(is), nivis, Go. snaiws. Month, Moon.—R. ma—, measurer, S. mâs, μήν (month), μήνη (moon), L. mensis, Lit. menu, Ir. mi. (mens), Go. mên-oths, A.S. mêna. Day, R. div—, shine, S. div, divâ (by day), L. dies, W. dyw, Si. dini. Yesterday, orig.=morning-beyond.—S. hyas, χθές, L hes-ternus, Go. gistra-dagis, yester-day. Night, R. nak—, fail, disappear, perish, S. nakti, νύξ, L. nox, Lit. naktis, Go. nahts. Year, S. yâtu (time), hora, A.S. gear, Ger. Jahr.
12. Civil Life.
King (a) as father.—S. ganaka, L. genitor, Ger. König, A.S. cyn-ing (son of the kin or clan); (b) as protector—S. viç-pati (master of the wic or village-community), Sl. vesz-pati (only of God and the king); (c) as ruler—R. rak=reach, rule, S. ​ragan, L. rex, Ir. riogh, ri, Go. reiks (ruler), Ger. Reich. Village-commune.—Sabhâ (community), Sl. sebru, Go. sibja and Ger. Sippe (affinity), Sc. sib, O.E. sibbe (peace, affinity), E. gos-sip. Kin=R. gan—begotten.—S. ganas, γένος, L. genus, Go. kuni (race, tribe), E. kind-red.
Season-words yield a further hint of a northern Continental home, with a more or less humid climate in which the welcome change from the long ungenial winter was as the burst of sunshine through the cold and mist of a gloomy night, and the dawn of gladsome spring was merged in a too short summer day. Time was measured by the moon, of little service otherwise in that wolf-haunted forest-land, and therefore playing but a small part in primitive mythology. Day is the reign of divine, life-giving light, as night is the waning of Nature's powers in a death-like gloom. The terms for civil life show that a more than rudimentary conception of social polity existed. The basis of union is kinship by blood, and the ruler is the father of related families, the guardian that defended the tribe on its threshold (the encircling mark), or even the one most distinguished by personal merit chosen to a still wider sway.
13. Mind.
Thinking.—R. ma-, measure, S. manas, μένος, L. mens, Sl. mineti, C. menme, Go. mun-s. Wit=seeing clearly, S. vid, οἶδα, L. videre, Sl. vedeti, Go, wit-an, Ger. wiss-en (to know). Knowing, R. make to know, teach, S. gânâmi (I know), γνῶσις, L. g-nosco, Sl. znati, Go. kannjan (make known), Sc. ken. Willing=choose, S. vri. (choose), vára (wish, excellent); L. volo, S. voliti, Go. wiljan—will, well. Awe, R. agh-, choke, S. amha (angha, constraint, pain), ἄχος, Ir. eaghal, Go. agis—awe, ugly, ug-some.
14. Myth.
Sun=light-giver, S. sûra, svar (sky), σείριος=Sirius, L. ser-enus=σελήνη (svarânâ), C. sail, Lit. saul, Go. sauil. Staro=strewn or light-strewers,—Ved. star-as, ἀστήρ, L. stella (ster-ula), C. steren, Go, stairno, star. Wind and Weather,—R. vâ—, blow, vâta, L. ventus, Lit. vetra, Go. waian, A.S. weder,—weather: R. an—, breathe, S. anila, ἄνεμος, animus, Sc. end (breath). ​Thunder (a)=sound, groan, S. stanita, L. tonitru, A.S. thunnr, Icel. Thor (god of thunder), Thurs-day; (b)=strike, S. Vadhá-tra (thunder-bolt), T. Wuodan (Woden), Odin, Wednes-day. Darkness=what dims, mist, S. Ragas, ragani (night), Gr. Erebus, Orpheus, Go. rikwis, Sc. reek (smoke). Fire (a) S. agni, L. ignis, Sl. ogni; (b) firestick, S. pramantha, Prometheus. Bug-bear, S. Bhaga, Phrygian, Zeus Bagaios, Ir. puca (sprite Puck), Sc. bogle (scare-crow). Heaven=(a) bright sky, S. dyaus, Dyaus-pitar=Dies-piter=Jupiter, Diana, Janus, S. deva (a god), Lit. devas, C. di, Norse Edda, Tivar (gods), Tyr (god of war), Tuesday=Tiwes-daeg; (b)=all-embracing and all-seeing, S. Varuna (sky) Uranus; (c)=living, being.—R. as, to be, V. Asura, Z. Ahura-mazda, cf. Jehovah = I am, that I am.
The terms under these beads enable us to plant Aryan civilisation deeper, showing as they do a more profound grasp of what is in the best sense culture. They prove the truth of the maxim—"Nil in intellectu nisi prius in sensu." Whatever may be the psychologist's verdict on the scholastic question of primum cognitum and primum appellatum, these primitive concepts tell us that the Aryans reached the abstract through the concrete, and moved in a world of quick sensations. They had even grasped the Kantian distinction of subjective and objective, differentiating the wissen from the kennen, the savoir from the connaître. The higher consciousness is choice, and the most solemn and impressive symbol for physical pain and religious dread is found in the sensation of choking. The last head reveals to us the boundless region of comparative mythology. Here we read the unconscious literature of the Aryans, the sacred books of the race. It has the same physical basis as the terms for mental operations. The cardinal fact of the Aryan's simple existence was the ever-ending, ever-beginning struggle of the bright sun, eternal type of his own lot. Against his hero are arranged the powers of nature, the demons of the cloud and the darkness. His love is the dawn-nymph. In the first blush of their love she coyly eludes him; fair but faithless and fleeting. In the beat of the day she will haunt him, till once again in the glory of his manbood she meets his embraces, and they sink together into the mystic Avillon with his twilight smile irradiating her azure brow. Thus did the simple Aryan endow ​ the phases of natural life with a personality like his own; on this all-absorbing theme he lavished his nascent powers of literary expression in the significant epithet; and all this with such truth and vitality that, from Homer down to the latest modern novel, the primitive solar myth—the varying fortunes of hero and heroine, the cruel machinations that separate them, and their final re-union-dominates the whole realm of literary make-believe.
Professor Max Müller sums up the results of the foregoing inquiry in these words:—"Looking then at the whole evidence which the languages of the various Aryan nations still supply, we perceive that before their separation their life was that of agricultural nomads, and probably most like the life of the ancient Germans, as described by Tacitus. They knew the arts of plonghing, of making roads, of building ships and carts, of weaving and sewing, and of erecting strongholds and houses, more or less substantial. They could count, and they had divided the year into months. They had tamed the most important domestic animals; they were acquainted with the most useful metals, and were armed with hatchets and swords, whether for peaceful or for warlike purposes. They followed their leaders and kings, obeyed their laws and customs; and were impressed with the idea of a Divine being, which they invoked by various names."
It is impossible to say when or in what way the causes which have produced the existing distribution of the Aryan tongues began to take effect. It is due to a highly-elaborated flexional system, and a very early appearance of literary forms, among many other considerations, that philologists like Max Müller were led to place the common centre of emanation nearer to the Asiatic than to the European unity. There is no doubt, moreover, that these tongues range themselves in groups that travel on divergent lines. We are on historical ground, too, in saying that the original rupture between North-west and Southeast was rendered permanent by internal causes due to the growth of an elaborate social and sacerdotal system peculiar to the Asiatic section, and boy such external agencies as the inroads of the Tartar hordes from Central Asia, and the spread of Semitic influences from the South-West. Bearing ​in mind that the oldest names for the outstanding features of the country in Europe are of Celtic origin, and that the Celts are, both in point of locality and civil progress, an outlying, isolated, and diminishing stock, we may safely infer that they were the first to move westwards. All the traditions of the Græco-Latin stock point to an Eastern origin, and that a very remote one. On the other hand, not till the fourth century do the Teutons emerge from obscurity and take a place in literature. They are then on the lower Danube, but driven into the Empire by ruder barbarians on the North. The translation of the New Testament by the Bishop of the Goths, Wulfila (about 360 a.d.), constitutes, philologically speaking, the Veda of the Teutons. The language of the Goths retains very many of the characteristics of the primitive Aryans, and throws besides invaluable light on the whole subsequent dialectic growth of the Teutonic tongues. The Slavs, having for centuries to maintain a hard contest between their Teutonic brethren on the west of the Sarmatian plain and the Mongol savages of the east, have arisen but slowly out of their primitive barbarism. Their language, however, preserves some singularly interesting archaisms.
As the great schism that has permanently separated the Asiatic from the European groups brings us nearest to the proto-Aryan period, whatever throws light upon the significance of that event serves still further to illustrate the stage of culture which the combined stock had reached. We have seen on what points of material, mental, and moral culture they all agree. It will be important to notice in what respects they differ. Roots will be found to divide in a mysterious way, so that the North-western group, for example, prefers to express the action of milking as stroking, softening (marg-), the South-eastern as drawing (duh-). Similarly the root ar- goes to Europe as ploughing, and remains in Asia as rowing, the Hindoos betaking themselves to another common radical (karsh—to draw) to express the former action; while the Sans. kshuma is supplanted in the West by linen, flax. Of more special growths we have the Vaidic soma as a sacred beverage remaining strictly in the East, while vinum spreads all over the West. It was probably due to climatic conditions that the Hindoos added to the primi​ primitive set of phonetic symbols such new peculiar forms as characterise the Sans. alphabet. But the most striking proofs of an imperfectly-developed common civilisation remain to be noted. For example, whereas the ear for phonetic variations was so developed as to produce a rich flexional system, and perpetuate minute shades of accentuation, the colour sense, as might be expected, was a late growth. The Sans. for colour is varna, lit. what covers, and is the same as vellus and our wool. It was also chosen to express caste, a most significant specialisation of its force. But this vagueness in colour-naming is best shown in the case of the metals. Gold is S. hir-anya, hár-ita, Z. zaranya, zairita, Sl. zlūtu, zelenu, Go. gulth and our gold, Gr. chrusos. These all agree in naming the metal from its colour, the yellow. From the same stem, however, come S. hari, green, and Lat. gilvus, flavus, and our yellow; from S. harit, red, Lat. fulvus. The neutral tint of silver is more easily decided; it is S. ragata, the white, or ragata hiranyam, white gold, just as in Scotland zinc was called white iron. The Lat. arg-entum has the radical sense, but it is lost in the Teut. dialects. The third metal shows the greatest variations of colour-naming, so much so that it may have been applied to copper, bronze, or iron. It is in Sans. ayas, Lat. aes, Go. aiz. In Wulfila the apostles are to take no aiz (money) in their girdles. Gr., Lat., and Teut. have developed their words for iron on quite independent lines. When we deal with the names of commodities that are the products of an advanced civilisation, we are in the region of loan-words, interesting as evidence of a very early commerce, and this necessarily complicates the question as to the higher culture of the proto-Aryans. Some of these loan-words are extremely old—sugar- candy, for example, came from India in the remotest times, crystallised on sticks of cane or bamboo. Sugar is the S. çarkara = gravel, Pers. shakar, Lat. saccharum, and Gr. with slight change, M.E. sugre. Candy is S. kandha, a stick, and Pers. quandat, quandi (sugared). The word lives in Lowland Sc. as gundy.
The only point that now remains to be discussed is the home of the Aryas. We were long satisfied with locating it somewhere in Western Asia, probably in the region stretching south from the Caspian and along the valley of the Oxus, on the one ​side reaching up the slopes of the Paropamisan and Hindoo-Koosh, and on the other to the Armenian Highlands. This position gives us, mindful of the saying, ex oriente lux, a reasonable centre of development, and accords well with such historical facts as bear on the point. In respect of natural products and climatic conditions it lends itself to the deductions already drawn from the lists of most widely diffused terms. European centre has long been claimed for the Aryan dispersion, somewhere in South Russia, the Danube, the shores of the Baltic, and so on. This theory would make the proto-Aryans spring from the rude builders of the lake-dwellings and the kitchen-middens. It points to the absence of any common word for lion, tiger, elephant, camel, ape, as inimical to any Asiatic source. It says that the only common trees named, birch and beech, are natives of middle Europe not of Asia. Max Müller discusses the whole question, and replies to this argument on its own lines. There is no doubt that the prehistoric condition of middle Europe was unfavourable to the early growth of civilisation. In point of fact, when there at all, it came late and from the south. Dense forests covered a marshy land. The inhabitants must have been confined to the neighbourhood of lakes or of the sea, where alone were the means of easy subsistence. If, then, the dispersion was from such a centre, there ought to be a common word for fish, yet the Sans. matsya, and the Teut. and Celt. fish are from different radicals; common names for shells and shell-fish are entirely absent. The eel is not found in the Black or Caspian Sea, and the name, though from a common root, is of Western and later growth. The sea itself ought to, and does, have a common name, but this proves little. In Sans. maru is a desert, literally that which is dead, and Lat. mare and our mere and extensive Teut., Slav., and Celt. forms point to a Western development. Why, on this hypothesis, should the European Aryans forget in the East so prominent a natural environment as this? The name for ship, too, is common. It is Sans. nau, Gr. and Lat. naus, A.S. naea, and Ger. Nachen, a skill, from a root seen in nare, to swim or float. It primarily applies to a boat on a river or lake, and has not spread far in the Teutonic dialects. In bird life the crane is not in Sans. but in ​Zend, because the bird does not spread further east than Armenia, while the quail appears both in Sans. and Gr. as the returning one. The crane would be new to those who went west, familiar if they went east. Of plants the general term tree as timber is alone common to all. The naming of individual trees is uncertain. There is no definite common term. Bhurja (Eng. birch, Sc. birk) appears in Sans. as the name of a bark used as writing-material. The beech, used as a food, in confined to the North-west. The word is the name of the oak in Greek. The Lat. quercus, again, is the Teut. fora-ha, and our fir. But the whole argument from the plant and animal life forgets that there are a flora and fauna of altitude as well as latitude, and it was never implied that the proto-Aryans lived anywhere but on the uplands of western Asia where European trees and familiar animals thrive. So that it is not necessary to admit, as Professor Max Müller does, that the names for lion, tiger, cat, might have been forgotten by those western tribes that left the haunts of these creatures. This would be intelligible, for what ceases to be generally used ceases to be named. Thus in the prelatic days in Scotland the lectern was familiar. As Presbyterianism took hold of the people of the reading-desk, known for a while as the letterin, was applied to the precentor's desk, and in time was forgotten as Episcopacy became unpopular. The ape and tiger are strictly tropical. The lion is more widely diffused, and the word is said to be an Indo-European one, signifying the raving or roaring one. The camel presents a real difficulty, for Bactria, the home of a well-know variety, is admittedly near the centre of ancient Arya. Elephant is a loan-word with a curious history that shows Aryan origin. The animal was unknown in the West till brought to Southern Italy by Pyrrhus, though ivory had been spread by trade. The word elephant appears in the Gothic translation of the New Testament. Wulfila, at a loss to translate the camel-hair coat of the Baptist, uses ulubandus, his Gothic equivalent for elephant. It was the only name for a large eastern quadruped, known to him, that would suit. The word is apparently Semitic, eleph, an ox, but contains a Sans. stem, ibha, with the Heb. article prefixed. The Sans. ibha, strong, powerful is a common name applied to the animal, and its ​appearance in the west points to a familiarity with the creature after the Hindoos reached Southern India and to an early traffic by the Arabian Sea in ivory.
The interest of this whole question for the student of the Scots vernacular lies in the evidence it affords of a primitive unity within that circle of the West Aryans, known as the Low-Germans or Teutons of the flat shores bordering on the lower Rhine, the Baltic and the North Seas, to which not only our northern speech but also our characteristic cultural development belongs. It is beside this point to follow the question into those wider issues which go to the root of the whole science of Comparative Philology. Suffice it to indicate in brief the conclusions arrived at by so eminent an anthority as Professor A. H. Sayce in his "Principles of Comparative Philology." He there shows how the philological point of view has changed in recent years. Notably has Sanskrit been dethroned from the commanding position on which its far-reaching discovery had placed it. The study of anthropology and folk-lore, of Assyrian and Egyptian records, and of living tongues now growing under primitive conditions in the dark places of the earth have all profoundly affected accepted theories.
On the question of the original home and unity of the Aryans Professor Sayce adopts Latham's view and assigns a centre of distribution inclining more to Europe than to Asia. He holds that the European vocalic system is older than the Indic, and that the East Aryans are the latest and most distant. A permanent cleavage between East and West Aryans seems to have been effected by an inrush of Northern Turanians, to whom are due the cuneiform inscriptions of the Babylonian tablets. On these no Aryan elements appear earlier than the seventh century B.C. When or how, again, the West Aryans distributed themselves over the Central Plain of Europe and roamed westwards to the Danube, the Rhine, and the Baltic it is impossible to say. That the wandering instinct was strong within these pioneers of Western civilisation is writ large in history. We find Wulfila's converts flourishing under conditions of comparative enlightment in the Danube valley as early as the fourth century, determined Teutons pouring out of the forests of Central Germany gave imperial Rome for centuries ​her hardest frontier question, while their kith and kin were soon to sweep the North Sea as Angles, Frisians, and Norsemen.
On every page of the foregoing Studies there will be found evidence of the continuity and persistency, within the Lowland Scots vernacular, of those features that are most distinctive of this Western Teutonism.
It may help the student to have, as footnotes to this article, a conspectus of Professor Sayce's views on the origines of the Aryans. As a distinguished Egyptologist and Assyriologist, he has a wider grasp of the situation than the earlier Orientalists could have had:—
(1) To Greek, and not to Sanskrit, we have to look for light on Aryan speech.
(2) Sanskrit not now regarded as the parent Aryan speech.
(3) The primitive Aryan, a coarse, squalid savage, defending himself against the climate, clad in skins.
(4) Early Aryans' presence in Asia Minor given up: no Aryan names on cuneiform monuments between Kurdistan and the Halys.
(5) Whole strip from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf Turanian at the earliest date known: cuneiform tablets due to a Turanian inrush.
(6) Eastern Aryans of India and Iran, the latest and most distinct branch.
(7) Westward flow of Aryans not likely begun before the Turanian inrush.
(8) This flow not south by the Caspian but over the Tartar steppes on its northern shore: therefore little sea influence shown.
(9) European Aryan home a track, bleak and wintry; want of a common name for same object in East and West Aryan may be due to loss, as well as to ignorance, of the object itself.
(10) A primitive European Aryan language, hence the original branching—East and West—repeated in Europe into Kelt.-Ital., Hell., Teut., Slav.
(11) Not till the West Aryans settled on the shores of the Baltic, or, possibly, of the Black Sea, did they break up—shown by agreement in the word for sea, and in the beech, which grows only to the west of line, Koenigsberg-Crimea.
* ↑ In the revision of this section I have been favoured with the valuable aid of my esteemed friend, Mons. F. J. Amours, B.A., well known as a distinguished scholar both in Scots and French.
* ↑ The "Ledger" is examined minutely in my "By-ways of History" under the title, "Scottish Trade in the Olden Time."
* ↑ Bell's "Ledger" is examined at length in "By-ways of History," p. 163.
* ↑ Italic g in Sanskrit indicates the soft or palatalised sound, as in "George."