c*r^n . . ^- (J . , 
 
 ... V 
 
 THE COPTIC ELEMENT 
 
 IN 
 
 LAN'GUAGES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 
 
 ; ;; by the rev. john Campbell, m.a., Toronto. 
 
 . ■ * . - '■ ' i - ■ ■ ' 
 
 TORONTO : 
 COPP, CLARK & CO., 17 & 19 KING STREET EAST. 
 
 1873. 
 
'•'?"■■■' 
 1 /■ 
 
 
 T ^ ;■ ;•, -„ 
 
 J. >- S. J i. » » .!. . 
 
 ■; '.{■■,'•,■• ;i, -r ■■ -. 
 
 J 1 Co 5.0 
 
 
THE COPTIC ELEMENT 
 
 IN LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 
 
 BY THE REV. JOHN CAMPBELL, M.A., TORONTO. 
 
 Read before the Canadian Institute, February 10/A, 1872, 
 
 Professor Max Miiller wisely holds that the classification of races 
 and of languages should be quite independent of each other*. By 
 this he means that the science of language in its classificatory stage 
 and that of ethnology in the same should not be mixed up together 
 by the student of both. He does not, and cannot, mean that we are 
 not to expect to find intimate and important relations subsisting be- 
 tween the two classifications. If it be ti'ue that there are clearly 
 defined species of mankind, it is exceedingly probable that there are 
 corresponding clearly defined families of language. A multiplicity 
 of protoplasts must, of necessity, imply various beginnings of speech. 
 If again we favour the development theory in connection with the 
 origin of the human race, we are almost compelled to adopt a similar 
 theory in regard to the origin of language; and the classification* 
 which proceeds upon subsequent development, will be as applicable 
 to the one as to the other. Finally, supposing that theory to be the 
 tnie one which finds in the human race no well marked species, but 
 a number of vaiieties shading into one another by almost impercep- 
 tible diflFerences, and defpng anything like a scientific classification, 
 may we not lawfully look for something of the same kind in the do- 
 main of that purely human faculty — speech] Professor Max Miiller 
 is a firm believer in the common origin of mankind, and has demon- 
 strated the possibility of a common origin of language ; yet he is 
 disposed to di-aw very distinct lines between groups of languages, and 
 to throw very far back into the past the time of their relative uiver- 
 gence from the simplest form of articulate speech. 
 
 Various attempts have been made to form a general classification 
 of languages. Friedrich Schlegel divided them into two classes; the 
 first of which " denotes the secondary intentions of meaning by an 
 internal alteration of the sound of the root by inflection," and com- 
 prises the languages of the Indo-Eur(q)ean fiunily. The second, in- 
 
 1 Lectures on the Science of Language ; aeries 1, lecture yiii. 
 
4 THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 eluding the Semitic tongues, "denoteb the secondary intentions of 
 meaning by the addition of a word, which may by itself signify plu- 
 rality, past time, what is to be in the future, or other relative ideas 
 of thAt kind." Bopp shows us that neither this division, nor that of 
 Augustus Schlegel, into "languages without grammatical structure, 
 languages that employ affixes, and languages with inflections," are 
 valid, inasmuch as the inflections meant do not necessarily exist in, 
 nor are characteristic of, the Indo-European languages, which repre- 
 sent the latter class. Bopp's own classification is into three classes. 
 First, "languages with monosyllabic roots, without the capability of 
 composition, and hence without organism, without grammar." This 
 includes the Chinese. Secondly, "languages with monosyllabic roots, 
 which are capable of combination, and obtain their organism and 
 grammar nearly in this way alone." Here the Indo-European and 
 so-called Turanian languages are found. Thirdly, " languages with 
 dissyllabic verbal roots, and three necessary consonants as single 
 vehicles of the fundamental meaning." The Semitic languages alone 
 make up this class, "which produces its grammatical forms not simply 
 by combination, but by a mere internal modification of the roots."* 
 In this latter definition of his third class, Bopp falls into the opposite 
 extreme to that for which he blames Friedrich and Augustus Schlegel. 
 Internal modifications of the root are common to both the Semitic 
 and Indo-European languages, and thus peculiar to neither. The 
 best classification is that of Prof. Max Mviller into languages in the 
 Monosyllabic, Terminational, and Inflectional stages. The first still 
 includes the Chinese; the second, in which one of the roots uniting 
 to form a word loses its independence, embraces the Turanian lan- 
 guages; and the third, in which both of two roots uniting to form a 
 word, lose their independence, contains the Indo-European and the 
 Semitic families.' The author of this last classification, however, 
 states "that it is impossible to imagine an Aryan language derived 
 from a Semitic, or a Semitic from an Aryan language. The gram- 
 matical framework is totally distinct in these two families of spoech." 
 Ernest Renan goes much farther, and says, in hh Histoire G6n4rale 
 et Syst^me Compart des Langues Semitiques, "We must give up the 
 search for any connection between the grammatical systems of the 
 
 * A Comparative Qraramar of the Sanscrit, Zend, kc, Languages, by Prof. F. Bopp. Trans- 
 lated fh>m the German by E. B. Eastwiclc, F.R.8., to. and edition. London, 18M; voL i, 
 p. W-103. 
 
 * Lectures on the Science of Language ; Mrlea 1 ; lecture viiL 
 
 S. 
 
LANGUAGES OP THE INDO-MUROPEAN FAMILY. 5 
 
 Shemitic languages and the Indo-European ones. They are two 
 distinct and absolutely separate creations." An able writer in the 
 British and Foreign Evangelical Review has shown, with some recent 
 German philologists, that the grammatical differences here spoken of 
 are greatly exaggerated. He proves that the mechanism of the 
 Semitic verbs has so many points of similarity with that of the 
 same parts of Aryan speech as to fail to constitute a fundamental 
 difference between the two systems; that in the Celtic branch of the 
 Indo-European family nouns are construed together as in the Semitic 
 languages; and that there is a correspondence between the modes of 
 inflection, internal and external to the root, in both groups which 
 cannot be accidental.* It is important to notice the Celtic element 
 which the Reviewer introduces, inasmuch as it has been generally over- 
 looked in comparisons of the Aryan with the Semitic languages. 
 The custom with philologists like M. Renan has been to compai'e 
 typical or extreme representatives of each class, in oi'der to justify 
 their conclusion ; thus the Hebrew and the Sanskrit have taken places 
 which it would better have sensed the interests of truth to have given 
 to the Punic or the Coptic and the Celtic tongues. Mr. Taylor pro- 
 fesses, even from a comparison of the Hebrew and Greek and Latin 
 languages, partly through the medium of the Gaelic, to be satisfied of 
 the truth of the position "that, at the time when the Aryan and 
 Shemitic linguistic families parted company, they were not only fur- 
 nished with a good vocabulaiy of radical words, but possessed in germ, 
 and in much more than infantile development, almost all the gram- 
 matical methods which are now so divided between them as to have 
 led some philologists to describe the systems as entirely sepamte 
 creations." 
 
 Passing from form to matter, &om grammar to vocabulary, from 
 inflections to roots, we find the Indo-European and Semitic families 
 drawn still closer together. Professor Max Miiller says, "the com- 
 parisons that have been instituted between the Semitic roots reduced 
 to their simplest form, and the roots of the Aryan languages, have 
 made it more than probable that the material eleuents with which 
 they both started were originally the same."' Even Renan is con- 
 strained to admit "that the two families possess a considerable num- 
 
 * The Variation of Languages and Species, bj the Rer. WilUam Taylor; BritUh and For*ig% 
 Evangelical B«vUw; No. IxxviU ; October, 187L 
 
 • Lectures on the Science of Language ; lerlei 1, lecture viii. 
 
6 THE C01>TIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 ber of common roots outside of those which they have borrowed from 
 one another in historic times."" It is on the ground of many radical 
 words being the common property of the two families of language 
 that many philologists, whose opinions Benan combats, have main- 
 tained their primeval unity. Some instances taken almost at random 
 from the Hebi'ew lexicon, will suffice to show this identity of root in 
 the Semitic and Aryan tongues : 
 
 Heb., HAKHAH or CHAKHAH; Eng., hook; Oer., haken; Dutch, haak; 
 Dan., hage. 
 
 Heb., HANAK op CHANAK; Eng., hang; Oer,, henken; DiUeh, hangen; 
 
 Dan., hoenge. 
 Heb., YALkL; ^wjr., wail, how!, yell; G'*'., ololnzo ; Xa^., ululo. 
 Heb., KHAPHAR; Eng., cover ; Slavon, kover ;? French and Romance, couvrir, «fco. 
 Heb., LAPID ; Eng., lamp ; Or., lampas-ados. 
 ^e6., LAKAT; Eng., coWvtoi; Xa<., lecturo. -■ 
 
 fieft., LAEAK; Eng.,\\c\i; Cr, leicho; Xa^, lingo; Oer,, lecken. 
 Heb., KQrK'&\S.; Eng.,\o\t); ©n, agapS. 
 
 Heb., ATZAD or GATZ AD ; Eng., adze, axe ; Or., axinS ; Dan., oexe ; Oer., axt. 
 Heb., PARAD ; Eng., part, separate ; Lat, pars-tis. , . ^ 
 
 ^c6., KOL; X^rty., voice, call ; (?r., kaleo; 5ans., kal. 
 
 fieJ., KEREN; A'nqr., horn; ia<., cornn; Cae/ic, corn. • ■■ r/ ..., 
 
 ^e6., TZIPPOR; -fiVi^r., sparrow; (7o<A., sparwa ; Cer., Sperling. 
 Heb., SHAKAPH; Eng., look, see, scope; Or., skopeo. ■, • ; , 
 
 ifefi., SHARAK; ^7i^., whistle; O'r., surigx ;? X'rwjr., shriek. 
 
 The mere casual survey of a lexicon of any of the Semitic tongues, 
 Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac or Arabic, must convince the unprejudiced 
 student in philology how unjustifiable is the broad line of demarca- 
 tion drawn between them and languages of the Indo-European stock. 
 
 Dr. Hyde Clarke, in a letter to the Athenaeum of the 23rd of Sep- 
 tember last, cites a large number of Hebrew geographical names, with 
 their phonetic equivalents in Greek and Latin. He says in conclu- 
 sion, "I may state what I now know to be the fact, that the language 
 of these names is Caucasian." Two statements of Sir Henry Raw- 
 linson, in his essay on the Early History of Babylonia, merit atten- 
 tion in this connection. "There was not, perhaps, in the very earliest 
 ages, that essential linguistic difference between Hamite and Semitic 
 nations which would enable an enquirer at the present day, from a 
 mere examination of their monumental records, to determine posi- 
 
 * Histoire Q6n6rale et Systime Compare des Langues Semitiques, par Ernest Rei. , vide 
 article of Rev. William Taylor, BritUh and Foreign Evangelical Review. The position of the 
 Bhemitic nations in the History of Civilization, English translation, together with An Essay on 
 the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathsean Agriculture. London, 1M2. Trttbner, p. 110. 
 
LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-BUBOPEAN FAMILY. ,7 
 
 lively to which family certain races respeotively belonged. Although, 
 for example, the Hamite language of Babylon, in the use of poat- 
 positions and particles and pronominal suffixes, approaches to the 
 character of a Scythic or Turanian rather than a Semitic tongue, 
 yet a large portion of its vocabulary is absolutely identical with that 
 which was afterwards continued in Assyrian, Hebrew, Arabic, and 
 the cognate dialects; and the verbal formations, moreover, in Hamite 
 Babylonian and in Semitic Assyrian exhibit in many respects the 
 closest resemblances." "One of the most remarkable results arising 
 from an analysis of the Hamite cuneiform alphabet, is the evidence 
 of an Aryan element in the vocabulary of the very earliest period, 
 thus showing, either that in that remote ago there must have been 
 an Aryan race dwelling on the Euphrates among the Hamite tribes, 
 or that (as I myself think more probable) the distinction between 
 Aryan, Semitic and Tui-anian tongues had not been developed when 
 picture-writing was first used in Chaldea; but that the words then 
 in use passed indifferently at a subsequent period, and under certain 
 modifications, into the three great families among which the languages 
 of the world were divided."^ If we confine ourselves to the vocabulary, 
 disregarding grammatical forms, it will not be difficult to prove the 
 kinship of the whole race. Professor Miiller quotes the statement of 
 Dr. J. Rae, to the effect that all the Indo-European languages have 
 their root and origin in that of Polynesia, a statement in which Dr. 
 Hae is in part justified by the presence in many of the Malay dialects 
 of roots identiciil in form and meaning with those of the Aryan lan- 
 guages.* Dr. Bleek thinks that the Kaffir and Hottentot languages, 
 the latter of which is supposed to have old Coptic connections, are 
 fitted to shed great light upon the most important problems of lan- 
 guage in general;' and the Revs. H. M. Waddell, and Alex. Robb, 
 nussionaiies in Old Calabar, find in the Efik, one of the Nigro-Hamitic 
 tongues, a grammatical construction of Semitic form, and a vocabulary 
 ^possessing radical affinities with the NUo-Hamitic, Semitic and Indo- 
 European families of speech.^" I observe that Dr. Edkins, of Pekin, 
 
 T RawliDBon's Herodotui, App. Book i ; essay vi ; section 18. 
 
 * Iiectures on Science of Language ; series II, lecture i. Dr. Leyden long ago f Asiatic Jte- 
 mrehcs, vol. x,) set tortli th» same truth, which modem theorists in language have r^Jeeted as 
 interfering with their a priori conclusions. 
 
 * Lectures on ^Science of Language ; series ii ; lectun L 
 
 u Twenty-nine years in the West Indies and Central AMca, by Bar. Hope Mistertan Wad- 
 dell ; appendix vi. Notes on the £flk language. 
 
8 . MS'.V THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN ^^ ^i"' t 
 
 has just prepared a work on Chinese philology, tho aim of which is 
 to prove the common origin of Asiatic and European languages. 
 
 In the above somewhat lengthy preface it has been my endeavour 
 to show that, while important diflGerences of grammatical structure 
 do exist between certain groups of languages, these gi-oups themselves 
 cannot be clearly defined; and that even where points of similarity in 
 grammatical structure are almost or entii-ely wanting, a community 
 of roots may still attest true relationship. It is on these grounds, 
 as well as on the gi-ound of my belief already stated in a pi-evious 
 paper," tliat Egypt was the cradle of the race, that I am emboldened 
 to present, under the title of this essay, the result of some recent 
 studies in comparative philology-^studies which, I may state, were 
 commenced and carried on in perfect independence of any theory. 
 
 The language in which I profess to have found a link or links 
 binding together the Aryan and Semitic families, is the old Egyptian. 
 The researches of M. Quatremfere de Quincy first revealed the fact 
 that this ancient langi'.age sui^^ved in the Coptic, which was used in 
 Egypt as late as the twelfth centuiy of the Christian era. After 
 many foreign elements have been rejected from the Coptic, it is found 
 to consist mainly of monosyllabic roots, many of them formed with 
 only one consonant, and these"' appai'ently the radicals of Semitic 
 words of similar signification. In the earliest stages of this language 
 there does not appear to have been any well-marked distinction be- 
 tween the parts of speech, although, at a later period, a construction 
 similar to that of the Semitic languages, especially in the case of the 
 verb, manifests itself." Professor Max Miiller will hardly allow 
 that the Coptic and Berber languages of North Africa are of a well- 
 defined Semitic character; neither will he erect them into a separate 
 family." These languages, together with the Ethiopic, Nubian, 
 Abyssinian and similar East African tongues, down to the old Mala- 
 gasy, have been formed into a group called the Nilotic or Nilo-Hamitic, 
 which Bunsen 4nd others looked upon as sprung from the same stock 
 as the Semitic, and as forming with them a single family. Sir Gardner 
 Wilkinson makes the following interesting statements in regard to 
 the old Coptic. " The Egyptian language might, from its grammar, 
 Appear to claim a Semitic origin, but it is not really one of that 
 
 U The Birthplace of Ancient Religions and Civllizatiou.— Canadian Journal, August, 1871. 
 u Benfey, ttber das Verhftltnisz de7 iigyptiscben Sprache cum Mmitischen Spracbstamm 
 Leipcig, 1844. 
 It Soienc* of Language ; aeiiet i ; lecture Till. 
 
LAK0UA0E8 OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 9 
 
 family, like the Arabic, Hebrew, and others; nor is it one of the 
 languages of the Sanskritic family, though it shows a primitive affinity 
 to the Sanskrit in certain points; and this has been accounted for by 
 the Egyptians being an offset from the early undivided Asiatic stock, 
 a conclusion consistent with the fact of their language being 'much 
 less developed than the Semitic and Sanskritic, and yet admitting the 
 principle of those inflections and radical formations, which we find 
 developed, sometimes in one, sometimes in the other, of those great 
 families.* Besides certain affinities with the Sanskrit, it has others 
 with the Celtic, and the languages of Africa; and Dr, Ch. Meyer 
 thinks that Celtic, ' in all its non-Sanskritic features, most strikingly 
 corresponds with the old Egjq)tian.' "" Sii* J. G. Wilkinson lulds : 
 "It is also the opinion of M. Miiller that the Egyjitian bears an affinity 
 ■•both to the Aryan and Semitic dialects,' from its having been an 
 offset of the original Asiatic tongue, which was theu* common parent 
 before this was broken up into the Turanian, Aryan and Semitic."** 
 
 From what has been said above, we need not be astonished to find 
 instances of connection between the Egyptian language on the one 
 hand, and the Semitic and Indo-European families of tongues on the 
 other. First, in regard to the vocabulary, I may cite a few Instances 
 in which the names 6f persona, places and things are common to two 
 or more of the languages compared. The poet Euripides represents 
 Menelaus, a wanderer in the land of Egypt, as acquainted with such 
 ^correspondence. •^:^, '. ^' !;■>-.:; 
 
 " IloWot ydp, a»c ti^affiv, ii> iroWy x9ovi \ 
 
 '•'■• " ovoftara Tavr'^^ixovm, teat TroXif TruXei ; "v 
 
 ■■ '- ' ■ " yvvj) yvvaiKijr.' ovStv oiv Baviiaarkov."^* '■-' ''-^ ;' ■ : 
 
 Among proper names of persons we have those of certain of the 
 .gods and goddesses : ' 
 
 .%., Amun; //eft., AMMON ; ffn, Haimon. ^ 
 
 Eff., Anouke; Heb., HANOUH; Gr., Anagkg, Ogka. 
 
 Eff., Ancbis; Heb., ANUB; Gr., Oiiiopion, Oinops. 
 
 £g., Athom ; Heb., ETIIAM ; Gr., Athamas. 
 
 J^., ATHoa; i/e6., ATARAH; (?r., AithrS. 
 
 ^., IIekt ; Heb., JAUATII or JACHATH ; Gr., Hecate. 
 
 %, HoRUs; ^«6., HORI; Gr., Oros, 
 
 JK^., Month; jy«6., MANAIIATH; Gr., Menoitios. 
 
 1* Bawlinsoa's Herodotus, App. Book ii ; chapter i. 
 u Rawlinson's Herodotus, App. Bonk ii ; chapter 1. 
 U Eurip. Helena, 497-409. 
 
10 , iY: THE COPTIC ELEMENT IH 
 
 i%r., Nkith; J3«ft., NAHATH; G^., AnaitiB. *? s,-,^;^ / .sf as^ j;*,r 
 %, Chons; Heb., KESAZi Za<„ Consus." 
 
 The royal lists of Manetho and others furnish names that are the 
 property not of Egypt alone but of the whole world. These names 
 have received confirmation from the study of the Egj^tian monu- 
 ments. Such are Menes and Athothes, corresponding to the Ger- 
 man Mannus and Tait, the Welsh Menw, the Gallic Teutates, the 
 Indian Menu and Greek Minos and the Phoenician Taautus and 
 Hebrew Hathath or Jetheth. Boethus and Cechous are reproduced 
 in the Indian Buddha and Okkaka, and in the Greek Bceotus and 
 Ogyges. Okkaka, the gourd, answers exactly to the Coptic and 
 Semitic ktis, a word having the same meaning, and of which Cechous 
 is a reduplicate form, as is well seen in the Choos of Eusebius. In 
 CuBUDES we find Gordys, Cretheus, and the common termination, 
 cartus; in Bienneches the Greek Phoenix, and Indian Pingacsha ; 
 in Tlas, Atlas; in Rathubes, E».ythrus of Greek, Roudraof Sanskrit, 
 and Arthur oi' British mythology; in Paohnan, the Persian Pecheng 
 or Pushang, ar.d the eponymus of Fachynum in Sicily; in Tothmes, 
 Teutamas of Assyria. Other names unite the Semitic and Indo- 
 European languages, such as the following: 
 
 ^., SiEois; ifeft., SERAI All ; Cr., Seirios ; 5an«., Sary a. 4^. 
 
 %., Marks; //e6., MARESIIAH ; (?r., Marsuas. ^ 
 
 JF^., Chkbron ; ) „. HEBRON; ^ ( KebrCn. ''' ' 
 
 %, Ckphukn ; y •' Septaagint, CAeftron; ^ 'JHuperiOn. '^' ■'iir:i#: 
 
 Uff., Spanius; Heb , ISUPAN; Or., Hispania; Per*., Isfahan. < ',. • 
 
 J^., AcnTHOKB; / r^A T A PIT A TFT G'r., J Aktaios, AktaiOr. 
 
 4..0THOK8; \ ""''■' it^^^Z'Mh. 1 AUiB. who is Papas. .;^ 
 
 JE^., ^RCBLEs; Ileh., \ a oH ARCHED' ^'*'' ^^''*'''^'» ^^'> Hercules. 
 Eg.., Rameses; Heb., RAM ; Lat., Rome, Remus; Sans., Rama. 
 
 We have the authority of Diodonis Siculus for locating the myth 
 of Prometheus in Egypt and on the bank of the Nile." On the 
 Pelusiac branch of that river we find Pharboethus, the modem 
 Heubbayt, which answers, m replacing its equivalent b, to the eighth 
 old Egyptian month Pharmuthi, which immediately preceded the 
 season of inundation, with which Diodorus connects the myth of the 
 
 IT The Hebrew eqnivalents of the above names and of others that follow, are almost exclu- 
 •ively derive<l from the flrst few chapters of the flrst book of Chronicles, where I am persuaded 
 that they do not designate the descendants of the patriarch Jacob. All attempts to turn the 
 3Dd and 4th chapters into genealogies of the twelve tribes have failed. 
 
 II Diod. Sic. i, 19. 
 
LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 11 
 
 eagle. The later Coptic form of this -word is Baramoodeh, which at 
 once calls to mind San Luoar de Barrameda, a Spanish town on the 
 Guadalquiver, in which was an ancient temple of Phosphorus, who, 
 like Prometheus, brought light from heaven.** Still another connec- 
 tion is found in the Indian Perimuda, mentioned by Aelian as a 
 famous place for pearls.'" In Sethrum, Archandropolis, Antae- 
 OPOLis, and Ilithyia, appear Saturn, Archander, son of Phthius, 
 the latter a name strongly resembling the Egyptian Phthah, Antaeus, 
 son of Terra, and the goddess Ilithyia. In another paper I have 
 called attention to Thebes, PavLACE and Tentyra as finding coun- 
 terparts elsewhere. Mounts Casius and Tourrah are reproduced 
 in the Caucasus and Taurus of other lands. Aderbijan and Karug- 
 tAi' represent in Persia the Egyptian Atarbechis and Cercasorum. 
 CoNOSso gives Gnossus, Tahpenes Daphne, and Abydos is common 
 to the Thebaide and the Troade. There was a Babylon in Egypt, 
 and a Goshen in Palestine; and the Minyae, before they dwelt in 
 Greece, inhabited the wide Middle Egyptian District of MiNiEH, and 
 sojourned for a while about Khan Minyeh or Capernaum, on the sea 
 of Galilee. Lofty Rome may owe its origin to those who once dwelt 
 in Egyptian Baheses, or Palestinian Bama, both of them meaning 
 tlie high or lifted up; and its Bomulus might easily pass from a 
 Coptic Bamlieh, on the east of the Nile, to an Arabic Bam-allah 
 not far from Jerusalem, reproduced again in the Persian story as 
 Bourn, now Boumelia, in Turkey, The Palestinian Er Bam and 
 the Egyptian Heroum are one and the same, doubtless connecting 
 with the Armenian Erzeroum. Attikeh prius Fostat, Fastu or 
 Astu, where Cairo now is, must not be altogether disconnected from 
 the Indian region of Attock, the Palestinian Athach, and the Greek 
 state, Attica. From a very early period the Arabs were familiar 
 with the name of the Egyptian town Athribis, as applied to their 
 own Yathrib, and the Greeks of Oeta and Parnassus in vain attempted, 
 by means of drua, the oak, and ops, a voice, to turn their form Dryopis 
 into the original of --the Laureate's "Babbler in the land," the Talk- 
 ing Oak. 
 
 Turning from names of places to those of things, the old Egyptian 
 word, UK, presents itself as intimately related to our Saxon equiva- 
 lent, week. Chrb is the name of the rolling beetle, which encloses 
 its eggs in a ball of manure and earth, and rolls this ball sometimes 
 » Strab. ; 1. iU ; c. i : I 9. , K^ AeUui de Anima' iv. & 
 
1'2 7-5fV;i THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN "' 
 
 great distances to a hole prepared for or fit to receive it.*"* We at 
 once detect in it the Greek karabos and the Latin scarabaeus, from 
 which comes the French escarbot; nor ai-e we astonished to find that 
 the Sanskrit for locust is carabha, since the locust belongs to a natural 
 order of insects closely i-elated to that in which the beetles are found. 
 The Hebrew equivalent of Chrb, however, is the word AKRAB, 
 with which the Arabic agrees in form and sound, and which desig- 
 nates the scorpion and a warlike engine named from it. With this 
 word Gesenius rightly connects the Greek scorjnos, the scorpion, 
 which, according to Liddell and Scott, who quote Hesychius upon the 
 subject, is from the same root as skarabos, karahos, coming through 
 skorobaios, and also denotes an engine of war. The Greek karabos 
 not only denotes the beetle, but also the a-ab, which we find in the 
 French icrevisse and the German Krebs. Laboi, the lion, is the 
 original of the Hebrew LABI and the German Lowe; Thmei, truth, 
 is the Hebrew THOM and the Greek Themis. loH is Coptic for 
 moon, and we find lo as a name of the same luminary in Argos. 
 Erhan, pomegranate, iero, stream, las, tongue, SES, horse or mare, 
 SHHOUN, eight, are almost identical in form with the Hebrew words 
 denoting the same thing. Other words, such as maut, mother, me, 
 love, MEN, establish, ork, swear, rro, king, tei, give, exhibit manifest 
 connection with both Semitic and Indo-European languages. 
 
 These examples are, I think, sufficient to show that tie old Egyp- 
 tian, as far as its vocabulary is concerned, stood in the relation either 
 of borrower .^rom, or lender to, two families of language, to neither 
 of which it has been generally supposed to belong. I propose to show, 
 however, that the Indo-European tongues, and probably the Semitic, 
 borrowed from the old Egyptian, by reference not so much to the 
 vocabularies of these languages, as to a feature which can only be 
 explained by the grammar of the Coptic. The Coptic definite article 
 masculine is jd or ph, and in the Egyptian language is closely bound 
 up with many words to which it had been prefixed, and from which it 
 has not been distinguished and separated by those who have trans- 
 planted such words to other soils. '^ We must expect to find the 
 
 *' * Osburn, Monumental History of Egypt, i, 306. Cuvier, La Rign« Animal, Paris, 1817, 
 tome lii, 277. Carpenter's Zoology. Bobn, ii, 137. 
 
 *> The sign of the masculine article is Theban p$, p, Memphitio pi, p, ph, and Basohmurio, 
 p$, pi, p. It is derived from the pronominal safflx of the third person singnlar mascalina, 
 which is /, the Coptic /$i. This soinetimM aMaiiiM th« ferai «f b or vMo.— Feyron. Ortm. 
 Ung. Copt. ; Benfey, iU Cfiff twk« ^proek*. 
 
LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAmLT. 13 
 
 Coptic article in all the various forms through which the p sound is 
 seen to pass in etymology, as p, ph, f, b, v. The Bible and Herodotus 
 present us with two examples of the use of this article. The town 
 called by the Greeks Bubastis, is sacred to the goddess Basht or 
 Pasht, and is rendered in Ezekiel xxx, 17, Pi-Beseth or Pi-Pasht, 
 Herodotus, in the 143rd chapter of his second book, states that the 
 Egyptian word PiROUis means a man, noble and good, or a gentle- 
 man. Now, ROME is the Coptic for man, and Pi the definite article. 
 Similar examples are found in Pi-Thoum, Pa-Chons or Be-Shens, 
 Ph-Amenoph, Pi-Lakh, Ph-re. Papremis is P-Ibrim, and Fayoum 
 is Pi-YOM. A learned writer is of the opinion that Piromis and 
 and Brahma, as denoting original and absolute man, are the same 
 word.** I have little doubt that Piromis, or else Piram> , the moun- 
 tain, hence pyramid, is the original of the Latin primus, which shows 
 its true root in the Scythian arima}^ The Coptic Phre, a solar god, 
 is transported, article and all, into the Scandinavian mythology, 
 where he becomes Frey, the sjrmbol of the sun."* Still another ex- 
 ample of the migration of the Coptic article is found in Bambyce, a 
 town in Syria of which Strabo speaks.'" Pliny mentions the same 
 town not only as Banjbyx, but also as Mabog.** Nov,', the latter half 
 
 • 
 
 of this name is identical with the word bek or baki, the Coptic for 
 town, found in Atarbechis, in Egypt, and also in Baalbec, another 
 Syrian city. The h which is kept by the Greek geographer, and dis- 
 carded by the Latin, is undoubtedly the same element as that which 
 changes the Egyptian Iseum or Hebait into Bebait, and this is the 
 Coptic article. There are even Coptic roots that may be supposed to 
 show the very originals of language, which, with the addition of the 
 article, have passed into other tongues, and in these are i-egarded as 
 radicals themselves. Thus eit, a Jiouse, which is the same as the 
 Welsh ty, and Gaelic tigh, or better still the German Iliitte, and our 
 English hut, becomes the Assyrian bit, the Arabic BEIT, the Hebrew 
 BETH, the Erse both, and thus the well-known words booth and bothi/. 
 NuM, spirit, is the Greek pneuma; tau, life, api^ears in the Latin 
 vita, which is the Gaelic and Erse beatha, and the Welsh bywyd; and 
 MKN, a shepherd, after receiving an initial vowel, passes into the 
 Greek poimin. By means of this part of speech, presupposing of 
 
 *■ OaigniMtt, ReligioM de I'antiquiM ; Tom. 1, 83S. 
 
 ■ Hcrodoi ir., 27. 
 
 M MaUet's Northern Antiquities, Bote, 110. 631. 
 
 • Strab., xTi, 1, ir. " PUnU Nat. Hiai r, 1». 
 
14 . ; THE COl^C lELEMijNT IN • ' 
 
 course an Egyptian connection, a simple explanation, otherwise im- 
 possible, can be given of the once extensive use of the Aeolic 
 digamma, which at a later period passed out of the Greek language; 
 of the u which took its place ia Latin, although even here a Sabine 
 form in/, that did not find its way into classical Latinity, may with 
 equal or greater force claim to be its representative; and of the p, 
 which BO commonly in German, but so rarely in Danish or Dutch, 
 precedes a root beginning with/, e.g., Pfad, Pferd, Pflanz, <fec. To 
 the Coptic element in language must also be referred what has been 
 called the Cretan aspirate, which makes polchos out of olchos, a word 
 supposed to be identical with vulgus and /oik. We can thus at once 
 account for the double form which the same word sometimes presents, 
 and for the similar forms of two words closely allied in meaning, in 
 the same language. In Greek I may cite the proper names Peisan- 
 dro3 or Isandros, the son of Bellerophon; Peribaia or Erihoia, wife 
 of Telamon; Hcdiawma in Mysia and the island of Cos, and Phalor 
 sarna in Crete; lacchos and Bakchos, Hedsphoros and Phdspfioroa, as 
 also the common names ortux and perdix, of which an intermediate 
 form is the Sanskrit vartika; sittakus and psittakos, the parrot ; and 
 probably, aster and phoster, Latii) presents us as examples with 
 Isaurus and Piaaurus; Baetavi and Praetavi; Vesper and Hesperus; 
 vitulus and Italus; pinguis and unguen: in the Sabine form above 
 mentioned with hcedus and fedus, hirewa and fircus, Iiordeum and 
 Jhrdeum; and also with instances of verbs which, doubtless, assumed 
 the article in the substantive form, from which, in spite of Oriental 
 grammarians, I believe the verb to have been derived, such as tiro 
 and buro, actum and factum. Other languages present the same- 
 phenomenon. Sanchoniatho's Phoenician fragment speaks of Sidon 
 and Poseidon as children of Pontus; the Sarmatian deities Lebus and 
 Polebus a,rG but one; and Scandinavian mythology preserves the name 
 of the first of the giants as Orgelmir and as Bergelmir. The Irish 
 €dka and fatha equally denote a lawn or plain ; and the English eat 
 and bite correspond to the German essen and beissen. We borrow 
 brim from the Saxon and rim from the Welsh; and it is universally 
 allowed that lump, clump, plump, are all variations of the same root. 
 I am inclined to believe that the Coptic root is nearer that of the 
 original language than the Hebrew or any other Semitic tongue, and 
 that we may find in the latter, as already indicated in the example 
 BETH, instances of the transference of the Coptic article along with 
 
LANOUAOES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 15 
 
 the original root. The Assyrian Bilu consists undoubtedly of the well- 
 known Ilu, the name of the supreme god of Babylonia, and thus of 
 all deities, and a softened fonn of the Coptic article. The analogy 
 of EIT and BIT would aid in coming to this conclusion; but stronger 
 evidence for the truth of it is furnished by the Hebrew. In that 
 language the name of the Most High God is AL, while the word 
 corresponding to BiLU, meaning lord, and applied to neighbouring 
 gods, is BAAL. In parts of Arabia, strange to say, the article seems 
 to have been, at least for a time, knowingly retained, although the 
 Arabic cU or Himyaritic ka were at hand to supplant it. Thus, we 
 find Pliny, about the 70th year of the Christian era, mentioning 
 the Thimanei,^ an inland people of the peninsula ; while Agathar- 
 chides, who wrote more than two hundred years earlier, described 
 them as the Buthemanei.** Still, it is to the Indo-European languages 
 that we must chiefly look for traces of this venerable prefix. A 
 Semitic root meaning strong, and, in a secondary sense, fortified, is 
 SHAD AD, SHEDID. Hence came the Hebrew, or rather PhUis- 
 tine, word ASHDOD, which is the same as the name given to 
 Egyptian Babylon, Fostat. Although the Pishdadian line of Persia 
 has been supposed by many to owe its name to a root of similar 
 form denoting jtistice, there is much reason to believe that " the good 
 old rule" of their time may have developed justice out of strength. 
 At any rate there is little doubt that the Coptic article is as much 
 part of the'name Pishdad, which Hushang first bore, as it is of his 
 other Persian name Pushang, which the Arabs harden into Fushang. 
 Old Greek dropped the reduplicated t of the Egyptian Fostat in 
 Faatu, the Homeric form of Aalu, the city, which we have the 
 authority of Didorus Siculus for connecting with the Egyptian town." 
 From this old word, originally meaning tfie strong or the fortified, 
 and thence, by syntactical convertibility the strong and fortified place, 
 such as all cities were in ancient times, have come, through different 
 channels, our English words state and city. The former we owe, not 
 to the Latin stasias, but to the German Stadt ; and the latter comes 
 doubtless from a simpler form of the Latin civitas such as we find in 
 the Spanish eiudad, or better still the Portuguese Cidade, a word as 
 ■^like the old ASHDOD as we may reasonably expect so modem a 
 term to resemble so ancient a one. It is interesting to note that 
 
 " Id. Vl., 82. 
 
 ■ Agatharchidei, d« Mare Rnbro, Hndaon, 67, Ac 
 
 • Diod. 81c. i., le. Vide et. Stnb. 1., ix., 16. 
 
16 ,:, THE COPTIC ELEJIRNT IN 
 
 , fu: 
 
 while the examples given of the presence of this root in the Indo- 
 European tongues are, with the exception of the Aeolic Faatu, 
 destitute of the article, we find that prefix in the Grerman Feste, 
 meaning strength and a strong place or fortress, whence comes our 
 English yroT^. fastness, a stronghold. It is also found in the languages 
 of India whether we regard tlie old form vastu or the modem 
 Hindustani hasti, a village. The horse and his near relations seem 
 also to show even in some of the Semitic words which stand for 
 them, as well as in those of Indo-European tongues, traces of the 
 Coptic article. The wild ass is called in Hebrew ARAD, but 
 PERED in the same language denotes a mule. The first of these 
 gives the Sanscrit arvat, and the second the Dutch jmard, or with 
 the article reduplicated, the German pj'erd, both meaning a horse. 
 The Arabic and Persian FARAS, and the Hebrew PARASH, the 
 name of the horse proper, look back to an older root RAASH, 
 applied in several places in the book of Job to the actions of the 
 noble animal which the inspired writer so well describes,*" from 
 which root the German lioss and our English horse may have been 
 derived. EIL, the Hebrew for foal is the ancestor of our English 
 word, which might equally be derived from the Greek polos, the 
 Latin j)uUtis or the Saxon fole. A word somewhat similar in sound 
 is ALEH, denoting leaf or foliage in the language of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and giving us the original of the Erse Mlleog, the Greek 
 phullon and the Latin folium. Still another instance, making witli. 
 the two last mentioned a threefold cord not easily broken, is that of 
 the Hebrew root YAAL, to he foolish, with the derived EVIL, a fool, 
 which, besides our English word, accounts for the Irish biile, and the 
 Welsh ffwl. Almost eveiy one who has taken even a passing glance at 
 etymology is familiar with the widespread character of the root of 
 our English word toine. The Coptic for wine is erp, a double root, 
 doubtless allied to the Hebrew ARAB or GHARAB, to be sweet or 
 agreeahU, to the Persian sherah, vnne, to our English word grape, 
 and to the Grerman Eebe, the vine, and Trauhe, the grape. But the 
 most common root is that which the Hebrew gives as YAIN, a 
 word almost identical with the Greek oinoa, to which the Armenian 
 gini and the Welsh gwyn approacL The old Greek form foinos is 
 almost reproduced in the Irish and Gk^lio fhion, that passes through 
 the Latin vimum into the German Wein, from which our eclectic 
 
 » Job zxxiz., 9M>, 84 ; xlL, U. 
 
LANGU^aES OP THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 17 
 
 English language has taken not only vnne but vine, the equivalent of 
 Rehe?^ Almost as universal is the oh' root which appears in the 
 Hebrew aa YADA, perceive or know in the Greek, with the same 
 signification, as eido, oida ; and in the Welsh as gwyddoni, to gather 
 knowledge. The Homeric form with the digamma turns eido into 
 the Latin video, the Danish vide, the Dutch loeet, our English wit 
 and wot, and still more distinctly, into the Sanskrit budh}^ Another 
 verbal root is the Hebrew HALAK, walk or follow. The two 
 words which indicate its meaning in English are derived from it. 
 The first of these requires no explanation ; the second comes through 
 the German yb^eri or the Dutch volgen. Still further examples of a 
 verbal root -with the prefix are afforded in RAAM, resound, roar as the 
 sea, thunder ; RAA or RAG AG, break, and RATZATZ, br>iise, burst; 
 the first of which gives us the Greek bremo and the Latin fremo ; 
 the second (the Hebrew ^ having for its equivalent the Greek -f) 
 the German brecJien, the Greek regnumi, and the JjbAid. frango, fregi ; 
 and the last, the Latin presso, the French briser and the English 
 bruise.^^ Similai'ly the Hebrew LAKAH or LAKACH, take or 
 seize, which in Swedish assumes the form luJca with the slightly 
 altered signification to draw, con^^ ecting with the German locken, to 
 entice, becomes the word pluck, common to the Germanic languages.*' 
 The last examples from a similar verbal root which I shall present 
 are the Latin positus and English post, which, equally with the Latin 
 sto, the Greek histemi, the German sitzen, the English set, and the 
 Welsh gosod, may trace theii* origin to the two Hebrew forms 
 YASAD and SHITH, set, placed, established. 
 
 Among nouns the Hebrew APHAL, swell, and hence tumour, 
 becomes the l&tm papilla and papula, whence onr pimple ; ESHCOL, 
 a cluster, is the IjsiXva. fasciculus ; LAHEM, war, gives us the Greek 
 polemos and the Latin Bellum ; ZEBUB, Jly or bee, furnishes the 
 Latin vespa and our wasp. The Hebrew UR, fire, is identical with 
 the Armenian hur and shows itself in the Latin uro, but is also the 
 same word as the Greek pur and the German feuer. One of the 
 words for city in the same language is AR, which is rendered in the 
 old Persian by va/r,^* and in the Sanskrit hjpur. Prithivi is Sanskrit 
 for the earth and resembles the 'V^|[J£^ pridd meaning the same 
 thing. Remove the Coptic article ^jii^' our English ea/rth and its 
 
 *> Vide Qesenius' Hebrew andChaldee Lexicon, notes in loc. 
 *> Var OJemgcliid, the enclosure or town of DJemaOhid. 
 
 2 
 
18 THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 Gemian relative erd remain, both of which come from the Hebrew 
 ERETZ. The Irish pluc, the cheek, can at once be referred to the 
 Hebrew LECHI ; and the Persian bez, &goat, and hezer, seed, to EZ and 
 ZERA in the same language, the latter word being connected with 
 the Latin sero. As the borrowing of the Latin betrays itself by the 
 presence of the Coptic article in the Romance languages, so the 
 borrowing of the Sanskrit appears in the Hindustani dialects. Admi, 
 a man, nia, a mother and beti a daughter are so like the Arabic 
 ADEM, UM and BINT (Heb. BATH) that they must have come 
 directly from some such Semitic source ; but bap, a father and bhai, 
 a brother, must have picked up the 6 which precedes the AB and AH 
 or ACH (Arab. AKH) of the Hebrew during an older peiuod than 
 that of the Hindustani. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that in every case in which we find the 
 same root with and without the prefix p, ph, h, v, in the same or 
 diflTerent languages we are to conclude necessarily that we have to 
 deal with the Coptic article. A very common Grerman verbal prefix 
 6e, as in bedeck&n, bedenken, befehlen, is an inseparable intensative 
 particle, while ah and 5ei as in abschneiden, beifiigen, are separable 
 particles with ablative and dative powers. Either of these particles 
 might readily be mistaken for the article. Another interesting case 
 in which the same error might happen is that of the word with 
 which our Hebrew scriptures begin, BRESHITH. There is no 
 doubt whatever that this word is the original of oui* English first, 
 which ignorant etymologists have derived from a superlative fonn of 
 the Anglo Saxon feor, far. The Danish f&rat, while agreeing with 
 our English ordinal, shows how mistaken is such an etymology, and 
 the Dutch eerst and German erst make it still more apparent by the 
 absence of the initial f. The Dutch and Grerman forms present us 
 with the Hebrew original RESHITH, the fi/rst or beginning, the b 
 which is replaced in Danish and English by / being the preposition 
 in. Although this example is introduced as a beacon to warn against 
 an indiscriminating reference of all initial p and b sounds to a Coptic 
 original, I may be permitted to say in passing that both Theology 
 and Geology would be gainers were the literal " First " to replace 
 « In the beginning " at the commencement of our English version of 
 the Bible. 
 
 It is doubtful whether the Armenian hink, the numeral five, as 
 contrasted with the pancha, per^, panoh, pianehf penc, dec., of the 
 
LANOUAOES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 19 
 
 Sanskrit and other Oriental languages of the Indo European family, 
 is to be regarded as the root without the article or as the corruption 
 of an early fora ' beginning with p, inclining towards the quinque of 
 the Ijatin. In the majority of cases that have come under my notice 
 in which p anu k sounds replaced each other in the beginning of 
 wonl3 or rather cf syllables or roots, I have been able to account for 
 the transformation by reference to the Semitic form of the root. This 
 I have found almost invariably to begin with such letters as the 
 Hebrew j^, |^ and j^, the fii"st two of which are represented by the 
 Arabic Ma and kfia, and the ia*.t by ain and gJmin. Our English 
 translation of the Bible, like the Septuagint version, varies in its 
 I'endition of these letters as they occur in proper names. Generally, 
 however, it gives the softer sound, even where the Septuagint is 
 hard. Thus p")3n is made Hebron while the Septuagint is 
 GJteh'on and 1*3 V* sinks the ayLti in Jabez while the Greek version 
 reads Igahes.^ In the passage of Hebrew words through other 
 languages this disagreement and inconsistency holds good ; sometimes 
 we find the lettera mentioned represented by simple vowels and some- 
 times by aspirates and guttui-als even to the hardest of hard k c/iecka. 
 When the Coptic article has been prefixed to a root of this kind the 
 power of the aspirate is either lost altogether or else it is absorbed 
 in the prefix, which assumes the fonn ofph,/, v. When the article is not 
 prefixed, the guttural sounds of j^ and ^ remain, or are exaggerated 
 into those of k and g, or become softened into that of s : e. g. 
 Phanuphis and Canopus from the root ^)W. I must admit, how- 
 ever, that there are many cases Avhich cannot be explained in this 
 way, and among these that of the numei-al^ve is one. It would not 
 be difficult to connect the first part of the Hebrew, Syiiac and 
 Arabic HAMESH or CHAMSAH, the Ostiak chajem, the Siamese, 
 Thibetan, Chinese and Burmese cha, gna, ong, ngaJi with the Annen- 
 ian hiriG and the Latin quinque, since m and n are interchangeable , 
 and it is as possible for final « to be hardened as for the k sound to 
 be softened. Dropping the k sound and prefixing the Coptic article, 
 we might embrace the Scandinavian fern and firrnn, the Sanskrit 
 pancfia aixd the Persian penj ; but the jiEolic pempe, the Welsh 
 pump, the MaesogothicjJw/'and the modem German. /Un/, by means 
 of theii* final p or /, almost threaten with destruction the whole 
 theory of the Coptic article, more especially as we find that termin- 
 
 *> 1 Chrou. ii. 43, 43, iv. 9, 10. 
 
20 THE COPTIC ELEHENT IN ' 
 
 ation even where the radical m orn is missing, as in the Anglo-Saxon, 
 jij, the Frisian yj^^ the Dutch vn^f and our English ^we, which follow 
 the analogy of the Gaelic and Irish coig and cfaig. The Coptic five, 
 Tou, cannot help us here. Such cases, however, are no more to be 
 accepted as oflFering opposing testimony to those which vouch for the 
 truth of the general principle here illustrated than were the Irish 
 criminal's ten witnesses, who sought to negative the evidence of ten 
 men that had seen him commit the crime for which he was being 
 tried by stating that they had not. 
 
 Without referring to Semitic roots I may instance some additional 
 examples among Indo-European words of the presence of the Coptic 
 ai'ticle. TLe Sanskrit udan, the Greek hudor, the Gaelic and Irish 
 ad, signifying water, have thrown off what the old Phrygian retained 
 in hedu and the Slavonic in voda. Another Sanskrit word pavaka, fire, 
 on the other hand retained the article, while the Latin focus and the 
 Gothic bac rejected it ; but the Sanskrit urana, goat, becomes the 
 Lithuanian hwronas, as the Greek rhigos and orego are transformed 
 into the 'L&imfrigu8 and porrigo. Bopp is quite right when he says 
 "the Latin Rog (rogo, interrogo) appears to be abbreviated from 
 Frog."" This is seen in the Sanskrit /wacA and the German fragen 
 both meaning to ask. Another instance in which the Sanskrit shows 
 an affinity with the Aeblic and Sabine dialects of Greek and Latin is 
 afforded by the word pum, a man, the Latin homo. The Welsh oer 
 and the Gaelic and Irish ^wor, cold, the Greek phren and the Latin 
 renes, the English rap and the French /rapper, the Greek husteroa 
 and the Latin posterus, the Welsh oes and the Greek bios, the 
 English order and the German fordem, completely set at nought 
 evei-y law of phonetic change forming part of the physical science of 
 language in the attempt made by such means to account for their 
 differences. The science of language has a place among the historical 
 as well as among the physical sciences ; and its historical element is 
 as distinct from the physical as are the objects of Paleontological 
 from those of Mineralogical study, the fossils from the mere strata 
 in which they are imbedded. Following out the analogy, we may 
 compare the subjects of our present philological research^js to the 
 Crinoids of many formations, some of which ai-e still attached, or 
 may we not say articulated, to the old Coptic foundation, while 
 others, that once occupied the same position, have floated free, and 
 
 ** Bopp'a Companttive Grammar, i., 116. 
 
LANGUAGES OP THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 21 
 
 are now found under the conditions of an earlier stage of existence. 
 In such a free state we find the Latin UUvs, broad, with the Welsh 
 Uydau, the Gaelic lend and the Irish lead, while the Greek platua, 
 the German i)latt, the Dutch pkit, the Danish Jlml and our English 
 jiat remain fixed by the old Coptic stem. The same relation between 
 the Greek and the Celtic languages subsists in the case of a word for 
 ship, which is ploion in Greek, bu^ Uong in Welsh and long in Gaelic 
 and Erse. A still more familiar example is that of the Gaelic and 
 Erse at/tair as compared with the Greek and Latin pater and our 
 English father. The order of relation is, however, inverted in the 
 word denoting anger ; this being arge in Greek, but fearg in Gaelic 
 and Erse and ^rocA in Welsh. Nor do we find the Celtic tongues 
 agreeing among themselves, for while the Welsh pysg accords with 
 the Latm piacia, the Germanic Fisch and oiu* English^/*, the Gaelic 
 iasg aiid the Irish iasc have divested themselves of the prefix and 
 appear in a form nearer to that of the original word. The root of 
 our English ^a»»e is not easily recognized under the various forms it 
 assumes in different languages nearly related to each other. In 
 Coptic it is LOBSH, in Hebrew LAHAB, the same in ^thiopic, and 
 in Arabic LEHIB. The h of the Semitic form becomes in by one of 
 the commonest of all processes in language, exemplified in the 
 change of the Hebrew name of a town of the Philistines, JABNEH, 
 to the Greek lamnia or lainneia. Thus the lobsu, LAHAB, 
 LEHIB, of the Coptic and Semitic are transformed into the old 
 Saxon leoma and the Celtic loom, the broad o of the Coptic reassert- 
 ing itself and taking the place of the Hebrew and Arabic aspirates. 
 In the Gothic, however, the final 6 or m is dropped, and the aspirate 
 in consequence acquii-es additional power, LAHAB becoming log, a 
 word presenting much resemblance to the Latin lux. To this the 
 article is prefixed in Greek, and phlox ap2>ears, in Romaic phloga. 
 But, meanwhile, the final m has not been lost sight of, for, in the 
 same language, phlegma displays the full proportions of the word. 
 The Latin accepts the prefix but rejects the aspirate in flamnia. 
 While, however, the later Germanic tongues restore the article, 
 which Gothic and old Saxon had discarded, as in fiarnvM and vlavn,, 
 the Spanish, daughter of the Latin, reverses the process, and, 
 although she still recognizes Jlama in her vocabulary, makes use 
 more frequently of the form llama. Finally, to show yet more 
 clearly the relation of the hard g of Gothic and Greek to the root, 
 
IB THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 we find the Danish Itie, the German lohe and the Lowland Scotch 
 hw reproducing what I believe must have been the original word 
 meaning y^awe. The English word Jlruf on yrhich \sJtacon in French, 
 laginoa in Greek and lagena in Latin, may doubtless be referred to 
 the Hebrew LOG, a liquid measure containing over twenty-four 
 cubic inches. Varro iufonna us that the lonians called ear the 
 spring, her*^ which is nearer to the Persian heluvr than the Latin t7cr, 
 and may not improbably connect with the Erse and Gaelic ii/r and 
 feu/r meaning green and grass. Professor Miilier says, " Beech is the 
 Gothic hoka, 'L&iva. fagus, Old High German /moc/m. Tlie Greek 
 phigos, which is identically the same word, does not mean beech but 
 oak. "Was this change of meaning accidental, or were there circum- 
 stances by which it can be explained ? Was phegos originally the 
 name of the oak, meaning the food-tree from phagein to eat ? And 
 was the name which originally belonged to the oak (the Quercus 
 Esculus) transferred to the beech, after the age of stone with its fir 
 trees, and the age of bronze with its oak trees had passed away, and 
 the age of iron and of beech trees had dawned on the shores of 
 Europe !"" No doubt the author of these words is right in his con- 
 jecture, which he hardly dares to take out of the category of 
 hypotheses. The Danish eeg is the Greek phegos ; the German eich 
 is its own hfu/ch and the English beech ; while English oak and Dutch 
 eik represent the Gothic hoka. These are variations of an old root 
 that must have stood for tree in general, just as we find the words 
 EIL, ELON in Hebrew standing for an oak, a terebinth or any con- 
 spicuous tree, and thor the Coptic and drus the Greek oak as forms 
 of a root that furnishes the Germanic, Celtic and Sclavonic languages 
 with the equivalent of our English Vree. 
 
 One of the most striking instances of a double or even treble 
 phonetic change in the passage of a root through various languages 
 is afforded in the word god. I regret that in setting this forth it 
 will be necessary to come into conflict with the views of one who is 
 universally recognized facile princeps among philologists, and a 
 high authority in oriental literature. I allude to Professor Mtiller, 
 who speaks most condemningly of Sir William Jones, because " he 
 actually expressed his belief that Buddha was the same as the 
 
 ■* VBRonia de lingua Latinm, Lv. 
 
 *' Science of Language, Series ii. Leek r. 
 
LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAK FAMILY. fiS 
 
 Teutonic deity Wodan or Odin."*" Professor Mtlller is aware that 
 Sir William Jones was not alone in this belief; but that, together 
 with other orientalists, a large number of noi'them European 
 mythologists, and among them, some who possessed far gi-eater oppor- 
 tunities of judging in the matter than Sir William Jones, have 
 homologated the opinion of that distinguished father of Eastern 
 learning. I have looked into some, and carefully studied other 
 works to which Professor Miiller refers the student of Buddhism, 
 such as the Rev. Spence Hardy's Manual; and although such studies 
 have left me in doubt as to the time when the Buddhist system was 
 fully organized, they have confirmed me in the belief that away in 
 the distant past, long before that period of development, thei-e lived 
 a Ootama Buddha, who is identical with the German and Scandi- 
 navian Odin. At present, however, we are not dealing with 
 mythology, but with that language of which Professor Miiller 
 fancifully calls it a disease. The same writer says truly " God wiis 
 most likely an old heathen name of the Deity."" Now we are 
 acquainted with the old heathen names of the Deity among the 
 northern peoples who make use of this word ; and the nearest to it 
 of these names is that of the Lombard and Westphalian Guodan."' 
 In the Germanic languages the name appears in such forms as to 
 show either that the initial g is not an essential part of the root, or 
 that it marks the original presence of a letter similar to the Hebrew 
 ^f which might be retained as a broad vowel, a simple breathing, or a 
 guttural. I hold to the latter opinion, and find the rendering by the 
 broad vowel in Odin, Oden, Oi9inn of the ScandinaArian. Grimm 
 connects Gwydion, son of Don, of the Welsh mythology*" with Odin, 
 making them the same person. It is hard to distinguish this personage 
 from .^ddon, who is Buddwas, arid who came originally from the 
 region of Gwydion." .^ddon presents us with the same form of the 
 root as Odin, while Gwydion is guttural, like Guodan. The prefix of 
 
 M Chips from a Qencan Workshop, Vol i.. Art iz., on Buddhism, Art. zi., Letter on the 
 Meaning of Nirvana. 
 
 I* Science of I languages, Series il., Lect. tL 
 
 ■*> In Florence of Worcester's Chronicle, A.D. 849, it is said of Qaetwa, an ancestor of 
 Woden, that the pagans formerly worshipped him as a god. The Church Historians of 
 England, London, 1863, VoL ii.. Part i., 209. The same statement is made by the historian, 
 Kennins, who calls him Gael Six Old English Chronicles. Bohn, 390. . 
 
 « Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 187. 
 
 «> Davies, British Dniids, 118. 
 
\ 
 
 ( 
 
 24 * THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 the Coi)tic article to the vowel form would give some such word as 
 Bodan or Buodan ; but, with the aspirate, it would make the Meeso- 
 gothic Vodans and the old Saxon Wuodan or Wodan, which the 
 old High German, strictly in accordance with Grimm's law here, 
 changes to Wuotan. The final n, which so far has appeared in every 
 form of our woi'd, is not an essential part of it. The Frisian Weda 
 drops it, and it is wanting in the Welsh Aedd, in which we see the 
 Danish Gud and the German Gott. Now this is 'the same as the 
 Choda of the Peraian, a language that has many remarkable points 
 of resemblance to the Germanic tongues. The same word is found 
 in the Sanskrit, and survives in the Hindustani Khvda. But the 
 names of Buddha, which are by no means well understood, are 
 simjily the names for God with the termination restored, not as n, 
 but as m. These are Codam, Godama, Gotama or Gautama ; and 
 give us back again the Gotan and Guotan of the Teutonic dialects. 
 A link of great importance is furnished by a name of Woden, 
 Weytam, the Wanderer, which presei-ves the initial g along with the 
 oftened form of the Coptic article, and gives the termination of 
 Gautama. Buddha, different as it appears in every respect from the 
 word with which it is often ignorantly joined, is in reality the same, 
 having doubtless come into the Sanskrit through some other channel 
 than that by which Gautama entered. In it we find the final liquid 
 wanting, the German to, in plain disregai-d of Grimm's law, changed 
 to h, and the Frisian Weda reproduced. In confirmation of this I 
 may refer to the case of identity already established between the 
 (Jermanic toot or wuot and the Sanskrit budh, to perceive or know, 
 of which the Welsh form is by no accidental coincidence gwyddoni. 
 Thus in Buddha, Wotan and Gwydion we find not only the supi*eme 
 god of the northern famiKes of the Aryan stock, but also the symbol 
 of knowledge among those different peojiles. 
 
 While the title of this paper is "The Coptic element in Languages 
 of the Iiido-Euro])ean Family," I may be permitted to indicate the 
 presence of the same element in other families of language. Allusion 
 haa already been made to the claims of the African and Polynesian 
 languages to relationship with the Aryan and Semitic tongues. After 
 a survey of vocabularies of over two hundred different languages 
 spoken in all parts of the world, it is only among these two> groups 
 and, to a very slight extent, among the monosyllabic tongues of 
 eastern Asia, that I have so far been able to discover the presence of 
 that initial p sound whicl\ I have identified with the Coptic article. 
 
LANGUAGES OF THE 1ND0-EUE0PEA.\ FAMILY. 
 
 One of the simplest examples is to be foxind among certain of the 
 numerals of ten African languages, most of which belong to the 
 West Coast." 
 
 LANUUAGB. TWO. FOUR. FIVK. 
 
 Buntakoos of Oinnea noo nah taw. 
 
 Igberra o» Niger River ebba enna jokki. 
 
 Ratongga on Bagoon River beba binni betta. 
 
 Bight of Benin bi nin tang. 
 
 Efik of Calabar iba inang itiun. 
 
 Otam on Crom River beba bini ,. bittan. 
 
 Mandinga fula nani Inln. 
 
 Mozambique pili ftMKDe thana. 
 
 Lagoa Baif seeberrg . . nau thanou. 
 
 Bongo or* Gaboon River baba banai batan. 
 
 In the Ratongga, the Otam and the Bongo languages wo find the 
 African representatives of the ^olic, Sabine and High German of 
 Europe. Among Asiatic tongues, in what is generally called the 
 Monosyllabic area, the Japanese holds most strongly to the Coptic 
 form. This may be seen by a comparison of certain words in that 
 language with corresponding ones in that of Loo-Choo.** 
 
 English: bridge quick pencil nose ship umbrella navel. 
 
 Loo-Choo: hashee hayee hoodea honna hoonee shassee wboosoo. 
 Japanese : fas, bas faijo fuda fanna funo fisasi fosso, feso. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the difference between these two 
 languages arises from the inability of the people of Loo-Choo to 
 pronounce the lettera p, h and / Both in Japan and Loo-Choo the 
 word for fire is^e, for flower, /ajina, and for &t&r,fosi or fooshee. In 
 the word denoting sail the languages seem to change places, for in 
 Loo-Choo it is /oo and in Japanese hoo. Still more striking is the 
 fact that the Japanese yak, meaning hundred, is replaced in the 
 dialects of Canton and other parts of the Chinese Empire by pak. 
 
 The Polynesian languages might afford us many examples of the 
 use of the prefix now tnider consideration, like the word for hair, 
 which, among the Friemlly or Tonga Islanders, has the two forms 
 ooloo and fooloo. I shall confine myself, however, as in the case of 
 
 *• Bowring, DecimAl Bystom. Loudon, 1804; ji. 165—168. 
 
 An AcRuunt of Tlnibnctoi) aud Housa, &c., by £1 Ilugu Abd. Salnm Sliabceny, with notei 
 by J. G. Jackson, London, 1820 : p. ;i"3. 
 
 Twenty-nine years in the Woet Indies, Ac, by Waddull, Appendix vl. 
 
 The words in Italics in this and Rubsvqtiunt Ugtsi are abnormal forms that do not form part oi 
 the comparison. 
 
 ** Account of a Voyags of Discovery to the West Coast of Cores, and tlie Great Loo-Choo 
 IMmuI, by Captain Basil Hall, F.B.8., ice. Vooahulary by Lieutenant Clifford. London, mi. 
 
26 
 
 THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 the African langua^^, to an illustration from the Malay numerals. 
 These numerals present many interesting points of connection with 
 those of the Indo-European languages. Thus, three is torn ; two 
 is duo, and when one has not the form of iaa, aye, eaaa, approaching 
 the Greek fieis, it assumes that of aatoo, aida, ida, taha, which is not 
 unlike either the Syriac and Chaldee HHAD, the Hebrew EC HAD, 
 the Arabic AH AD or WAHAD, or the Sclavonic Odin, leden. The 
 following are the numerals aeven and eight in fifteen different 
 languages of Polynesia. 
 
 LANOUAOB. 
 
 ■irsir. UOHT. 
 
 LANaUAQB. 
 
 SKTBN. 
 
 nOBT. 
 
 Baratonga .. 
 
 itu vara. 
 
 Tonga 
 
 fitoo 
 
 . valoo. 
 
 Otaheite .... 
 
 heitoo . . . warroo. 
 
 Tuham 
 
 fitl 
 
 . gualn. 
 
 Banter /..... 
 
 hiddoo . . . varoo. 
 
 Phillippine.. 
 
 pito 
 
 . valo. 
 
 If. Zealmd. . 
 
 weddoo .. warroo. 
 
 Java 
 
 petu .... 
 
 . wolo. 
 
 Sitffe$ 
 
 pitu aruwa. 
 
 N. Guinea.. 
 
 fita 
 
 . wala. 
 
 MadoffMcar .. 
 
 beitoo ... balloo. 
 
 Samoa 
 
 fitu 
 
 . Tain. 
 
 Batta 
 
 paitoo .... ooaloa. 
 
 Fiji.. 
 
 pitu 
 
 . wain. 
 
 Mangavai. . . 
 
 pitu alo. 
 
 
 
 
 To these may be added five more irregular forms. 
 
 Language. PaumoitM. Sava. 2ioUi. Marquesas. Sandwich. 
 
 Seven: hito hetu petu hitu hiku. 
 
 Eight: hatoa panu talu vau vain. 
 
 A mere glance at the nature of the differences between the wordft 
 given above will suffice to show that physical conformation has 
 nothing, or at least little, to do with them, inasmuch as peoples who 
 reject the b, p,/ or v in one case, keep it in the other. A survey of 
 the whole vocabulary of numerals tends to confirm this view. The 
 forms of the numeral ten may illustrate. In these, as in the forms of 
 eight, and as in the Coptic language to a very great extent, we find 
 the letters I and r interchanged. 
 
 Karalonga naurn. 
 
 Otaheite a-Uooro. 
 
 Easter hland ana-hooroo. 
 
 New Zealand at^a-hono. 
 
 Bugts (opuloh. 
 
 Paomotua Aon-hori 
 
 Marquesas ono-hua. 
 
 Madagascar fooloo. 
 
 Batta M-pooloo. 
 
 Mangavai puluh. 
 
 Tbnga ooloo or ot^fooloo. 
 
 TiAam manud. 
 
 Sava bo. 
 
 Sandwich umi. 
 
 Philippine apalo. 
 
 Java (apoulo. 
 
 Asv Guinea «<in^a-foula. 
 
 Samoa tini. 
 
 Fl^i nafiiln. 
 
 aMH hnlu.** 
 
 M MwiMi'a TongA ItlaiuU, by Dr. VfTHn. B.'^ 
 ▲oeonnt of a Voyaga in Be*roh oi .t.,. />7oiiM. 
 Bowring's Deoimal System, 140— 16k. 
 
 .bsnth, 18S7. Vooabnlaiy. LabllUrditea'a 
 Tnoalatad. London, 1800. Vocabnlair. 
 
LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 27 
 
 In this place I may also be permitted to allude to other forms of 
 the article, which have been so bound up with the substantive before 
 which they stand, or with the root to which their prefix gives a 
 substantive power, that they have been mistaken for part of tho 
 root itself ; and thus the etymology of the words of which they form 
 part has been lost. The feminine form of the Coptic article in T or 
 TA, which is supposed to have converted Ape, the head, into Tape 
 or Thebb, has, doubtless, some connection with the Hebrew feminine 
 termination, consisting of the same letter, or j^. Disregarding, 
 however, its feminine character, it would be the same as the Hebrew 
 n (i or th) abbreviated from ]^|^, the mark of the accusative and a 
 kind of article, which, prefixed to a verbal root, converts it into a 
 noun, e.g. LAMAD, learn ; TALMID, a learner. The language of 
 Lybia, or of the Shelluhs, differs from that of the Canary Islanders 
 in many words by the possession of this prefix. - Thus, temples in 
 Canarese are almogaren, and in Shelluh, tcUmogaren ; a coarse article 
 of dress, called the haik, is, in the former, ahico, and in the latter, 
 tahayk.*^ I do not imagine that every T or Th which can be shown 
 to be a prefix to the root, is a relic of an old article. In Hebrew, 
 we have it as a distinguishing mark of certain persons of the future 
 of the verb. What it stands for in our English drop, as compared 
 with the Hebrew ARAPH, and BAAFH both meaning the same, I 
 cannot tell. Still, in a very large nimiber of cases, I believe that we 
 shall find initial t performing the same office as initial p. There, is 
 however, this difference between them. While />, as a form of the 
 article, is banished from civilized languages, t remains. The Hebrew 
 ETH represents the Dutch het, our English the, the Cerman die, the 
 Greek to, the Sanskrit tat and etat. The Hebrew demonstrative EL, 
 and the Arabic article AL or EL, furnish the Latin iUe, and the 
 articles of the Romance languages. The true Hebrew article HA 
 may not only be intimately related to the Oreek Iw, he, but also to 
 the Sanskrit sah, the Hindustani yih, the Welsh y, and the Malay A«.^ 
 Still another form of the article is the Cusb^te ka or kai, which is 
 connected with the Sanskrit numeral eka, one, the Hindustani 
 tk, koi, and the Malay coe, which, on account of its association with 
 he, must, I think, have arisen from an aspirated prununciation of the 
 latter. The old Persian names Kai Kous, Kai Kobad, Kai Khosrou^ 
 
 * StutbMDjr'i Timbuctoo, by J«cktoa ; Luigaagw of AtHw, 8W— 881. 
 *• Vidt BtaUj, Die Agjrptifche Spraobe, 1 1 
 
1^ THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 although the kai is generally supposed to mean king, when compared 
 with the Greek words Kakos, Aiguptos, Kaisar, seem to afford 
 nothing niore in the prefix than a form of the article. The same is 
 seen in the two Arabic words for heart, the one being LEB, identical 
 with the Hebrew, and the other KULB, both of which are adopted 
 into the Persian language. It also appears in the Maori Kapura, as 
 compared with the Tahitian pur a, fire ; and in the Easter Island 
 ko-tahai, one, as compared with the Maori tahai. A connection of 
 the Semitic and European languages being allowed, a very common 
 substantive prefix in Hebrew, that of the letter Q or M, must not 
 be lost sight of, although it has nothing to do with the article; 
 MAGEN, a shield, from the verb GANAN, guard, protect, 
 MERKHAB, a carriage or chariot, from the verbal root RAKHAB, 
 ride, and MAGHREB orMAARAB, the west, from ARAB, {Arab. 
 GHEREB,) become dark, are illustrative examples. ' j 
 
 Among the various forms of the article mentioned above, that 
 which occupies the place in comparative philology next in importance 
 to the Coptic in P is the Arabic in AL or L. Every student is 
 familiar with this part of speech from its frequent occurrence in the 
 vocabularies of all civilized languages, testifying to the influence 
 exerted in Europe by Arabian culture during the palmy days of 
 Mahommedanism. Few, however, have recognized the fact that the 
 AL of Alexander is as tnily Ai-ab as the AL of Alkoran, or known 
 that the oriental form of this name is SECANDER or ISCANDER. 
 The province of Hejer or Bahrein in Eastern Arabia on the Persian 
 Gulf is also called LAHSA, a word consisting of the common 
 geographical name AHSA and the article EL, and fi'om which 
 Ptolemy called its inhabitants lolisitae" A precisely similar case 
 is that of the old Pelasgian word Larissa, which is found in Syria, 
 Assyria, and the south of Palestine. In every case the initial L is a 
 remnant of the Arabic article, as appears most plainly in the Larissa 
 that marks the boundary between Palestine and Egypt, which is a 
 Greek form of EL ARISH.** The ancient Issa in the Adriatic 
 becomes the modem Lissa by an inversion of the process. Hitzig 
 connects the Philistine town Jamnia, partly on the authority of 
 Stephanus of Byzantium, with the Greek eia/rnene, and the latter 
 
 « Genesis Elucidated, by John Jenrls-Whtte Jervis, A.R., Trin. Coll., Dublin. London, 
 1852. p. 3SS. 
 , «• Hitzig, Urgeschicbte und Mythologie dor PhiliitMr. Leipzig, 1816. p. 110. 
 
LANGUAGES OP THE 1 lO-EUEOPEAN FAMILY. 29 
 
 word with leirmn, limne.*' That he is right in his last connection 
 none can doubt, the difference between the words connected being 
 simply the Arabic article. I am also prepared to say that he is right 
 in his first connection, and that, pushing it a little farther, he might 
 have arrived at an ancient abode of the Minyans and a prototype of 
 Lemnos as well. Similar pairs of words are Academus and Lace- 
 daemon, Esbus and Lesbos, the Russian province oi Astrachan on 
 the Caspian, the Indian Satrugna, brother of Rama, and the Laestry- 
 gones of the Homeric story. As a confirmation of the connection 
 between Eabus and Lesbos it is worthy of note that the town Mad- 
 mannah or Madmen of Moab, which lay near to the former, gave its 
 name to Methymna, one of the chief towns of the latter. A ntiphates, 
 king of the Laestrygones, refers us not only to Amphiaraus, grand- 
 son of an Antiphates, With whom the Arab Moafer connects, but 
 also to an Alcmaeon line reproducing the Lokmans of the East, he 
 himself deriving his name from the oriental Netophath. The 
 brother- of Satrugna is Lakshman. Plutarch in his Hellenica informs 
 us that Labradeus a nanie of Jupiter in Caria, also applied as 
 Labranda to a town of that region, was derived from labrus or labra 
 signifying a battle axe in the Lydian language." Now it is to be 
 remembered that Lydia has very decided Arabian connections. 
 Besides that Ludim as a whole are derived from Amalek, the name 
 of the king Sadyattes points to an old SADID or SHEDAD, 
 while Alyattes and Alcimus, as compared with Attes and Aciamua, 
 reveal plainly the presence of the Arabic article AL." Can the 
 initial I of labrus and Labradeus be of the same character as that of 
 Alyattes 1 The Sanskrit and Persian languages will answer this 
 question. In the former the word for such an axe, that, namely, with 
 which the later Rama swept the Kshetriyas from the earth, is 'parasu, 
 and in the latter it is beret, these being the equivalents of Al-bnis 
 and Al-brad. The whole word with the article in a purer form is 
 found in the Irish alba/rd, the Spanish alabarda, the German ffelle- 
 bard, and the English halberd, which the Romaic, in profound ignor- 
 ance of the original, has naturalized aa alamparda. A word not 
 unlike Labradeus is Labyrinth, the origin of which seems to be com- 
 pletely hidden. Yet ancient Persian history informs us that 
 
 « Id. 128. 
 
 •0 Plutarch. HeUenioa ii., 801. 
 
 u Vide Rawlinsob'ii H«rudotus, Appetiix, Book i., Essay L, On Chronology and Bari^ 
 Bibtory of Lydia, 
 
^0 THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 Menoutchehr dedicated to the moon a temple in Balkh called 
 AL-BAHAR-NAU.** It is long since I first connected Menoutchehr 
 of the old Persian story with Mencheres of Egypt, who should rather 
 be called Mentcheres or Month-ra. He is Mendes, to whom 
 Diodorus" and Strabo'* attribute the Labyrinth, all the connections 
 of which were decidedly lunar. As for Balkh, it appears in Boulak 
 near Ct ro and in other parts of Lower Egypt. Various writers 
 admit that in Menoutchehr we have the Mandauces of Ctesias. He 
 is followed among the Median kings by Sosai'mus, and the latter 
 monarch in the Assyrian list not only connects with Lampares and 
 Lamprides his predecessors, reminding one of the Egyptian Labares 
 or Lamares, but also with Mithreus and T^utamua his successors, 
 who are most unmistakeably the Egyptian Mestres and Tothmosis." 
 I do not doubt that Al Bahar Nau is the original form of the 
 Labyrinth. 
 
 M " In libro Sadder cap. 43 mcmoratur Pyreutii dictum Adurchurii, i.e., ignis illuminationis 
 ntionis, q. d. mentis et rationis illuminatione aliquem inspirans. Estque Juxta Kirman illud 
 Pyreum, illeque Ignis illuc traductus ex Chorasan, seu Bactria, ut vult Shaliristani. Haec 
 hodie (ut alibi fUsius dicetur) est Hetropolitica Enclesia Magorura omnium ad quam semel in. 
 vita sua tenentur veterea Persae omnes peregrinationem suscipere, gacrae visitationis ergo, ut 
 oUm faciebant ad antiquam Ecelesiam Catliedralem Azur-Qushtasp iii Balch, seu Bactris et 
 prout antea fecerant ad multo antiquiorem ibidem Catliedralem Nau-Bahar. Fuit enim in urbe 
 Balcb (ut mox dicetur) aliud antiquissimum Pyreum dictum Nau-Bahar, seu Novum Vtr, propter 
 Temantem ejusdem omatum et picturas floridas." Hiatoria RtligUmU VtUrum Pertarum, ic, 
 ArUor Thomat Hyde, Oxon, 1760. p. WZ. 
 
 A abort distance further on the author quotes Shahristani who, speaking of sacred edifices 
 dedicated to the heavenly bodies, says : " Ex his etiam fuit Al-Nau-Bahar quam extruxit Rex 
 Manushahr in Balch dedicata Lunae." I cannot agree with the interpretation of Nau-Bahar 
 given by the learned author as Novum Vtr, nor believe that the words are the same as those 
 which now designate the ntw year, or the month answering to our April. "The word Behar," 
 says Sadilc Isfahani, "in the Hindi language signifies a sclnol or college." The Geographic^ 
 Work* of Sadik I^ahani trarulated. Oriental Translation Fund. London, 1839. Tahkikal 
 Irob, Bihar. The common word for college in Hindustani is madrasa, but this word Bthar 
 doubtless represents an older name for a building in which religion and education may have gon* 
 band in hand. I cannot but view the form given by Shahristani in which Nau precedes Bthar 
 as an attempt to explain a terra inexplicable save by the knowledge of an earlier stage of 
 language and history. The final nau or the inth of laJbyrinih may easily have been the nam* 
 of the goddess Nbith which is the sam« as Month the first part of the name of Mbntchbres, 
 without the initial M. 
 
 A recent writer in the Edinburgh Review, epeaking of the Buddhiit temple which took th* ploM 
 Hftht Pyreum at Balkh, eays, "It i$ especially worthy of remark that through all rubaequtnt history 
 HU building retained the same Sanskrit name of Nava Vihara {corrupted into Now-Beliar, and 
 ttgnifying • the new monoiter]/.')— Edin. Review, No. cclxxv., Art. 1., " The Book of Ser Marco 
 Polo, the Venetian." 
 
 H Diod Sic. Lib. i..O], M. 
 H Strab. Lib. xvii., 1, 41 
 
 N Vide Da Pin, Bibtiothiqae UnirerMlIedec Historiens. Anuttidtm, 1708. Livre Prantar, 
 ni,fto. 
 
LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 31 
 
 . Perhaps the most striking instance of the use of the Arabic 
 article is afforded by a comparison of two Celtic words with their 
 equivalents in other languages. The first of these is the Gaelio 
 and Erse ban, meaning white. In Hebrew it is LABAN, in Greek 
 alphas, and in Latin albiis, the la and al representing the article. 
 The second instance is the Gaelic beann, the Irish ben and the Welsh 
 peri, meaning a hill. Tliese are the same as the Greek bounos, and 
 with the Arabic article, give the Celtic and classical forjns Albain, 
 alpeina, Alpea, together with a certain Phoenlciaa Alpin. The roots 
 of ban and ben or beann or pen are not distinct, for the idea of moun- 
 tains with white snow^clad summits connects with that of whiteness, 
 just as LEBANON rises out of LABAN, white, it being pre-emin- 
 ently the White Mountain range of northern Palestine. It is not a 
 little singular, however, to find in the Celtic again, as in the case of 
 the Welsh ty, a root form older than that of the Hebrew. Many 
 things lead me to the belief that in the Hebrew LEB, meaning the 
 heart, a similar case presents itself. With this word the 'affections 
 of the heaii) are bound up, so that the German liebe and our English 
 love are both derived from it. But it would almost seem that the 
 root of the Hebrew word is found in AHAB, the verb to love in the 
 sams language. This AHAB, (the Arabic HEB,) assumes the 
 aspirate form in AGAB, meaning the same, and gives the original of 
 the Greek agapao ; but it also has an unaspiratei and contracted 
 form in ABAH. The latter form by a common phonetic change 
 becomes AMAH, furnishing the original of the Latin amo, and, 
 rejecting the initial vowel, claims kindred with the Coptic he. The 
 Welsh hoffi may represent the Hebrew ABAH. 
 
 In conclusion, returning again to the Coptic article, let me present 
 two more extensive illustrations than any hitherto given of the great 
 importance of its recognition in questions of comparative philology. 
 Bopp in his Comparative Grammar sets forth the following three 
 pairs of words, signifying wolf in six different languages.^ 
 
 Banakrit. Zend. Oreek. Lithuattian, L>Uin. Oothie. 
 
 vrikas, vehrko, lukos, wilkua, lupus, vulfa. 
 
 The lithuanian is the Greek with the prefix of the Coptic article, 
 and the same relation subsists between the Gothic and the Latin. 
 The Danish form tUv is a softer form than the €k>thic and nearer to 
 the Semitic root, but the Latin mdpes, though denoting a fox, is the 
 
 ** Bopp'a Compantive OiwiiintT, vol L, les. 
 
S2 THE COFTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 lame as the Gk)thic wilfa. The Persian form for wolf, as we might 
 expect, is not velab but kelub, the Cushite article replacing the Coptic. 
 But this word in Persian as in Arabic means heart, which in Persian, 
 Arabic and Hebrew is also LE£. The root LEB or LEV, which 
 the Danish almost appropriates to the wolf in tdv, by the simplest 
 kind of conversion in meaning from heart becomes the Sanskrit ^t^A, 
 the German lieben and our English love. This introduces another 
 wild animal, the lion, which in Coptic is laboi, in Hebrew LEBI, 
 and in Grerman Lowe. But the words LEBI, lion, and LABAN, 
 white, are connected in Hebrew, while in Latin lupus and albus take 
 their place, and in Greek lukos and leukoa. That the connection of 
 the Greek with the Hebrew is a sound one will appear from the iax^ 
 that even LIBNEH, the white poplar, answers to the Greek leuJki. 
 Lebana, Albunea, Leucothoe are one and the same goddess answering 
 to the Celtic Blanchefleur. A trace of the Greek form for the wolf 
 remains in the Scandinavian mythology, in which Loki is the father 
 of the wolf Fenrir. Guigniaut points out the relation ot the wolf 
 to the ideas cf light and whiteness." But how are we to connect 
 our first pair with the two others, vrikas with lukoa f We may say 
 that in Coptic I and r are interchangeable, and, having an agreement 
 in k, the second consonant of the root, we may be satisfied. This is 
 not enough however. The Lithuanian furnishes us with an impor- 
 tant link. In that language lokia, which is simply the Greek luko$, 
 and its own tinlkus without the article, means not a wolf nor a lion 
 but a bear. Now the bear and wolf connect in many parts of the 
 Greek mythology, and notably in that relating to Arcadia, where ia 
 Mount Lycaeus, where Lycaon's daughter Cistllisto, the she-bear, 
 becomes the mother of Areas, and where, while Leon, one of her 
 brothers, takes his name from the king of beasts, another, Helix, 
 reflects Helice, a name of the constellation Ursa Major. " The 
 aame changes," says Mr. Cox, " which converted the Seven Shiners 
 into the Seven Sages, or the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, or the Seven 
 Ohampions of Christendom or the Seven Bears, transformed the 
 sun into a wolf, a bear, a lion, a swan.'"* So far the Lithuanian 
 hkia is the only word we have found, related to our six names for 
 the wolf, which denotes the bear. The Sanskrit for wolf is vrikas^ 
 
 1 Gutgniaut, Religion* de rAntiquit6, Totn., U., 109. 
 
 M Cox'b HjrUiology of tlie Axjaa Nations. London, 1870. Vol. i., p. 106, note 3. Vide at. 
 SM, 414. 
 
LANGUAGES 01< THE INDO-EUROPEAK FAMILY. 33 
 
 «nd the Zend vehrko. The v which begins these words, it must be 
 > remembered, is the Coptic article. Vrikas then, wolf though it 
 mean, is simply Areas, the bear, or, keeping to the Sanskrit, it is 
 riksha, the bear, the bright one, standing in exactly the same relation 
 to vrikaa that lokia holds to wilkm. Professor Max Miiller remarks 
 upon the position which Sanskrit mythology gives to the bear as the 
 bright animal, a position which we have already seen occupied by a 
 Semitic lion and a Classical wolf, " We do not see why of all other 
 animals the bear should have been called the bright animal. It is 
 true that the reason of many a name is beyond our reach, and that 
 we must frequ'^ntly rest satisfied with the fact that such a name is 
 derived from such a root, and therefore had originuly such a mean- 
 ing. The bear was the king of beasts with many northern nations 
 who did not know the lion,"" Going still further back into the 
 Coptic we find the bright animal is the rukh or jackal, the name for 
 which designates a live coal, and which, as a member of the animal 
 kingdom, is not unlike the wolf. ' There can be no doubt that Areas, 
 riksha and rukh are forms of the Hebrew YAREACH, the Chaldee 
 YERACH, which like LEBANAH means the moon, and that the 
 Chaldean Ubukh or Urhammu with his son Ilgi" are other forms 
 of Areas and Lycus ; Urukh himself being 
 
 " pater Orchemus ; isque 
 Septimus a prieci numeratnr origine Beli:"" 
 
 and the father of »« m« * 
 
 " Leucothoe, 
 Gentis odorifene quam formosissima partu 
 Edidit Enrynome,"'* 
 
 Leucothoe is Tilbin or LEBANA, the famous goddess of Assyria, 
 and the Albunea of Latin story. Hurki is the Babylonian name of 
 Sin, the moon-god, whose principal temple was built in Hur by Urukh, 
 *nd whose connection with bricks, according to Sir Henry Rawlinson, 
 explains why the Hebrew LABAN irmke bricks, LEBENAH, brick, 
 is almost the same as LEBANAH, tlie moon.'* Hurki, Urukh, 
 
 ^ Science of Langoage. Series ii. Lecture viii. 
 
 *• Rawlinson'e Herodotus, App., Bk. i., GsMy vL, The Early History of Babylonia. 
 I.tnormant a»irf ChemlUf'$ Manual of t\u, AwAtnt Hittory of the East. lA>nclm, 1869. Vol. i. 
 p.SSS. 
 
 •I Ovidii Hetam, I. iv., 212. 
 
 • Id., 1. Iv., 209. 
 
 *■ Itawllnaon's Herodotus, App. Book i. Essay z, Religion of the Babylonians, &e. 
 
 3 
 
34 THE COPTIC BLEUEKT IN 
 
 Ubhauuu, Orchamus and even Areas and Orous are different forma 
 of the Arab YEBAEH or JOBHAM, who was the ancestor of the 
 great ARKAM family.** I n'^ed not say that the root of all these 
 words is YEBAH, the moon. The very frankincense shrub, that, 
 by the command of Apollo, sprang out of the grave of the 
 dishonoured daughter of this YEBAKH or Orchamus, retains in 
 Greek equally as in Hebrew her original name ; for frankincense in 
 these languages is Hebrew, LEBONAH ; Greek, lihanoa . 
 
 The following table of twelve columns shows striking and 
 interesting relations among languages belong! ;^ to at least two 
 different families ; and the variations of the words will be found to 
 accord with much that has been said in regard to prefixes, while they 
 set at noiight many existing theories of comparative philology.** 
 Of the twelve columns, five are occupied by the names of animals, 
 the lion, bear, wolf, fox, jackal and dog ; another five is taken up 
 with words denoting light, brightness, whiteness, as bleach, white, 
 bright, light, shine, milk, moon, silver ; and the other two include 
 heart, love and like. 
 
 M Lenormont and Chevalier'a Manual, Vol li., 389. Jenris' Genesis, 191, 195. 
 
 <* In this table, as tlirougliout tlie essay, I liave been compelled, owing to the absence of 
 suitable founts of type, to print all the words in the ordinary character. The Coptic, 
 Babylonian and Assyrian, Hebrew, Chaldee, Byriac and Arabic, Persian, Hindustani andSanskrit 
 wo-ds generally follow, in regard to form, the rules of Peyron; Norris, in his Assyrian 
 Dictionary ; Oesenius ; Eichborn ; Sir W. Jones and Richardson ; Forbes ; UuUer and Benfey. 
 The Irish Dictionary employed is that of O'Reilly, and the Welsh, of Thomas Edwards. For 
 rompu, a plural Egyptian form of the word denoting wolf, I am indebted to Cha'mpolHon'$ 
 Dietionnairt Egyptitn, p. 83. 
 
LANaUAOES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 I: 
 
 1^ 
 
 ^1 
 
 oils. 
 el II fill t 
 
 s : 
 
 J! a 
 
 I 
 
 11 ^ 
 
 S rt M 3 3 _ 
 
 Pj 3 b5 3 
 
 .g 
 
 3 
 
 I ^ 
 
 S It 
 
 II 
 
 ^ 2 
 
 iS 
 
 =3 
 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 Is 
 
 I 
 
 o o 
 
 2 « 
 
 II 
 
 •3 .d 
 
 
 53 f"^ 
 
 i I 
 
 •3 
 
 
 I 
 
 09 d < 
 
 9-- . 
 
 ' ' I ' S • ' m ' 
 
 II, ioi3>i)'**o> 
 
 2^1 :s34segl.2 2ag-S,!3 
 
 -u' -^ 
 
 as §0423 .9 ^ ,S 
 
 S i-e 
 
 i i|||i li ^ =1 i 
 
 I I I I I I I t I • 
 
 . S.2 
 
 ^3 3^3 3^ 5 5 
 
 3 
 
 "3 
 to 
 
 "5 u S -rfS 
 
 
 
 i? 
 
 •-4 U 
 
 1l 
 
 si 
 
 I 
 
 S " 
 
 13 
 
 ^1 
 
 I 
 
 I •-» I III 
 
 1 • , "S I I . I 1 i 
 
 I d ■ r' ' • ■ • • • 
 
 1 I Jli lliii 
 
 J 
 
 I II 1(11 
 
 ■ ' II till 
 
 * It I i I I 
 
 % M "I 'fi * :: 
 
 |1 
 
 
 5^ 
 
 Ssls 
 
 11 I I > I 
 
 fill PI II III! 
 
 „§ § o i 
 
 3J .S 5 a 
 
 ll 
 
 § § s ^ « 
 
 s 4J 5 4< a 
 
 a 
 
 I J 
 
 f 
 
 ^Sa gag 3 }i ^ * A 
 
 R 
 u 
 
 I 
 
 CO 
 
 II i ■§ I 
 1-6 l§l 
 
 III 
 
 g si M 
 
 I 
 
36 
 
 THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 The forms presented in the above table, excepting those in italics, 
 in'hich, like aur and shir, doh and tab, exhibit interesting relations, 
 although vmconnected with the i-oots under consideration, may be 
 reduced to four. In the lii-st the initial I combines with h, bh, v, p, 
 ph,/, w, m, n, and even a mere vowel, «« in leo, while in the seco-(d 
 it unites to fonn the root with c, ch, k, x, g, gh, j, z, s, ah, and even 
 h or a vowel. In the third and fourth an initial r takes the place of 
 the I of the first and second. The prefixes vary from a simple vowel 
 or breathing to well developed representatives of the Coptic and 
 Cushlte articles. The most common affix is that in (/ or < as in light, 
 licht, lacd, Uaeth, galaktos, lebut, lahat, art, Ueuad, airgiod, argentum, 
 arktos, rajatam, which sometimes acquires such power as to extinguish 
 the second consonant of the root." 
 
 
 /. FirH Form in I. 
 
 
 
 loup, Ft. wolf. 
 
 1 
 
 -b. 
 
 ssnkalib, 
 
 Pers. dog. 
 
 labah, 
 
 Heb. liKht. 
 
 clia'iac. 
 
 Erse wolf or 
 
 lupo, It. wolf. 
 
 labbu, 
 
 Bab. heart. 
 
 fox. 
 
 lupus, Lilt. wolf. 
 , Sans, fox or 
 
 laboi. 
 
 Copt- & 
 
 lul.h, 
 
 1-bh. 
 Sans, to like. 
 
 lopaca, j^„^„, 
 
 laban, 
 
 Heb. white. 
 
 colblm, 
 
 Erse lovo. 
 
 alepou, Roin. fox. 
 
 leb, 
 
 Heb. heart. 
 
 
 1— V. 
 
 alopex, Gr. fox. 
 
 leb. 
 
 Arab, heart. 
 
 love, 
 
 Eng. love. 
 
 seleplu, Copt, heart. 
 
 lebi. 
 
 Hub. lion. 
 
 love. 
 
 Dan. lion. 
 
 hua p, Dan. whelp. 
 
 leben. 
 
 Arab. milk. 
 
 alvo, 
 
 Port. White. 
 
 whelp, Eng. whelp, 
 volpe, Ital. fox. 
 
 leben, 
 
 Pers. milk. 
 
 ulv. 
 
 Dan. wolf. 
 
 lebut. 
 
 Arab. lion. 
 
 85lV, 
 
 Dan. silver. 
 
 vulpes, Lat. fox. 
 
 lieben. 
 
 Oer. to love. 
 
 silver. 
 
 Eng. silver. 
 
 1-ph, f. 
 alphos, Or. white. 
 
 lobo. 
 
 Span. wolf. 
 
 1- 
 
 -w. 
 
 lobo, 
 
 Port. wolf. 
 
 lew, 
 
 Scl. lion. 
 
 wolf, Eng. wolf. 
 
 lobsh, 
 
 Copt, light. 
 
 llew. 
 
 Welsh lion. 
 
 wolf, 6er. wolf. 
 
 lubet, 
 
 Lat. to like. 
 
 lOwe, 
 
 Oer. lion. 
 
 wolf, Dutch wolf. 
 
 lubic, 
 
 Scl. to like. 
 
 1- 
 
 —vowel. 
 
 1-m. 
 
 albo. 
 
 Ital. white. 
 
 leao. 
 
 Port. lion. 
 
 lamma, Eab. lion. 
 
 albo, 
 
 Span, wliite. 
 
 leo, 
 
 Lat. lion. 
 
 laomhan, Krso lion. 
 
 albus, 
 
 Lat. white. 
 
 goleu, 
 
 Welsh light. 
 
 lelin, Erse milk. 
 
 silber, 
 
 Oer< silver. 
 
 1-' 
 
 irowel+n. 
 
 loma, Sans. dog. 
 
 chalab, 
 
 Heb. mUk. 
 
 leon, 
 
 Gr. lion. 
 
 lomri. Hind. fox. 
 
 gilbu, 
 kaleb. 
 
 Bab. dog. 
 
 leon. 
 
 Span. lion. 
 
 lume, Ital. light. 
 
 Heb. dog. 
 
 leon, 
 
 Erse lion. 
 
 lumen, Lat. light. 
 
 keleb. 
 
 Pers. heart. 
 
 leont<\ra 
 
 , Rom. lion. 
 
 lumiere, Fr. light. 
 
 kelub. 
 
 Pars. wolf. 
 
 lion, 
 
 Eng. lion. - 
 
 chlomia, Rom. white. 
 
 kilb. 
 
 Arab. dog. 
 
 lion, 
 
 Fr. lion. 
 
 
 kulb, 
 
 Arab, heart.' 
 
 lione, 
 
 Ital. lion. 
 
 Intermediate forms 1— aspirate, or vowel followed by b, 
 
 , d, Ac. 
 
 Uhab, Heb. light, alhu, 
 lehib, Arab, light, luire, 
 
 Copt, white, lait, Pr. 
 
 milk. 
 
 llaeth, Welsh milk. 
 
 Fr. to shine, laith, Chald. lion. 
 
 blith, Welsh milk. 
 
 lahat, Heb. light, lahej. 
 
 Arab.tohke. leite. Port. milk. 
 
 blath, Erse white. 
 
 gealadh, Erse light, lleuad. 
 
 Welsh moon, latte, Ital. milk. 
 
 skull, Rom. dog. 
 
 ** The following analysis of the table is suggestive. 
 
LANOUAQES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 
 
 37 
 
 //. Second Forr.% in I. 
 
 1- 
 Uo-tii, 
 Uod. 
 Ino, 
 
 luc«re, 
 leukoB, 
 like, 
 
 Loki, 
 
 lokiB, 
 lukoa, 
 
 Lukaon, 
 
 elkse, 
 
 Week, 
 
 blann, 
 
 bianuu, 
 
 blank, 
 
 blank, 
 
 WilkllN, 
 
 gnln-ktii8, 
 glaukos, 
 melk, 
 inelk, 
 
 -c k. 
 liat. milk. 
 Erse milk. 
 8<'l. liKht. 
 Ital. glilne. 
 Gr. white. 
 Eng. to like. 
 Dan. father 
 
 of Fenrir. 
 Sol. bear. 
 Or. wolf. 
 Or. father of 
 
 Arciig. 
 Dan. to love. 
 Diiti^h whito 
 Fr. wlilte. 
 Span, whitu. 
 Oer. Hliinini;. 
 Dan.shinlng. 
 Sei. wolf 
 Or. milk. 
 Or. shinin),'. 
 Dan. milk. 
 Dutch milk. 
 
 milk, 
 nileko, 
 
 leche, 
 
 IhOit, 
 
 loiche, 
 
 loch, 
 
 luch, 
 
 bleach, 
 
 bleachil, 
 bleiche, 
 gealach, 
 mileli, 
 
 lux, 
 Hknlax, 
 
 Ilgi. 
 
 losg, 
 
 blccg, 
 
 galgo, 
 
 Eng. milk. 
 Bui. milk, 
 -ch. 
 
 S|>aii. milk. 
 Oi!r. light. 
 ErHe light. 
 SaiiH. light. 
 Arab. Hhlne. 
 Eng. make 
 white. 
 Erse milk. 
 Ocr. white. 
 Erse moon. 
 Oer. milk. 
 
 Lat. light. 
 Or. dog. 
 
 Bab. Bon of 
 
 Urukh. 
 Copt, light. 
 Dut. white. 
 Span. (log. 
 
 iilg 
 
 Ian, 
 lela, 
 lis, 
 lU, 
 
 luiHl, 
 
 luUant, 
 
 lyg, 
 
 blasR, 
 
 lash, 
 laish, 
 liBh, 
 
 Port. dog. 
 mulgero, Lat. to milk, 
 amelgein, Gr. to milk. 
 
 1-gh. 
 light, Eng. light, 
 leoglian, Erse lion. 
 1— s. 
 Bans, light. 
 Arab. lion. 
 Or. lion. 
 Sd. fox. 
 Erse fox. 
 Fr. shining. 
 Dan. light. 
 Oer. white. 
 I— ah. 
 Bans. like. 
 Heb. lion. 
 Per.s. lion. 
 1-z. 
 
 luz, Span, light, 
 
 liiz, Port, llglit. 
 
 milzte, Sul. milk. 
 
 ///. First Fonn in r. 
 
 raposo, 
 raposu, 
 rape, 
 
 yerah, 
 arian 
 
 r— p. 
 
 Span. fox. nipl. 
 Port. fox. rupiam, 
 Himl. silver, nmipu, 
 hirpuH, 
 
 Per. silver. 
 Sana, silver. 
 Copt, wolves. 
 Lat. wolf. 
 
 nibah, 
 kereh, 
 serebr. 
 
 r-b. 
 Pers. fox. 
 Heb. heart. 
 Scl. silver. 
 
 Intermediate forms r— aspirate, or (vowel followed by) t, kc. 
 
 Arab. moon, erote, 
 Welsh silver, ert, 
 
 Copt. milk. 
 Copt. milk. 
 
 art, 
 arth. 
 
 Erse bear. 
 Welsh bear. 
 
 IV. Second Form in r. 
 
 T — k, Wl 
 riksha. Sans. boar, arch, 
 Copt, shine, brach, 
 Copt, jackal, breach. 
 Or. son of yareach, 
 Lukaon. yerach, 
 
 Rom. bear, nrphftmns '^ •"• """"" " 
 Or. bear. "rcuamus, Leucothue 
 
 Bab. father 
 
 of Ilgi. arx, 
 Bab. moon. 
 Bans. wolf, argos. 
 Fori whito airgiod, 
 p — ch. bright, 
 
 Copt, white, argentum, 
 Bans, light. 
 
 rakh, 
 rukh, 
 
 Aikas, 
 
 arkouda, 
 arktos, 
 
 Urakh, 
 
 hurki, 
 ▼rikas, 
 branco, 
 
 rooh, 
 roch. 
 
 Sans, shine. 
 Erse Itear. 
 Erse wolf. 
 Heb. moon. 
 Chald. iiionn. 
 Lat. father of 
 
 r— X. 
 Copt. bear. 
 
 r— g. 
 Or. shining. 
 Erse silver. 
 Eng. sliining. 
 Lat. silver. 
 
 arguros, Gr. silver, 
 warg, O. Oer. wolf. 
 
 Romaic, Italian, French, Spanish, ume ai 
 Greek and Latin of silver. 
 
 r-.i. 
 ra,jatam, Sans, silver, 
 marj. Sans. milk. 
 
 r— 8. 
 ursus, Lat. bear. 
 French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese same. 
 
 r— ah. 
 roshn. Hind, shine, 
 rushen, , Pers. shine, 
 krosbtu, Sans. Jackal. 
 
 The prefixes found in the above are the vowels a, e, i, o, u, and the diphthong ai, neutrals ; 
 b, T, vu, whe, wi, wo, m, ma, me, ml, mu and ante, b sounds ; and k, ka. ke, kl, ku, sku, o, ch, 
 cha, 00, g, ga, gea, gi, go, se, si, so, ya, ye, hi, hii and hua, c sounds. The affixes, an elenfent 
 of tar legs importance, are the five vowels and the diphthongs ia, lu, ol and ou ; among the 
 liquids lam, amus, an, aon, en, han, r, er, ri, uros, urion ; of c sounds ex, ac, aca, ic, as, es, is, 
 OS, oso, ns, sh, sha, ah, oh ; and of d sounds d, ad, adh, iod. onda, t, th, at, atam, ath, et, 
 entnm, ote, nt, te. Us, tos, ta. The consonants which have usurped the place of simple 
 vowelii between the letters of the root are m as in rompu, n as in bianco, branco, and t as tn 
 •lake, loBg. 
 
 The table might easily be extended by introducing other words, such for example as yellow, the 
 a«nnau g^b, the Hebrew yarak, the Welsh lUb-Uw, It is however BolBciently large for the 
 puipoae for which it is intended. 
 
38 • THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 
 My last example exliibits unmistakeably the presence of the 
 Coptic article in the transmission of the root through different 
 languages. The book of Exodus makes us acquainted with a town 
 in Lower Egypt called Pithom, which the captive Israelites helped 
 to build for their oppressors." This town appears to have been 
 situated upon the eastern bank'of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, 
 to be the Patumos of Herodotus and the Thum of the Itinerarium 
 Antonini. There is not the least doubt that the initial Pi or Pa 
 is the Coptic article. Sir J. G. Wilkinson connects Thum with the 
 Egyptian Thmei, the Hebrew THUMMIM, the ' Greek Themis, 
 and, in a secondary degree, is conrect in his etymology.** In the 
 book of Numbera, however, we are informed that the whole of the 
 desert region near which this fown lay, extending from it to the Red 
 Sea, was called ETHAM, a name applied also to an extensive tract on 
 the opposite shore of Arabia Petrtea.** Many writei:s agree that 
 ETHAM and Pithom or Patumos are variations of the same root, 
 the latter, denoting a town, being a definite form of the former. 
 The word, ETHAM, however, at once associates itself in the mind 
 of the student of Egyptian history with the name of the solar god 
 Atum or Atmou, " who is called Athom, and gives his name to the 
 city of Tlioum."'" The figure of a plough, which forms part of this 
 god's name spelt hieroglyphically, sends us to the old Coptic and 
 Hebrew root, eth, a ploughshare," while many circumstances prove 
 that m is no part of the root."* Thus, Jacob Bryant says, " It is 
 said that the Israelites came into the region of ETHAM, which is 
 still called Etti, the inhabitants of which were the Autaei of Pliny."** 
 Another writer, although guilty of the error of confounding Gatam 
 
 •' Exodus i. 11. 
 
 •» Rawlinson's Herodotus Book li. 158.; note 5. • 
 
 A i)opular account of the Ancient Egyptians, ii. 250, &c. 
 
 •» Exodus xiii., 20. Nunil)er3 xxxiii , 6 8. The Septnagint form of this name is OtKom. 
 Jablonsky views it as the Coptic Atiom, the boundary of the sea. 
 
 ro The History of Egypt, from the earliest times tiU the conquest by the Arftbs, by Samuel 
 Sharpe. London, 1870. Vol. 1., 113. 
 
 n Osbum, Monumental History of Egypt, Vol. 1., 340. 
 
 '*• Theophilus calls the Egyptian city Peitho. " Oi fttv 'Efipaioi Kar 'tKiXvut xaijoS 
 ira2oucfi<TavTie kp r^ Alf iwrtft, cat Karatov\u>9ivr*Q, iirb fiaoiKiwe, wfi ir^on'jijroi, 
 Tf9/ttifftCt mKoSofA^aav abru w6kiie ixvjiet ri/v rt HitOu mai 'Pa/iiffq."— Ad 
 ▲utolycum 111.. 20. 
 
 n Obseivatlons upon the plagues inflloted upon the Egyptians, bo., by Jacob Bryant. LoB> 
 don, 1794, (e llbris BenJ. Workman, Esq., M.D.) p. 404. 
 
LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 39 
 
 son of Esau with the god Atum, yet correctly adds, "the name 
 occurs as well in the Autei of Pliny, and the modem BENI 
 ATIYEH of Burckhai'dt and the Desert of TIH." Pliny mentions 
 the fact of these same Avitei dwelling within the borders of Egypt.** 
 BouTAN a later name of Thoum or Pithom, BATHAM, the land of the 
 Arabian Autei, and the PH ATHMETIC mouth of the Nile, shewing 
 different forms of the same word, testify to an original connection." 
 The word Autei is not unlike Aetos, the ancient name of the Nile, 
 with which Diodonis connects the myth of Prometheus,™ I am not 
 aware that we have any more definite confirmation of the application 
 of this name to the great river than the existence of the term 
 Phathmetic as applied to a branch of it. Aetos, however, is a word 
 meaning eagle in Greek, and is the Hebrew AIT or GAIT, a bird 
 of prey,'''' whence, doubtless, came by the prefix of m the Coptic maut, 
 the wUture. But just as ETH, the plough, gives ETHAM, so we 
 have a geographical name in the tribe of Simeon, derived from AIT, 
 namely, ETAM, also called ETHER." A link, which connects the 
 god Athom with water, and the Nile in particular, is found in his 
 association with the lotus, a plant sacred to that river. The name 
 ;lof the lotus among the Egyptians was nofbe, the modern Nuphar, 
 now applied to a genus of water-lilies closely allied to the Nymphaea 
 and Nelumbo genera, between which the lotus is to be found." 
 Nofre, however, was a name of Athom, who bore the lotus upon 
 his head."* The word nofre, which, among other meanings, has that 
 j of good, is found in Nephercheres, the name of an Egyptian king ; 
 'ynebria, the Bacchic fawn skin often pictured on Egj'^ptiau monuments 
 in intimate connection with Nofre- Athom ; and Nipur or Niffer, a 
 famous place among the ancient Babylonians, with which may be joined 
 Kharris NiPRA, the celebrated temple, the name of which inverts the 
 Egyptian Nephercheres.*' Turning now from Egyptian to Hindoo 
 
 '» Jervis'S Genesis, 409. 
 »♦ Plini Hist. Nat. Lit), vl., 33. 
 
 « Galloway, Egypt's Record, 511, 612, 515. Hciigstcnljerg, Egypt and the Books of Mosm, 
 trans. Edin., 1845, p. 49. 
 »• Dio-> Slo. i. 19. 
 " Vii Gesenii Lexicon in loc. 
 *• Joshua, xix. 7. 1. Chron. iv. 3. 
 
 » Ltndley's Vegetable Kingdom. liond., 1853, pp. 410, 414. .,^|u 
 •0 Wilkinson's Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians, Voi^PlB6. Vide et. 288. 
 Kenrlck's Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs, I., 331. 
 M Rawlinson's Herodotus, App., Bk. i., Eswy, x., 3. (III.) 
 
40 THE COPTIC ELEUENT IN 
 
 mythology, we find the lotus, a sacred plant, dedicated to Lakshmi 
 or Sri, the Indian Ceres, who is called Padma-Devi, or the goddess of 
 the lotus, Padma being one of the names of this plant.** Another 
 name for it is Tamara. I have no hesitation in identifying Padam 
 with PiTHOM or P-ATHOM, and Tamara with Thaom-ra, names of the 
 j^ Egyptian solar god. Not only does the plough of Athom suit a 
 connection with Ceres or Sri, but we also find in Arabian tradition 
 that the brother of the YODHAM or ETHAM, who gave his name 
 to a portion of the stony peninsula, is LAKHM, a form holding 
 the same relation to Lakshmi that Lokman does to Lakshman." 
 One of the most interesting geographical connections of the word 
 under consideration is furnished by the geography of Palestine, to 
 which, in its southern region, I have attributed the beginnings of 
 civilization. Near BETHLEHEM, which is the Hmise of LACHM 
 or bread, are found, according to Josephus, the springs of ETHAM, 
 whence flows the TAAMIREH river."* It is not at all improbable 
 that Tamara may be the same word as the Hebrew T AMAR, a palm 
 tree, the connection being found in the Rhamnus Lotus of the 
 ancients, the Zizyphtis lottu of botanists.** The fruit of these 
 trees and the seeds of the Nymphsea and Nelumbo were very early 
 important ai'ticles of food, and might well be classed among the 
 chief gifts of Ceres. The lotus, again, is the favourite plant of 
 Isis, who is the same as Lakshmi or Padma, since she stands to 
 Osiris in the same relation as the latter bears to Iswara. The child 
 of Isis is Harpocrates or Semphucrates, who is generally represented 
 sitting upon the lotus leaf* This Semphu-crates is identical with 
 the Indian Swayambhuva, and Swayambhuva is Adima, Yotma, or 
 
 ** Researches noncuniing the laws, theology, lea-tilng, commerce, &c. of Ancient and Modern 
 India, byQ. Crawford, Esq, Lond. 1817. Vol. i., 145, *o. 
 
 ■* Sale's Koran. Qenealogical Table of the Descendants of Kahtiiii. The name Lakhm or 
 Lfkshmi is the Hebrew LACH.VM, eat, LECHBM, bread, fruit of a tree, Arabic food; and 
 is thug a fitting name to connect with Ceres. 
 
 •** The Birthplace of Ancient Religions and Civilization. Canadian Journal, Aug. 1871, 
 p. 171, seq. 
 
 Joseph. Antiq. viii,, 7, 8. Ritter's Comparative Geography of Palestine. Translat, Bdln., 
 186«, iii. 81, 93-4, 833-40. 
 
 Vide Psalm Izxiv, 15, where the same name in the Septuogint is rendered in our English 
 version by the word mighty. 
 
 ■ ** Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom, 683. 
 
 M Qulgniaut, Religious de 1' Antiquity. Tom. i. 161. 
 
 •• Id., It., 46. 
 
 Banier, La MyUiologie et les Fables ezpliquiM par I'hiitoire. Tom. I., MS. 
 
LANOUAGES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 41 
 
 Atma." The creation of the first Menu is that of tlie lottis, but the 
 first Menu is Swayambhuva.^ The names ftemphucrates, and Harpo- 
 crates, taken in connection with the forms Athom and Thamara, 
 which is just Athom-, or, as he is often called, Thaom-ra, the ra 
 denoting his solar character, at once suggest Melcartus the son of 
 Demarous, Gordys, the son of Demophoon, and Meli-certa, son of 
 Athamas. To these might be added the Persian Tahmouras, 
 another solar personage, with his pre-eminently solar successor, 
 Djemschid, often identified with Melcartus. The solar character of 
 Thaom-ra and Tahmouras combines with the Ceres relationships of 
 Gordys in the Tamara leaf of India, which surrounds the sacred fire 
 in certain representations.^' Ihe Indian Atma is the soul, and as 
 such connects not only with the Greek thumos, meaning the same, 
 but with the old Homeric aiitme, breath, in which we see the German 
 At/iem.^ It is interesting to obsei've the difierent forms of the 
 name ETHAM, as Thoum, AITAM and Athom, reproduced in 
 these three related words. The Greek atvie, vapour, undoubtedly 
 belongs to the same root. As we have already connected maut, the 
 Egyptian name of the vulture and symbol of maternity with the 
 Greek aetos, and the Hebrew AIT, and thus, with ETAM, derived 
 from the latter, so, in Indian mythology we find Adima, under the 
 two forms Atma and Yotma, producing Mout and Mahat.*' There 
 can be no doubt that the Sanski'it Adima, Atma, Yotma, Tamara 
 and Pedma represent the Egyptian Athom, Taom-ra and Pithom, 
 the Arabian YODHAM, and the Hebrew ETHAM and ETAM. 
 We have seen that in Egypt this name connected itself with, 
 the Nile and with water generally. The same is true in regard 
 to its Indian connections. Swayambhuva or Adima is the god 
 of the flood as well as a near relation of the lotus. Greek 
 names, that point to a marine or aquatic connection more clearly 
 than aetos or atmoa are Athamas, whose story is bound up with the 
 sea, who gave his name to an extensive plain, and whose son Ptous 
 is immortalized by a place in Boeotia, called Ptoum ; great Thaumas 
 son of Pontus; and Thamyris the Thracian bard, whose name 
 
 « Ouigniaut, Tom. i., 254, 270, 647, Ac. 
 
 Bataronpa (Steropc) or Prakriti (Procris) forms a bond of anion between these names. 
 
 *> Crawford's Indian Researches, 83, 93. 
 
 ** Maurice's Indian Antiquities, .Vol i., Ft L, 8M. ■ 
 
 •0 OuigDiant, Tom. i., 047. ^ 
 
 " Id., I., 270, 647. 
 
4i2'-l THE COPTIC ELEMENT IN 
 
 survives, like that of Adonis, in a river of Phoenicia, the Tamyras. 
 Hitzig insists on the connection of the Sanscrit Tamara and tama 
 with water ;'* and both of them we find as names of rivers, or as 
 forming the base of such names, in India, Palestine, Spain, Britain, 
 and indeed throughout the whole of the Indo European and Semitic 
 areas.** Herodotus informs us that Thamimasadas is the Scythian 
 name for Neptune, and all are agreed that while masadas stands for 
 ruler or god, thami is water or the sea.** Strabo quotes Polybius as 
 his authority that the people at the head of the Adriatic called the 
 river Timavos the " mother of the sea ;""* and from Pliny we learn 
 that the Scythians named the Maeotis Temarunda, which meant the 
 same.** In the language of the ancient Irish, who claimed Scythian 
 ancestry, tamh signified the ocean, and in an old Assyrian dialect 
 it is TAMTU. We have thus presented to us a word of Egyptian 
 origin, designating a god, applied to a water plant, and conveying the 
 idea of water, especially as found in rivei-s, in many different forms," 
 the principal of which are Thom, Athom, Pithom. The loss of the 
 initial vowel need be no more a subject of surprise than the prefix o 
 the Coptic article. Strabo tells us that the Thessalian Ithome was 
 originally called Thome but acquired in some way another syllable.*^ 
 This is possible, but it is more than likely that the two forms came 
 from Egypt, where Thom and Athom were interchangeable from a 
 very early period. Without entering more into detail, or pushing 
 our researches for the present beyond the bounds of the Greek 
 language, this paper may fittingly come to a close with a fourfold 
 illustration or proof of the transference of Coptic words, article 
 included, into languages of the European family. The word Patumos, 
 which Herodotus gives as a Greek form of Pithom, is the same as 
 potamoa, a river, for which such far-fetched derivations as /)o<imo/i hudor 
 have been proposed; and thus the ancient name of the Nile, which, in the 
 forms of the English Thames and Tamar, gives brotherhood to many 
 
 •• Hitzig, die Pliilistaer, 230. 
 
 *■ Sucli are the Tomeras of Arrian or Tonberos of Pliny ; the Wady Taamirah that runs to the 
 west of the Dead Sea ; the Tamaris of Spain ; the Tamarus and Thamesis of Britain. Vide 
 Arriani Indica xxiv. ; Plinii Hist. Nat., Lib.vl., 26; Hitter's Comparative Geography of Pales- 
 tine, vol. iU. 135 ; Pompcnii Melae De Situ Orbis, Lib. iii. 1, 81 ; Six Old English Chronicle*- 
 Richard of Clrenoester on the Ancient State of Britain, and Appendix, Bohn. 
 
 M Rawlinson's Herodotus, Appendix, Book iv., Essay ii. 7. 
 
 •» Strab. vi., 1, 8. 
 
 •• Pllnil Hist. Nat. Ub. vi 7. 
 
 w Btrab. ix., 6, 17. 
 
LANOUAOES OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY. 43 
 
 slreama in the three continents of the Eastern Hemisphere, and even 
 designates the sea itself in certain tongues, becomes, with the prefix 
 of the article, by virtue of a strange forgetfulness on the part of the 
 Greek, not more definite or particular, but a general term for every 
 river that flows. That the word is not confined to rivers is, however, 
 evident in Potamia, a district of Faphlagonia,^ and Potamus an Attic 
 deme of the tribe Leontis," which reproduce BATH AM and Pithom 
 of Arabia and Egypt. The nupluvr of Athom and the padma of 
 Lakshmi appear indeed in the Greek lotus of many ancient memories ; 
 but the very Sanskrit padma lives again in the butonius, a name 
 originally denoting a water plant, and now applied to an order of 
 aquatics presenting certain evident points of analogy with the water 
 lilies, among which the lotus is found.'"" Besides the Potamoi of 
 Homer, various Greek heroes and demi-gods have been mentioned 
 who represent in the language and mythology of their country the 
 Egyptian Athom or Thaom-ra, the Arabian YODHAM ana the 
 Indian Yotma or Adima. Did space permit I might show that in 
 this ancient word the oldest traditions of India and Greece, of 
 German and Celtic nations unite, so that on Egyptian ground 
 Buddha and Cadmus, Odin and Hu may be brought to unity. 
 Finally the name Potamon is not unknown to Greek mythology. In 
 him we may expect to find the hero real or imaginary after whom 
 the Paphlagonian district, the Attic deme and the whole tribe of 
 rivers were called. ApoUodorus had a true tradition of the origin 
 of the name, and makes assurance doubly sure by calling him Pota- 
 mon, the son of ^gyptus."* 
 
 «• Id. xii., 8, 41. 
 •» Id; ix., 1, 22. 
 
 100 Llndley's VegeUble Kingdom, 20S. ' 
 
 [ lot ApoUodori Bibliothecw, U., 1, 5. <