Phonetic attraction.
R» J. Lloyd
■FFvOM-THE-LmRAK?/'OF
-OTTO -BREMER.'
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PHOlsTETIC
ATTRACTIOi^.
i»a; Thesis suhniitted to the University of London,
^'' hij R. J. LLOYD, M.A., Candidate for the degree
I of Doctor of Literature, 1888.
m
M5:
f.ll'
PHONETIC
ATTKACTIO:^.
Thesis siilnnltted to the VniveTsity of London,
hy li. J. LLOYD, M.A., Candidate for the degree
of Doctor of Literature, 1888.
LIVERPOOL:
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PHONETIC ATTRACTION:
An Essay upon the Influence of Similarities in Sound upon the
Growth of Language and the Meaning of Words.
It is but seldom that tlie working liypotheses which are
adopted hy a science in its infancy are found to sijuare with
the observed facts which in jn'ocess of time the industry of its
votaries succeeds in auiassing. I'irst one conjecture is tried
and then another, until at last one is found which cannot be
rejected altogether, and up(in this, by progressive emendations
and extensions, a true theory of the science is gradually built up.
The Science of Language is no excejition to this rule. It
begins with wild guesses tracing back all language to some
primeval agreement, to some divin(i revelation, to the imitation
of natural sounds, or to a comnmn source in the Hebrew. Hut
g none of these hypotheses were found capable of being ri\'eted
^ to the substance of the science by the necessary chain of facts.
2 Its students were therefore compelled to descend to huml)ler
^ methods, and to Ije content for a while to amass facts, and to
CO
bring out the empirical laws upon which alone higher general-
izations can safely be founded. First of all the direct relations
of the modern to the classical languages were studied and
explored. Then came the discovery of Sanskrit and Old Persian;
and thereupon the splendid generalization of CTrimm gave a new
interest to the study of every Aryan language, both ancient
and modern. Philologists devoted themselves with enthusiasm
to the task of folloAving out that law into all its developments,
and with pardonable zeal they would fain for a time have brought
every word of every Aryan language under its immediate
dominion. No equally great discovery has since been made,
but a va:it number of minor and local generalizations have
98
been successfully effected; physiology lias been called in to give
precision to })bonetics, aud to assist in formulating the laws of
sound-change, especially in the departments left untouched by
Grimm, such as the vowels, uasals, and liquids. Other investi-
gators, following up certain exceptions to Grimm's law, have
discovered and measured the influence of accent in the process
of sound-change.
The net result of all these discoveries has been to give to
the study of the Aryan languages a certain scientific basis, but
not one of the highest, nor indeed at all of a permanently
satisfactory, kind. They undoubtedly suffice to trace back a
very large body of Aryan speech to a comparatively limited
list of Aryan roots ; but it is to be feared that in the absence
of larger explanations they are often stretched to cover cases
which do not fairly fall under them : and even where their
application is most entirely satisfactory, the further question
inevitably arises — Whence came the roots themselves 1
Professor Max Mliller, lecturing in London, a good many
years ago, recommended that, for the present and provisionally,
the Aryan roots should be accepted as ultimate facts : and
in doing so he was probably right both from a scientific and
from a practical point of view. The work which at that time
lay immediately before the philologist was the perfecting of the
empirical laws of the change and succession of spoken sounds
in the Aryan languages, and during the progress of that work
it was 2)ractically wise and scientifically justifiable to postpone
the ulterior problem of the origin of roots.
But it is a problem which is sure to recur; for nothing
is clearer than that Aryan language did not begin with a
ready-made stock of Aryan roots. The roots themselves need
accounting for, as well as the Avords which are their offspring.
Professor Max Miiller points, no doubt, in the right direction,
though vaguely, Avhen he says that we must view the roots
of all languages as the survivors in a struggle for existence.
He points out how vastly fewer are the actual Aryan roots
than the number which the vocal elements of Aryan speech
99
are theoretically capable of producing : and he leads lis to
infer that the immense number of vacancies th\is disclosed is
due to tlie van(|uishment and extirpation of the weaker roots
by the superior energy of the stronger.
But how and why some roots flourish and some decay,
Avhy some are victors and some are vamjuished, are questions upon
which he declines for the present to enter. Circumstances,
however, seem at length both to be bringing these cpiestions
again to the front, and also to be furnishing us with some
contributions towards their solution. The introduction of a
chronological element into philology has been fraught with
great results. Derivations however plausible are not now
readily adopted unless they are such as the conjunctions of
time, place and history Avould reasonably admit of; and the
result has been to discredit many rash and superficial guesses,
and to relegate still more into a limbo of uncertainty. The
confident expectation of tracing everything, or nearly every-
thing, back in a straight line to Aryan roots lias received
a rude shock. Abysses of time and space are found to
yawn between many modern words and any jjossible ancient
prototype, quite too wide to lie bridged by nny imaginable
process of transmission. Dr. Murray, writing in April of the
present year, enumerates under the letter B alone no less than
fifty-four words Avhicli he has failed to trace to any ancient
roots, and which he concludes to be, fnr the most part at
least, examples of more or less recent Avord-creation. He further
remarks that that portion of the <lictionary " contains many
illustrations of the fact, which has of late years powerfully
impressed itself upon philological students, that the creative
period of language, the epoch of 'roots' has never come to
an end. The origin of language is not to be sought merely
in a far-off Indo-European antiquity, or in a still earlier
pre-Aryan yore-time; it is still in perennial process around
us."
Such being the latest and best conclusions of philology,
there seem to be reasonable grounds for think inij' that the
100
problem of the origin, nature and growtli of roots need no
longer be entirely ignored. If some roots are comparatively
modern, and if their rise and develojiment can be traced
historically ■^^■ith some approach to accuracy; if moreover, Ave
are enabled to gather from the history of acknowledged Aryan
or Teutonic roots wliat are the conditions which respectively
promote and hinder their influence and vitality, we may
perhaps be al)le to ap}»ly the knowledge thus acquired to the
general question of the origin of roots, whether Aryan or post-
Aryan.
The most cursory comparisdu of tlic lifodiistories of
various words reveals the fact ihat some words adhere to their
original meaning with a vastly greater tenacity than others :
and a further examination leads us t<i I'ecognize readily two or
three leading causes which contril)ute, by tiie degree of their
presence or absence, to render that tenacity greater or less.
Fiist among such causes must lie placed i)recisioii of
meaning and frequency of use. These, taken jointly, form
the strongest possible bond l)y which words and meanings
can be held tirndy each to each. When both are })resent in a
sufficient degree, all other causes, both friendly and hostile,
may be safely left (_)ut of the account, except of course, the
inevitable sweep of plionetic variation and decay.
Take for instance, in any languagv, the numerals and the
pronouns. These both comljine in the highest degree the
essential attributes of exactness aiid frequency. They are in-
capable either of shading off into a series of adjacent meanings,
or of being transplanted into distant fields liy metaphorical
uses. And we tind in them acc'ordiugiy a phenomenal longevity
of form and stal)ilitv of meaning, insomucli tliat they often
reniiiiu as the landmarks of relationship between languages
which have otherwise diifted apart in almost every particular.
It is best to consider these two (pialities — precision and
freqiiency — ^jointly, because separately they are almost powerless:
the absence of one is generally sufficient to paralyze the
other, Take, for example, the absence of precision ; and
101
for tliat purpose let iis institute a comparison l)et\veon the
names of tlie most frequently used numbers and names
of the most frequently occurring colours. In jioint of
frequency there is clc\arly little to choose ; Ijut avc feel
at once that there is a vast difierence in definiteness and
stability. There is no fear that the Avord ivo will gradually
come to mean 2l, then 2i, then 2|, and finally be trans-
formed into three : but the word blue is used even now to
cover a vast number of adjacent meanings ; it shades otf in
various directions into colours which, at the point of contact,
are as totally indistinguishable as in the long run they become
totally different ; and there was clearly nothing, until science
wedded it to certain lines in the spectrum, to attach the
term blue sharply to a certain area of colour, or to prevent
it from slowly gliding into other fields, and attaining to a
totally different signification. These apprehensions are fully
confirmed by facts. In the classic dialect of English the
wanderings of the term hlue are comparatively narroAv, but
its Northern equivalent Jdae still varies in moaning from the
blue-black colour nf the blaeberry to the dull grey of
unbleached cottons, and in former times it has been iised
to express the Latin /ulcus, as well as the deeper brown
of the compound Bin-man, a blackamoor. In old Spanish
the same word takes the form blaro, and is found to mean
yellowish grey ! After that it is not hard to believe that
the Latin ffarus — yellow — is really, as phonetically it seems
to be, the cognate of the old Teutonic bJ,ar/r-o;: lilue, from
which all the other words cited are ultimately derived.
The o)dy way in which colour-words are found to maintain
any historical fixity whatever is by association either Avith the
tints of nature or the pigments of art. There is little danger
at jiresent of any change in the meaning of orange or vermilio]i:
and such words as a::itre and green preserve a certain limited
constancy, not by virtue of their forgotten derivations, but by
traditional association with sky and tree. lUit until brought to
an anchor by some such associations as these, the meaning of
102
colour names undergoes tlie most surprising fluctuations even
in a very short space of time. Tliree centuries ago auburn
meant whitisli, and drah meant no colour at all (=F. drap,
undijed clotli).
Frequency of use, then, is no guarantee of stability in the
sen.se of words unless it is accompanied by precision of meaning:
and conversely a large amount, of ])recision "will not save a word
from corruption unless it is fre(|uently used. Take, for instance,
the verb which exists in Latin as frul, in (>. E. as hrumn, in
M. E. as hroulcen : its obedience to Grimm's law shows that it
dates back to Aryan antiquity : it is actively used both in
English and Latin, and so long as that activity lasts it preserves
in both forms, in sjjite of long centuries of severance, an
absolutely identical meaning. But in English its use at length
declines; it is elboAved out of the way by foreign words, such
as the vei'bs to «.ye and to enjuii : and 2xtri pas-ni, with the decline
in its activity there sets in a perversion of its meaning. The
word Avliich in its active phase had resisted the changes of
millenniums, passes rapidly through several gradations of
meaning, and now, after three or four centuries, is only heard
in the sense of brookiwj an insult or an injury, which is
certainly very far from enjoying it.
Whatever be the cause of the inactivity of a word, whether
it be pushed aside by busier rivals, or whetiier it is its misfortune
to convey a meaning wliirh raivly nce<ls to be expressed, the
result is the same: the word which is little used is easily perverted.
Let it be understood, of course, that these remarks ap])ly only
to the current coin of })opular speecli : the terms of science are
held to their meanings in a dilferent way.
An apt illustration is here afforded by the verb to huij,
and one of its derivatives. The old English verb hicgan, to
buy, liad a secondary and less usual form dhicgan, to abye.
The original difference between them seems to have been one
of emphasis rather than of meaning : the one meant to buy or
'poij-for (civilization had not yet dissociated those operations):
the other meant to buy or pay-for comphtclij, fidly, out and
103
out. r>ut there is for synonyms a law of differentiation from
wliicli they rarely escape : it is always hard for any Avord
which is the synonym of a stronger one to survive ver}' lou'4
except on condition of assuming some slightly different mean-
ing, which is waiting and wanting to he expressed. In this
case the second Avord was felt to he especially suited to expiess
the religious ideas of redeAnption and expiaticv. It had for a
time a great currency in theological literature, and thus worked
its way hack into the popular vocabulary under the douhle
meaning of expiating an offence, and suffering or enduring a
penalty. This last turn of meaning is probably due to the
attraction of the verb to abide, a word at first totally uncon-
nected with the verb to ahije, except by its sound. Tlie
attraction set up by sound had been poAverless, or at least
unobserved, to long as tlie two verbs Avere sejiarated by a vast
gulf of meaning, but when once they were brought within the
sphere of each other's sensible attraction, they rushed together
and were merged, so that the one could hardly be distinguished
from the other. Thus the verb to ahije oidy escaped the
u.sual fate of weak synonyms in one case in order to f dl into it
in anotheiv It Avas useless to have tAvo forms of tlu' verl) to
abide, and the less frequent was discarded. The verb to aJujc
no longer lives in spoken English, and is oidy used in literature
as a consci(uis archaism.
The strongest bond, then, by which a Avord and its
meaning can be attached together is that of frequent use
and im'cise meaning. Words fulfilling these conditions con-
stitute the solid fuiindation, the iirm, bony skeleton of any
language of Avhich they form a part. But in the nature of
thiiigs tliey are few, especially in languages Avhich have attained
to any degree of copiousness. The majority of Avords in any
copious language are not of frequent use, and the majority
of the meanings Avhich the unscientific vocabulary aims to
express are either indefiiute in themselves or are prone to
wander long and far under vaiious metaphorical disguises.
i!(evertheless, such words often possess a very high degree
B
104
of fixity, but it is attained iu a different way. Influences .
which count for nothing with the stronger class of words are
often quite sufficient to liold these weaker ones in their places
with wonderfully enduring constancy. The strongest of these
influences is that of phonetic association. Its operation is
partly analogous to what we have seen of that of visual
association in giving fixity to the meaning of colours ; but
it goes much further than that. Words are themselves sounds,
and their relations with sound are not mediate but direct,
not occasional but ever present, not necessarily intellectual or
conscious, but often automatic — either by nature or by the
effect of long use. The nature of these relations varies from
the utmost simplicity to the highest complexity ; but it is
only in their simplest forms that they have hitherto received
much attention. Much has been said about the influence upon
language of the sounds of nature, the cries of animals and
the interjections of men ; but it will be the chief aim of this
essay to shew that beyond these simple and obvious cases
there is a less obvious but much wider region wherein
phonetic association has also its sway, and produces far more
notable results.
Nevertheless, our way to the complex must always lie
through the simple, and it will lie necessary to give some
brief attention to the obvious cases named, before advancing
to the consideration of the more complex phenomena.
There is an acknowledged difference in the expressiveness
of words, a difference which all men feel but few ever attempt
to analyse. Upon what, then, does expressiveness depend ?
Clearly upon the vividness and completeness with which the
spoken word recalls the act or tiling which it is intended to
express. Now wliat power has a word to call up images of
this kind, and whereby is it attained*? Some writers have
maintained that there are certain instinctive interjectional cries
which are linked by nature with the expression of certain
emotions. But however that may be, it seems certain that
these natural roots, if existent, are exceedingly sterile. They
105
do not lead up to any nomenclature of " emotions, our names
for which, sucli as anger, lade, affection, envij, are almost
uniformly drawn hy metaphor from the external world.
Neglecting these, therefore, as doubtfully existent and certainly
unimportairt, we may say, generally, that the expressiveness
of a word lies in the strength of its associations with the
act or thing which it is intended to represent.
The word itself, of course, is clearly incapable of recalling
by direct and immediate association anything except things
of like nature with itself. It contains in itself two elements-
voice and articulation — the one phonetic and the other mus-
cular: and it has thus direct associations on the one hand
with similar phenomena of sound, and on the other with
similar phenomena of force and motion. Beyond this it
cannot directly go. Of these two classes the former is by
far the most numerous and definite : the number of natural
sounds having some affinity to the sounds of the voice is very
great, and the resemblance often very clear; but the move-
ments of the vocal organs and the breath, so far as they
are seen and felt in ordinary speaking, offer but few and
mostly vague images of the phenomena of external motion and
force. The former class will, therefore, when we conic to deal
Avith them, claim our first attention, but reasons will be adduced
for suspecting that the latter by their directness exercise a
subtle intiuence of great power.
When Ave once pass from direct to secondary association,
the step may be taken in either of two different directions.
Given a certain sound in nature, and a certain more or less
exact counterpart of it among the sounds of the voice, we may
pass by secondary association, either on the one hand to those
other external phenomena Avhich associate themselves most
firmly with the external sound, or on the other to those vocal
utterances which, though not identical with the given words,
are of exceedingly similar articulation.
There is, for example, a certain kind of sound in nature
which we represent imitatively by the word eracli. BetAveen
106
the spoken word and the natnral .sound there is a direct and
strong association ; and that association is capable of being
extended by a second link in either direction. Now, what are
the strongest links on either side? On the side of the external
sound the stronofest connection which it has to offer is that
which binds it to the phenoniearon with Avhich it is most
frequently associated in nature, which iu this case is that of
fracture or breakage : and by virtue of this the word, which
originally meant only a noise like that of breaking, comes to
mean breaking itself, and then by another link of the same
kind it comes to mean tlie lissure which is the result of
breaking.
But the spoken Avord has also its associations, of which
the most elementary are those which Ijind it to all similar
sounds, and especially to all words which in any degree
resemble it. We are entitled to conclude, on purely physio-
logical grounds, that the mere utterance of the word crack must
partly reanimate in the organism the traces of all similar sounds
to wdiich it is already accustomed, such as creak, crake, croak,
crow, crock, crockery, crackle, crackling, cracker, cracknel, and
crash, besides many more in a less degree, whose resemblance
is less striking.
It will probably sound [uiradoxical to say that of these
two kinds of association the second is generally, and in the
course of ages always, the more powerful in its influence upon
the growth of language and tlie history of words. The other
appears from an intellectual point of view so much more
natural, reasonable, and even necessary, that it seems almost
an absurdity to place it upon a level with random associations
of sound like thesp, possessing a good deal more, apparently, of
rime than of reason.
For the word random describes (piite rightly the nature of
this association, so far at least as the first link of it is
concerned. Its complete randomness is not seen in the ex-
ample given, because it so happens that nearly every word
strongly resembling the word crack has some imaginable affinity
107
of meaning with it. But the same associations would have
been momentarily kindled in the organism even if each of
these sounds liad liappened to be wedded to an opposed, or an
incongruous, or an irrelevant meaning. It is true that un'^er
ihose ciicumstances, the incipient association would in each
case have been instantly snapped : the association attaching
to the word on its other or intellectual side would have
effectually 1 arred the way to consciousness. A hostile meaning
would immediately quench it, whilst an irrelevant or incon-
gruous meaning would give it no point of attachment. Be
tliis as it may, the first link of such an attachment is always
formed inevitably, firmly, automatically in the organism, and
that none the less that in most instances we never become
conscious of it.
vSuch conclusions at least appear to be quite warranted by
p.sychological facts. The association between sinuilar Avords is
in the hearer an association of sound with sound, and in the
speaker an association of muscular motions with muscular
motions. Such associations, if very exact or very habitual, are
foiuid to operate quite unconsciously. Their circuit seems to
be completed within the ganglia of special sense, either with-
out reaching at all to the cerebral hemispheres, or, at any rate,
without reaching them in such a way as to emerge into
consciousness.
Let us now turn to the other kind of secondary
association — association not through form but through meaning.
Closer examination will show that such associations are by
no means so natural and necessary as we seem to feel them
to be at first sight. The feeling of their naturalness and
necessity is largely an aftei'growth, arising from habitude and
phonetic identity. If they were really natural and necessary
the same associations would always grow ; but they do not.
Take the verb to crackle, which is the frequentative and
diminutive form of crack ; it never gets beyond its original
phonetic meaning : the sense of fracture or fissure is entirely
Avanling. Hut its absence is purely arbitrary, fur the correspond-
108
ing French verb craqueler not only has the sense of minute
fracture, but has it to the exckision of the original sense of
crackling.
The reason wliy we are disposed to make, relatively, too
much of this kind of association is that it is . necessarily, to
some extent, intelligent and conscious. Between the sound we
call a cracJi, and the phenomenon of breaking, or the thing
we call a fissure, there is a gulf of meaning which can only
be crossed by a very distinct intellectual act, an act so
marked that the Avord may easily have continued, as many
have done before, to be used in its original sense for scores
or hundreds of years before anybody ventured to take the
leap which mentally separates its secondary from its primary
meaning. For the first meaning is one purely for the ear :
to any other organ it conveys not a particle of information;
but the secondary meanings address themselves to the sight,
to the touch, to the muscular feelings ; it is by these that
we appreciate and understand both the act and the results
of breakage. These are not only not phenomena of souml,
but they have not, of necessity, any scrap of connection
with it. Now, though it is easy, as already pointed out, for
impressions of the .s'«?we sense to link themselves automatically
together without the intervention of consciousness ; it is rarely,
indeed, that such connections can be effected between
impressions of different senses Avithout the conscious co-operation
of the mind. What few connections of that kind exist are
of a very fundamental kind, and seem to be implanted by
nature to minister to our most elementary perceptions and
wants. But in all ordinary cases the impressions of diverse
senses cannot be linked in the lower nerve-centres ; con-
nection fails altogether to be established, except through the
brain and the mind.
Thus it comes to pass that the attraction to which
words are subjected by contiguous meanings makes a much
greater show in our minds than the attraction due to neigh-
bouring sounds. The steps to which the first leads are few,
109
great, and conscious, bnt the second is a gentle, invisible,
but unceasing and self-multiplying force, whose influence we
are prone to overlook altogether until it becomes too palpable
to be neglected, and then we commonly set it down to
entirely different causes. This will be seen more fully later
on : enough has perhaps now been said to justify provisionally
the division of the subject hereinafter adopted. Its fuller
justification will probably be attained when the arguments
here foreshadowed have been discussed more amply in tlicir
proper order and the validity of their conclusions has been
])rought to the decisive arbitrament of facts.
It is proposed, then, to discuss the phenomena of phonetic
association in its two first and most important stages, whicli
we will continue to call, as heretofore, the primary and tlie
secondary ; it is proposed to divide the first of these into
two parts relating to the direct expressiveness of words,
firstly in describing sounds, and secondly in describing pheno-
mena of force and motion : and finally, it is intended to
divide secondary association into two parts, the first relating
to the secondary associations of words on the side of sound,
and the second on the side of meaning. Tertiary and remoter
types of association will only be treated in those forms whose
extreme force and directness permit them to be fairly grouped
with the secondary.
Beginning then with the direct expression of natural sounds
by spoken words, we find ourselves at once in a province
where even the primary law of definite ami frequent associa-
tion, so wonderfully illustrated by (rrimni, is (tiily very
partially oljeyed. The process of phonetic transmutation,
which in so many prominent instances fails completely aftei'
thousands of years of attrition, to weaken the bond between
a primeval Aryan word and its meaning, has a fiital efiect
upon words whose meaning is itself phonetic : and the more
purely phonetic the meaning the more fatal is the effect.
Were we to go, for example, and try to find an iVryan
prototype for our word, cruel; our search would be in vain.
110
We oufjht. if we found anvtliiiifj at all, to find a root GRAG
or CiARCijOr ?ometliing like that; but we do not. The nearest
we find is GAR, t) creak or cry, but we fail to find that it is
connected with the English word by any vestige of historical
filiation. We do find, on the other hand, a root KARlv,
whose affinity in sound is in itself enougli to prove its want of
affinity in history and family descent : and what it seems to
show is this — that our Aryan ancestors were as much alive to
the descriptive meiits of a syllable like tliat as we are, and
employed it accordingly.
And whenever we try to trace back to Aryan sources a
word whose meaning is almost entirely phonetic, the result in
nineteen cases out of twenty is utter failure. It is not hard
to conjecture how thi^ may l)e, and the exceptions themselves
will be fouiul to add force to our conjectures.
Let us attempt to follow in imagination the fortunes of the
Aryan root KARK or KRAK, and to see if we encounter
anything which would militate agaiast its long stability. Let
us suppose that it made its way in due coarse into the Low
German languages. Bat in doing so it must pass inevitably
through a certain phonetic transformation. It is transmuted
into the form HRAH or, perhaps, HLAH : and it is possible
that we see it still in the Gothic hlahjan, which is the old
English hlehhan and the modern English laugh. But it is
"a far cry" from crack to laugh. Why this great change of
meaning'? Well, it cannot be denied that the word hul quite
lost its first descriptiveness by being transformed into HLAH or
HRAH : and to make matters worse, the far more descriptive
forms KRAK and KLAK seem to arise by a kind of new Ijirth
in the Teutonic languages themselves. The old word is attacked
and beaten on its own ground, and it only just manages to
survive in one collateral meaning, which it luckily happens to
express with greater phonetic propriety in its alt-red than in
its original form.
Another similar survival is the verl) to wheeze, O.E. hwcesaii.
This is said to be descended from the Aryan root KWAS, to
Ill
sigh, sob, or pant. Whether the sense of wheezhig was
strictly within the original meaning does n^t ap})ear, but it is
quite clear that when Teutonic tongues twisted it into HWAS,
it became more descriptive of that meaning than it had ever
been before; and it continues to live exactly in the degree
and way in which it continued to be imitative.
Facts, therefore, seem to point to the conclusions which
we might have suspected beforehand, that in describing sounds,
men always in the long run prefer those words which imitate
them most closely, and that in this province at any rate, tliere is
an innate attraction which either draws form towards meaning
or meaning towards form, so that here, at least, the empirical
law of Grimm, and even the great law of definite and frequent
association upon which it is based, are systematically eluded
or defeated.
The same conclusions are illustrated in another way when
we find that words with the same phonetic meaning are often
found to have a much closer resemblance in different languages,
than Grimm's law would warrant. When we place the English
dink and dcmk alongside of the Latin dongor and the Greek
KXa^jT] ; or the English boom or endwo alongside of the Greek
l36fM/3o<; or kokkv^: or the M. E, tinken, with its modern
offshoots tinker and tinkle, alongside of the Latin tinnitus and
tintinnabulum, we illustrate strongly the failure of Grimm's law
to maintain its hold over words whose meaning is mainly
phonetic.
But it is only in words that are very markedly phonetic
that these conclusions hold good in their fullest extent. It
might be thought, for example, that the names given to the
cries of animals would always be closely imitative, and that
if names whicli were not imitative did, in fact, arise, they
would be liable to be very soon supplanted by more expres-
sive forms. And we do, in fact, find that this ha]>pens in
most cases: the words caw, coo, cluck, mew, purr, tell their
own story, and even the less happy imitation, hleat, finds a
very close parallel in the Greek ^XriXV- ^^^^ ^^'^ ^^^"^® ^^^^'
112
content in English during tlie whole historical period to
express the noises of tlie ox and dog by the words helloio
and harli, which are by no means closely imitative, if they
are so at all. It is not because they are hard to imitate;
the Latin mugire, and the Greek /jiVKdo/biai are palpable imita-
tions of tlie noises of cattle, and parallel forms are heard
even in our own nurseries, but they fail to unseat the
established Avord.
Wliy is this so? It is simply that when we take a
word to mean the cry of a certain animal its meaning is no
longer purely phonetic: it is no longer a word like hum,
boom or huzz, meaning only a certain sound Avhenever and
wherever it is met with : it is confined to such a sound
issuing from a certain source. This shows how slight a thing
is sometimes sufficient to bring even words of strongly phonetic
meaning under the regular laws of language.
Yet even bark and bellow may not be in the last resort
entirely unimitative. They are said to be traceable to the
Aryan roots BHEAG and BHAL, and in that case they are
not originally the names of specific cries at all, but general
names for certain kinds of sound. It is conceivable that the
one arose imitatively from such noises as those of the tearing
of leather, or coarse textile materials, and the other from those
of resounding vessels, and the like. This, of course, is mere
hypothesis, but the very powerful sway of imitation in the
phonetic province justifies us in seeking an imitative origin for
every phonetic word.
Let us now pass on to consider, briefly, the other sphere
in which the voice is capable, though in a minor degree, of
direct imitation — the region of force and motion.
It would l)e vain, however, to imagine that there is
always a clear line of demarcation between this region and the
former one. Sucli words, for example, as the modernly inven-
ted 2^'^ff ^^'^ bang have from the first a mixed imitativeness,
partly of sound and partly of force and motion; and tlie case
is further complicated by the ease with wliich even a purely
11.3
phonetic root takes on kinetic meanings by secondary associa-
tion. This will be well illustrated when we come to discuss
the modern Avord hoom and its cognates.
It seems also pretty clear that modern English words are
less capable of imitating nature on the kinetic side than those
of the primitive Aryans. Those forcible utterances represented
by us as KH, DH, and BH, are only very feebly represen-
ted by the modern h, or tli, or v. One needs only to
pronounce after the Sanskrit fashion the Aryan roots BHEAG
and BHAL, already alluded to, or the still more forcible
BHLA, to blow, and BHRAM, to hum or vil)rate, in order to
realize the weakness of our own vocal resources as compared
with the energetic forms of former times.
It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Avords of
kinetic meaning do not possess that mobility which phonetic
ones exhibit, l»ut may generally be traced back to distant
Aryan or Teutonic roots ; and also that the appearance of
new roots developed by purely kinetic inritation is com-
paratively rare. Yet modern English Avords are ni>t quite
removed from kinetic influences or devoid of kinetic expression,
as may be seen in several Avays.
The trilled r is one of the most forcible utterances which
survive in English : and the exaggerated use of it Avhich is
artfully made by the tragedian is the commonplace of satire.
It is not unlikely that the historical groAvth of force in
Avords like arranf and arrogant is due to their possessing this
letter in a position wliere it must be forcibly trilled, i.e., in
a short accented syllable, Avitli a vowel following. This is
seen still more cleatly in Hio wurd alai-inn, wlien^ such a
voAvel is actually thrust iutn iJn' word to facilitate a f.^rcible
pronuneiatiun coiiespuiuling to its meaning.
It Avould be prssiblc to extend this line of observation to
more delicate shadec of expression. The sound of the rolling
r might easily be imagined to have some affinitj' Avitli that of
round bodies trundling and bounding along a flat surface, and
might be fancied to account for, not the origin, but the
114
preferential use of the word barrel to represent a rolliiig
package, herrij a round fruit, and for harrow generally meaning
a trundling vehicle. It might also be imagined that the
vibratory nature of the trilled r has something to do with
its general force as a termination, in giving to verbs a
frequentative meaning. We hear no longer any trill in such
words as Jiiclcer and Jiatier, but in the older fikeren and
floteren it was evident enough.
So also if we take any very large family of synonyms,
such as those which signify various kinds of tearing or breaking
— break, bur.-<f, bruise, crack, cruxh, fracture, infringe, rip, tear,
snap, tfiaat'li, rui^ture, &c., we shall often find little or nothing in
their etymology or history to account for their differentiation
of meaning, and the temptation will be strong to imagine an
influence in tlie sounds themselves which has led to their
preferential application to express given shades of meaning.
No douljt our guesses might sometimes be right, but in
the science of language, and especially in the obscurer parts
of it, the conclusions of theory need continually to be checked
by comparison with fact. No method which leaves this out
of account is worth trusting for a moment, for nowhere has
unchecked imagination led to more serious error.
We are here, therefore, in a region where our confirmatory
examples must be either exceedingly numerous or exceedingly
apt and convincing. Wlien we see, for example, two parallel
imitative forms like the words bob and jwp, bang and pang,
arising and growing side 1)y side during the historical period,
a careful comparison of these alone might tell us something
about the natural difference in kinetic and phonetic expression
between voiced and unvoiced consoiuiuts. In like manner the
drifting apart under the eye of history, of words once abso-
lutely identical, such as astonish and astound, vindicate and
avenge, might lead us to assign some part of their divergence
to the specific influence of the sounds in Avhich they dilfer.
English affords in one case a particularly large class of such
instances, in the great number of competing synonyms created
115
by the preference of tlie Soiith for tlie sound of ch where the
North preferred to keep l: W\\y does belch expel the older
helkl Why do the solid bank and the wooden henrJi agree to
partition their coiunion meaning between them in that par-
ticular way ? Why does dike generally moan a solid inound
while ditch generally means the wet trench out of which it
was du^l These instances are of the valuable kind which
alone are of any importance by themselves or in small
numbers: but )io doubt there are other cases Avhere a large
number of less decisive instances might lead to conclusions
of a reliable kind.
There is reason to think that in one way or other
systematic investigation might throw further light upon the
facts of natural expressiveness, especially upon those of a
kinetic nature, as well as on the obscurer of the i)lionetic ones.
When one sees the old kinetic root GAEBH, to seize, sud-
denly reviving in the English grab, with numerous less perfect
copies like grip, gripe, grope, grapple, grasp, none of which can
be traced beyond English or its kindred Germanic languages, one
feels that in spite of its obsc;irity, the study of kinetic
imitation might, if pursued scientifically, yield noteworthy results.
In like manner when one finds the old English word can,
a moderate-sized vessel of stone, wood, earthenware, or metal,
and the imported word canister, a basket made of cane,
both coming in modern times to mean a clattering structure
made of tin, one suspects that there may be some lurking
phonetic power in the old Aryan root KAX, to resound, as
seen in the Latin can-ere, to sound, to sing, and the Greek
Kava-)(i^^ clangour : although it is qviite unknown to earlier
English as an imitative root.
But the facts which of all others seem suited to throw a
flood of light upon the growth of roots in general, and of
imitative roots in particular, are those concerning the growth of
new words in modern languages in historical times, as revealed
by recent researches : and in no language are these materials
now becoming more plentiful than in our own. When Ave
116
look caivfully at tlie long list of words whicli Dr. IMurray has
concluded to he mostly of imitative origin, -we are struck at
once by the fact that they are in great part not isolated words,
hut have come up in groups, owning a fairly strong resemhlauce
to each other hoth in original meaning, and in their typical
sj'llahle or syllahles. It would he premature to discuss these
groups here, because they are intimately connected with the
suhject of secondary association, which we have yet to consider.
But there is one word of great importance which is not
in V( lived in man}^ such collateral relationships, and an account
of it will form a fitting conclusion to the treatment of primary
or direct representation hoth in its phonetic and kinetic aspect.
The wiii'd hand seems from Murray's Dictionary to he
quite a recent one in literary English. Its first known
appearance is in the middle of the sixteenth century; and
its meaning is that of violent striking : the phonetic meaning
is quite subordinate, but comes out more as time goes on. As
its use is largely Northern, and the same word with the same
meaning exists in Swedish, it is very possible that it came
from Scandinavia in earlier times ami led an obscure existence
in Northern dialects for some time before it appeared in
literature.
Further than this -we cannot go. Its resemblance to
the Knglish }>"U(j and the Latin pnnijo lielps us nothing.
Tlic former seems to Ite onlv another recent English word
like h(W(i itself; its idcntitication by Professor Skeat with the
earlier ;)ra?/f/ or pr()))<j dues not carry conviction: and the
Latin form ]uii)ij() is precisely that which (Irinim forbids us
identify with eitlier ]iiu}ij ur hnmj in iMiglish. Its real
gnate, fmnj, stands ready to refute the relationship. (_)ther
Aryan connections are wanting, and when Ave refer to the
Aryan roots BHAGr and BHAK, Avhich are its correct proto-
types in sound, we find them to Ite associated with totally
irrelevant meanings.
Two theories, therefore, and only two, are open to us
respecting the (mtrance of the word hanij into English.
lo
CO
117
Either it is of native English growth, or it crept obscurely
into English dialects, and thence into literature : in either
case it made its way hy its innate })honetic and kinetic force,
and not because there was any lack of older words to express
its menning.
The second of these alternative thcoiies leads us to
remark that the operation of direct association is very far
from beintr confined to the invention of imitative words or
roots. It is conceivable that hawj is not originally English,
but it is inconceivable that it was not recommended by its
phonetic merits to popular use. We may often be quite able
to trace a word to a foreign source, and yet, at the same
time, be compelled to admit that it was its imitative power
which recommended it for adoption.
This is pre-eminently the case with words which have
entered the language through the popular, as distinguished
from the literary, vocabulary. Hence, it applies with vastly
greater force to words coming obscurely from the Keltic,
Scandinavian, and Low German languages, than to those which
are adopted, for the sake of the meaning, from the Romanic
tonsues or other literary sources.
One precaution is here worth observing. It is to con-
sider always what was the probable pronunciation of the word
at the date of its introduction. Many words will thus be
found to regain an inlitati^•eness which is lost in the modern
sound of the word. The word slough, for example, as now
pronounced, is not particularly expressive, but i)ronounced as
in older English from Chaucer backwards, nothing could
recall more naturally the noise of footsteps in clayey mire ;
and whether invented by the Anglo-Saxons or adopted by
them, as Professor Skeat supposes, from the Keltic, its
expressive sound must have mainly procured its admission into
English.
Let us now take up the subjwit of secondary or indirect
association, and begin, as arranged, with that branch of it
■\vhose importance is here strongly maintained and which
118
contemplates the extension of the primary association Ijetween
a certain vocal sign and certain cognizable meaning on the
side of the vocal sign, through the links which bind it to all
similar sounds, and especially to all similar words to which
the organism is already accustomed.
One instance of the effects of this kind of association
has been already given, incidentally, and for another purpose,
in tlie case of the words ahide and aluje. In every case of
this kind there are really three links in the association, the
link between meaning and word on the one side, between
word and word in tlie middle, and between word and meaning
on the other side. The extreme and practically unbreakable
strength of the two external links will not be denied : it is
the middle or phonetic link which demands our closer atten-
tion. Reasons have been given for thinking that that link is
continually and unfailingly, though often unperceivably, offering
or attempting to join the other two. It is too weak to effect
that object l)y its own force, and still less can it do so if there
is any repugnance or even a complete indifference on the part
of the words to be connected. Let, however, but the smallest
approachment take place between the meanings, and the con-
nection is instantly effected ; the wonls have thenceforward a
power of mutual suggestion, which tends to grow continually
stronger, and to lead to still further approachments unless
defeated bj^ other attractive forces of the same kind.
For it is usual for a word to have not simply one but
many connections of this kind, some drawing it one way
and some another ; and it is by the resultant of these forces
that the present drift of its meaning is largely determined.
Sometimes, as in the case already cited, the influence of one
strong and closely neighbouring word is so powerful as to
overbear all others : at other times, and indeed generally,
there are many competing influences tending to draw it in
various directions. The result of all these tendencies seems
to be best described by a physical metaphor.
Let each class of similar words be conceived as a group
119
of bodies having weight or mass, where weight or mass
represent the importance or force of the word, as measured
by its frequency of use and precision of meaning : let the
distance at which these bodies are placed from one another
represent the nearness or remoteness of their existing forms
and significations : tlien the mutual and combined attractions
of these bodies, as deduced from the law of gravitation,
would be a fitting physical image of the phonetic attractions
which are continually moulding the historical development
of our language, and especially of our weaker words. The
latter forces are as silent, as unremitting, and apparently as
inevitable as the former, and the law under which all physical
bodies attract each other, more according to their mass and
less according to their distance, affords an excellent image
of the way in which attraction is modified by the strength
of the attracting word or words, and by the nearness or
remoteness of their forms and significations.
This is, perhaps, better illustrated by considering the
case of a word now first presenting itself for admission into
the language, tlian l)y that of one whose relationships are
already establislied, we cannot very well tell hoAv. We are
speaking, be it remembered, of [lopular words without any
known literary antecedents, wliich alone are of any value to
us in studying the pro-literary course of language.
It is evident that such a word would often, in one
important particular, resemble tliose which we have already
noticed as drawing their significance from their resemblance,
more or less exact, to the noises of nature. They would have
a similarity, more or less striking, to many known and familiar
woids. Those resemblances may be often even more striking
than those which occur in nature, because it is always possible
for one articulate sound to approach much more closely to
another than to any inarticulate or semi-articulate sound of
the external world. If the meanings of the words thus called
up are such as to chiine in strongly with that of the new
candidate for acceptance, they give to it a warmth and colour,
D
120
and an appearance of familiarity and appropriateness which
tell powerfully in favour of its acceptance and perpetuation :
and vice versa. The more numerous and powerful is the group
of words thus enlisted, the more will the entrance of the new
comer ])e facilitated.
Nor will tliis influence be found to end there. It can
still he traced after the full entrance of the word into the
language. Shades of meaning, which are supported by
numerous and powerful phonetic associations will be found
to live, and other meanings to decay. Sometimes, even the
whole meaning of the word will be drawn bodily aside by
some powerful attraction. At other times the effect of this
attraction will be noted as eminently conservative, enabling a
group of minor wortls, by their mutual support, to preserve,
in a body, a stability of meaning and a continuity of
history which they Avould have been powerless to maintain
alone.
These remarks have a pretty obvious bearing upon the
theory of Aryan roots, jjut it is perhaps better to reserve any
direct comments on that subject, until the propositions just
laid down have received very ample illustration.
The negative evidence in support of them will ho. found
to be (piite as striking as the positive, and it is therefore
proposed to give illustrations of Dissociation, as well as of
Attraction. It will be shown how alterations, purely phonetic,
such as a change of pronunciation, or even of accent, seem to
loosen a word from its traditional moorings and set it drifting
till it finds another anchorage : how the obsolescence of its
resembling words has a precisely similar effect ; how the
same word, in different phonetic surroundings, is drawn
towards different types of meaning ; how different words of
one identical meaning are slowly differentiated by their
associations of sound ; and how the parallel existence of a
strongly resembling or identical root may gradually fill with
its associations words totally unconnected with it until all
thought of their real or origmal root is utterly submerged.
121
Beginning then with some instances in which the entrance
of a new word into English has been facilitated or perhaps
procured by phonetic associations, let us first instance the
word booty, plunder. Its first appearance is in Caxton, at
which time the very similar word hoot, profit, now only seen
in the idiomatic phrase to hoot, was still one of the best
understood and most active words in the language. Thus
one word makes way for another until at last a whole family
is formed. The word frisk, for example, seems to enter
English first as an adjective, meaning lively or blithe. Its
adoption is countenanced by the old English word fresh, whose
original meaning was much the same. Their joint presence
opens the way for hrlsk, which emerges from some obscure
source in the latter half of the sixteenth century ; and that
again may have aided the adoption of the French brusque
shortly afterwards. The origin of the term boulder stone is
exceedingly obscure, but it implies from the first the attribute
of smooth roundedness which would derive phonetic colour
from the older words howl, hall and the numerous tribe to
which they belong. The word blot is without any discover-
able counterpart outside our own language. It is first found
in 1325, and Dr. Murray suggests that it " may really be
connected with ^j/o^," or may unite " a notion of spot with
some words in bl — ." The words intended are no doubt
black, blue, and their cognates. These would give picturesque
force to the first part of the word. As to the second part it
is interesting to note that both jilot and sjwt are used in
Middle English in the sense of Mot. They are both to be
found within four lines of each other in Piers Plowman,
B text, XIII, 315-8.
Nothiiig could illustrate better than this last example
the heterogeneous nature of the associations which are some-
times fastened upon a word by its sound. We have here
a word whose very birth, or at the least its entrance into
English, was brought about by its phonetic resemblance to
two or three quite sporadic words. The n(!w word, by what
122
may be callcJ secondaiy imitation, seemed happily to call up
by its mere sound the joint associations of form and colour
which go to make up its meaning : and its picturesque
effectiveness secured it at once a lasting place in English
speech.
Nor was this the limit of its vitahty. Three centuries
later the then thoroughly English word Uot united its asso-
ciations with those of the equally common word botch, a
boil or pustule, and peihaps with some more, to sanction,
or it may be to engender and produce, the new word blotch,
a boil or eruptive patch on the skin. Here again the forma-
tive elements of the meaning arc drawn from quite diverse
sources by the mere force of sound.
Yet another instance is to be seen in the Avord blurt,
which makes its first appearance in English at the beginning
of the seventeenth century. It comes like the rest without
any literary credentials, but it finds strong phonetic allies on
the one hand in the great family of words which are ranged
under the Ayran root BHLA, to blow, and on the other
hand in the words spirt, spurt, squirt, and more remotely,
perhaps, snort and _tf(rt, and the obsolete jert, all signifying
some kind of violent emission or projection.
Nor need we resort altogether to remote centuries and
to vulgar speech to trace out, in some degree, the operation
of the principle here contended for. "When Cowper (Iliad
XV. 1. 485), speaks of " assuasive drugs/' none but a very
keenly critical reader feels the least doubt about his meaning.
He clearly means drugs that assuage the evils of sickness.
No one but an etymologist is in the least danger of mis-
understanding him. For the meaning is not etymological,
but imitative. Originally drawn from the Lritin ad and
suadno, this word has happened, by its sound, to suggest
another word so forcibly as to bear down etymology, and
give it, even in the usage of those who must have well
known its proper derivation, a meaning considerably removed
therefrom.
123
"VVe may readily conclude, from the last example, that
if such things can happen in polite literature and in words
of classical origin, they must happen much more frequently
in the usage of the people, and in words which are without
a literary history. The instances blot and hlurt also are
of very great signiiicance. For they both seem to spring
from sporadic aud remarkably disconnected sources, and
if phonetic forces when divergent in direction can effect so
much, it follows a fortiori that the influence of a family of
words, whose attractions of form and meaning all pull one
Avay mvist be powerful indeed.
We are led thus to suspect the possible agency of phonetic
attraction in quarters where it has not previously been thought
of. It is seen to l)e quite possible that many words which
we rank as derived from certain roots may really not have
grown directly out of them at all, but may have come into
existence independently. Their apparent connection is due to
some accidental resemblance of meaning which enlisted some
powerful family of words on their side, and thus procured first
of all their currency in the language, and then their still closer
assimilation to the family type.
If this suspicion be well founded we ought to see some
traces of such a process within the compass of the historical
period. We ought to be able to lay our finger somewhere
upon a word of indisputably alien origin bearing indisputable
traces of attraction towards some powerful word or group.
Xor need we look long in vain.
The verb to broach comes now so near in form and
meaning to some offshoots of the old Aryan root BHEAG,
such as breach, broke, broken, that if our language had been
without a history, etymologists would have unhesitatingly made
it a member of that family. As it is, we know that its
origin is totaly different. Its real cognate in English is
brooch, an ornamental pin, and both go back to the French
hroche, a brooch, a spit or a spike. To broach a wine-cask
was properly therefore to thrust a spike into it in order to
124
arrive at its contents. But that is certainly not the metaphor
wliicli we intend when we speak of broaching a subject.
It" it was, there woukl still be good sense in talking, as
our ancestors did, about broacliing a joint when we prepare
it for roasting, or broaching a horse when we apply the
spur. The truth is that the original force of the word
broach has been so overshadowed and obliterated by its
})lionetic associations with a powerful alien group of words
that it has been utterly unable to survive except in those
senses which admitted of being referred to this new root.
To spur a horse, to spit a piece of meat, can only by a
very forced metaphor be described as breaking into them :
l)ut to broach a hogshead of claret or to broach a subject
of discussion are expressions which ally themselves readily
Avith the verb to bni'ik and its cognates : and it is in these
meanings only that the word survives.
We here again arrive at conclusions having a manifest
bearing on the theory of Aryan roots, Init it will be better to
abstain from following up that line of enquiry mitil we have
examined the phenomenon of phonetic attraction from every
point of view, and arrived at some approximate idea of its real
potency.
It will be best to begin Avith the simi)lest possible cases,
which are, of course, those in which two words only are prin-
cipally concerned. In this class of cases there are again two
pretty well marked kinds, the one consisting of those wherein
the two attracting and attracted words are of no very different
weight, and the other of those wherein there is a great
ditference.
We have had already one instance of the latter class in
the verbs abye and abide : of which the upshot was that the
weaker was virtually swallowed up by the stronger. And
other instances are not hard to find, accompanied by not very
dissimilar results. Few persons when they speak of the
burden of a song, of a complaint, or of a story, imagine that
they are using a word which was formerly quite distinct
125
from the old English word burden, and which by the mere
chance of phonetic resemblance has been completely swallowed
up by it. It is really the French word bourdon, humming,
once applied to a kind of subdued droning accompaniment
of minor voices to the principal voice, and recently reimported
by us us the name of an organ stop. The two words are
perfectly distinct in Chaucer and even Spenser, but from
that point the less is lost in the greater, and it now lives
only in what we imagine to be a minor sense of the more
powerful word.
In another instance the weaker word still survives, but
only in a sense dictated by the stronger, of which it now
seems to be merely a derivative. It is the word carousal.
Its original English sense is that which it bears in the name
of the Parisian Place du Carrousel, namely, a kind of tourna-
ment or tilting festival. But there was already in English the
closely resembling and frequently used verb to carouse, and
hence in a little more than a century the other word also began
to be associated with that meaning of drunken merrymaking,
which is now the only one which it conveys to the popular
mind.
But this utter absorption cannot take place when both
words have a vigorous life uf their own. The effect in that
case exhibits a contrast which has again its metaphorical
parallel in the physical world. If the examples just cited are
like those of meteorites falling into and being lost in a
planetary mass, the examples which follow will be found
rather to recall the behaviour of double stars, chained indeed
to a certain limited space by their mutual attraction, but saved
from coalescence by their busy revolution round an ideal centre.
The two Avords hoiU and about would seem to the unin-
structed eye to be as closely and obviously connected as the
words round and around. But that is very far from being the
case : they originate horn widely different sources, and owe
their present intimacy altogether to phonetic attraction. The
word bout really goes back to the old Aryan root BIIUGH, to
126
bend, and its true English cognates are the word hoio in its
various senses and their numerous offspring. It properly means
a bend or curve, but the influence of the very strong word
about brings it during the Middle English period to mean a
whole circumference, or complete revolution, and hence to signify
periodical recurrences of various kinds. The word about, it is
perhaps scarcely necessary to say, has no connection Avith the
root BHUGU, but was evidently compounded, before the historical
period began, from d-be-dtan, on-by-out, tliat is to say, around
or near.
The two words beli"of and behalf now approximate very
closely in meaning as well as in form, but this is not due
to any resemblance of origin but probably to phonetic attraction.
The use of behalf is originally adverbial or prepositional, with
a genitive case in immediate proximity : be healfe meant in old
English by the half or on the side (of somebody). The modern
phrase on mij behalf means etymologically therefore simply
on my imrt. But the meaning of behoof is much less colour-
less than this, as may be seen in its still living cognate,
to behove : the earliest examples show the same !^trong
meanmg of duty or necessity. When the Northumbrian
gospels Avish to express that men ought always to pray and
not to faint, they say that it is lehoflic, behoof-like. What
then has since happened? It would seem that a compromise
has been effected, the stronger meaning grt)wing weaker and
tiie weaker stronger until something like an equilibrium is
established. The phrase "on my behalf" no longer means
simply "on my part," but "in my interest," and in the
nearly equivalent phrase "for my behoof" the sense of duty
is softened down to that of advantage.
Even in cases where the jneanings are alrpady closely
allied phonetic resemblance has its effect in lending mutual
support and stability to the members of the group. The
word afraid has doubtless received greater expressiveness and
wider use from the pronunciation afeurd, which connected it
with fear : and afraid in its turn seems to have helped to
127
perpetuate the verb to off right, especially as a past participle.
Yet none of these words have the least relationship beyond
their sound.
In other cases the mutual attraction and support is at
present confined to certain senses only. When we speak of
a man overtaxiny his powers the metaphor, though frequent,
is not a very happy one: but it probably derives its felt
expressiveness from the feelings obscurely evoked by its
resemblance to overtasking. And when we say that a man is
of a brooding disposition, may not our mental picture of the
internal ferment be unconsciously coloured by the phonetic
coincidence with the verb to bretv?
The principles here laid down have a manifest applica-
tion to the case of homonyms i.e., words of identical sound
but of different meaning. It happens, as a rule, that a pair
of homonyms are widely different in signification: fur if they
approach very closely they either absorb one another, or they
are found inconvenient and one of then) is rejected. But
wherever association is possible the one meaning does not fail
to give colour to the other. We may know quite well that
the two meanings of the English broil go back to two quite
distinct French verbs briVer and brouiller, but when we read
of civil broils, the heat and sputter of the other meaning
enter in spite of ourselves into our mental imagery. We may
be struck with wonder that the word shoal can represent two
things so difterent as an assembly of fishes and a mass of
sand, but we connect them mentally by assigning to the
word shoal some meaning like that of mass or quantity, and
thus quietly help to obliterate the fact that a shoal of fishes
is the Old English scohi, a school, whilst a sandbank is
a place where the water is shoal or shallow. Thus do
homonyms, wlien once any imaginable community of sense is
set up, draw each other irresistil)ly together and at last entirely
coalesce. Few people imagine when they speak of oicning a
mistake, of having a sidmming in the head, of bidding some
one goodbye, of the art and mystenj of some handicraft, of a
128
miserly old screw, or of a ship's timbers being shivered, that
they are really using dead homonyms, which have been drawn
and incorporated into the body of meaning possessed by
another word by the force of i)honetic attraction.
Quitting now these simplest cases of attraction, let us
advance to those next in order of complexity, that is to say,
those in which a word is subjected to the attraction of more
than one resembling word. Such instances fall at once into
two separate classes of widely diflerent importance. The
larger and more important class is that wherein the attracting
words have a resemblance not only to the attracted word but
also to each other; but there is a smaller and less frequent
class wherein the attracting words bear little or no resemblance
to each other : and it is perhaps best to view these first
because they exclude, ex hypothesi, the operation of the bug-
bear called by philologists " popular etymology/' which seems
often in reality to be only the final stage of phonetic
attraction.
Two apt examples of the kind in question have already
been cited in another place, — the words hlart and hlot : and
the list might easily be extended. Let one very good one
here suffice. The history of the word tweezers as disclosed
by Prof. Skeat is very remarkable, and hardly explicable
except by the force of phonetic attraction. It is really the
French ehd, a case, such as is used for holding needles,
scissors or mathematical or surgical instruments. It appears
as an English word in Cotgrave — " a chirurgian's case or
ettuy." But the initial syllable si/on fell off, as it did in
the case of ticJcet and some other French words. It figures
in fact in Sherwood's index to Cotgrave as " a surgeon's tweese
or biix of instruments." Such cases being generally made in
two halves, connected like the backs of a book and folding
face to face, we are not surprised later on to find Eobt. Boyle
writing "^ I drew a little penknife out of a jair of tweezes I
then chanced to have about me." We furthermore read in
the Tutler, Mar. 7, 1709-10, on the subject of toilet requisites.
129
"Then his tweezer-cases are inconiparal)le ; you shall have one
not much bigger than your finger, with seventeen several
instruments in it, all necessary every hour of the day." That
iweezcr-case here meant a case for tweezers admits of no man-
ner of doubt ; and it is impossible not to concede Prof.
Skeat's inference that a tweezer was properly an instrument
contained in a tweesc. So far, so good : but the explanation
fails to show why the word was applied to this kind of
instrument only, and not to any other of the multifarious
contents of the tweeze. The above quotation does not justify
us in inferring that all the instruments in the case were ever
called tweezers. Had it been called a lancet-case we should
not liave inferred that they were all lancets, but only that
some of the more important instruments bore that name.
And the strict limitation of the term tweezers is well shewn
by the contemporary evidence of Phillips (New World of
"Words, 1706) who gives the word tweezers with this one
meaning, — "nippers or pincers, to pull hair iip by the roots."
Now why did the name settle at once upon this particular
instrument and not upon the others 1 It seems to be a clear
case of phonetic attraction. The new word called up a sound-
picture of the instrument scizhuj and squeezing its object and
twirling, twisting, tweaking or twitching it forth. "Whether the
sound is naturallj' as well as secondarily imitative we will
not discuss ; but the A.S. cwisan, io-ctvisan, to crush, to
squeeze, are worth comparing.
But it is not in cases like this that phonetic attraction
usually displays its power. The cases where diverse attractions
thus happily co-operate are naturally rare : and when several
words exert a sensible attraction upon another it is usually
because the attracting words are all of the same phonetic type,
so that their attractions all pull one way.
In tliis, as in tlie previously noticed classes, plionetic
attraction may be studied in every stage of intensit}^, from that
of remote suggestion and hardly conscious colouring up to the
most complete assimilation. Few people imagine Avhcn they
130
use tlie word bondage that they are employing a word which
had originally no connection with binding or with bonds. Take
away those associations and there is nothing, absolutely nothing,
left behind : tlie word is quite emptied of its meaning. Its form
too is so regular that, if bondage had been without a history,
we should have thought it absurd to trace it to any other source
than to the family which clusters round the English verb to
hind, and the Aryan root BHADH or BHANDH. It is now,
indeed, to the popular ear at least, a fully adopted and admitted
member of that family, but its real parentage is utterly different.
Bondage is really, in mediaeval use, whether English,
French, or Latin, a kind of tenure in villenage, that is to say,
not on condition of military service, but of cultivation and
the sharing of produce : it derives its meaning from A.S.
bondu, a cultivator, which is modelled in turn upon the present
particijDle of the old ]S^orthern word hda to occupy, i.e., to
inhabit (a dwelling) and to till (the land attached to it).
Faint traces still remain to us of both senses in boor, a culti-
vator, and hus-band the occupier of a dwelling, as well as in
hus-band-man.
When villenage died out the nature of bondage became
obscure, the wide distinction between it and slavery was lost
sight of, and its meaning was at length fully governed by the
phonetic suggestions of bind, bond, bound, and their allies.
A milder instance of the same kind of attraction is seen
in the word belfry, which originally had nothing at all to do
with bells or even with church towers, but Avas the name of
a besieging engine of tower-like shape. So bloat seems
originally to mean to soak or soften, but its resemblance to
the verb to blow and its subordinates brings it to the quite
different meaning of puffing out, or of causing to swell by
puffing out.
There is a danger in adducing instances of less marked
degrees of attraction lest they should be thought fanciful, but
it can hardly be wrong to point out that the mental picture
raised in English by such a word as barricade is quite
131
uninfluenced by the French harrique, or the Italian harrica,
whilst the English har and its relatives are strongly appealed
to. It is probable that to the English mind a barricade is
an obstruction of a very inilofinite kind, whilst to the French
or Italian it Avould hardly be po-^silde to mentally construct it
without the specific presence of empty barrels or boxes.
So also when we find the meaning of brink slowly verging
from that of slope or decUvUy to that of ahrapt edge, we suspect
an occult attraction which is, perhaps, that of the family of
words of which break is the type. The nasal would be no
impediment to the ear in forming such an association ; there
is a clear connection between click and clink, clack and clank,
tick and tinkle.
This tendency in words to gravitate towards strong groups
of pre-existing words is sometimes so strong as to draw not
only isolated strangers, but even sometimes to detach tlie
members of other groups from their more rightful but weaker
connections. The word bondage has already furnished us with
one instance of this kind, but it is possible to find instances
which are yet more impressive, because all the words concerned
are still alive before our eyes.
The verb to demean is not without living cognates. The
noun demeanour is enough to show exactly what it ought to
mean : to demean oneself is to conduct or behave oneself in
some particular way, — whether well or ill or indifferently can
only be determined from the context. It has obviously nothing
to do with the powerful adjective mean and its derivatives.
Yet the attraction of that group has been so strong as utterly
to corrupt the meaning of the word. To demean is now to
disgrace oneself, to do something derogatory, to stoop to some
menial or even dishonourable function. This change is usually
set down to " popular etymology," but that theory will hardly
suffice wlien we find the new meaning countenanced by compar-
atively careful and instructed writers like Kingsley {Saint's
Tragedy III. 4, 176). Philologists do not seem to reflect, when
talking about the dire effects of popular etymology, that Demos
132
is not an etymologist at all. It is true that he effectually
dictates the meanings of popular words and makes them into
current coin whether they liear the hall-mark of the etymo-
logist or not. But he does not do this according to the
promptings of a perverted or any other etymologj''. He is
really guided by the felt imprcssiveness, the picturesque power
of wordS; in short by their capability to call up a lively
image of their meaning in virtue of their phonetic and
other connections. It is not till the whole thing is done
that any thought of etymology arises, and tben it arises only
on the part of the etymologists themselves. Judicious writers
and speakers accept the situation without attempting to fasten
on Demos a process of derivation which never entered into
his head.
The word tidy again has been quite as completely drawn
away from its real cognate tide, as demean from demeanour.
The A.S. word tid is exactly preserved to us in Whitsun-
tide, eventide, &c., — the time or season of Pentecost, of
evening, &c. Hence tidy is really synonymous with timely : its
primary meaning is seasonable, appropriate. Its steady drift
towards the meaning of physical neatness is hard to account
for, except on the ground of some steady external attraction.
That is perhaps found in the associations of the powerful
words tic, tiyht, and their comrades, which in nautical use
have strong suggestions of external neatness ; and there is
an appropriateness in these suggestions which seems to make
them natural in a more extended sense.
Sometimes a word is drawn aside even by the associations
of a minor unaccented syllable, particularly if it be the terminal
one. When a terminal syllable hajipens to resemble one of
those which the language has appropriated to the office of
suffixes it brings the word into a certain phonetic similarity to
a very large number of words bearing that suffix, and the
result is sometimes a very surprising modification of its meaning.
The word burial, for example, exists in the oldest English
in the form Uriels, a hurying-j^lace : but the s was mistaken
133
for a sign of the plural, the el was identified with the Romanic
suffix al, as seen in v-ithdraic-al , hetray-al, &c., and thus burial
has entirely ceased to mean a burying place, and has come to
mean the act or ceremony of burying.
So also bridal, which is properly bride-ale, a wedding feast,
has come to mean the act or ceremony of marrying.
A less palpable instance is seen in bicker, a word which in
early use is applied to stern and violent contests, but which
seems to owe its gradual weakening of meaning to the
termination -er, so often associated in verbs with a petty and
frequentative signification.
There is another class of instances wheie a converse process
seems to have gone on, the termination having been somewhat
modified to give better expression to the meaning : it is the
class of augmentative words whose French termination is -on,
and Italian -on". If these words succeed in maintaining the
accent on the last syllable their English termination is -oo7i,
as in balloon, bassoon, doubloon, but if not, it is -on, as in baton,
button, battalion. Comparing the two sets of instances one
hardly feels it unlikely that the meaning had something to do
with the fortunes of the termination; the words which had
to express a big or imposing meaning perpetuated the imposing
termination. It is significant that baton, so long as it meant a
good stout cudgel, preserved the form batoon, but when it
came to mean a little wand, it subsided into the unobtrusive
baton.
Besides all these classes of instances there are others
wherein the force of phonetic attraction is not strong enougli
to enable one word to draw another directly towards itself,
but is yet able to give either a marked deflection or a palp-
able addition to its meaning. 'L'lie word blazonry has nothing
whatever to do with blaze, but it conveys an irresistible impres-
sion of brilliancy : the word bower has no connection with
bough, but we always figure it mentally among the trees :
we may know very well that a bandit is not necessarily a
member of a bajid, yet a solitary bandit would seem an
134
incongruity : the etymology of the verb to asjoire does not
contain the slightest hint of upwardness, hut tliat notion is
unconsciously added hy the upward-pointing spire.
And there are doubtless a vast number of cases wherein
the meaning of words receives additional colour from phonetic
influences, though at the same time we are quite unable to
lay our finger at once upon the attra^^.ting word. If, for
example, the attraction is due, not to one M'ord or class of
words, but to several sporadic and unrelated influences, it may
be next to impossible to trace out these severally unimportant
forces. The result of the attraction may be plain, but the
causes may not be definitely discoveral^le.
It often seems to happen that the history of a word
exhibits a steady but unaccountable drift in the direction of
an altered meaning : and it does not seem too much to infer
from all the evidence which has now been adduced that the
cause of such a drift is really very often phonetic attraction.
Take the common adverb apace: it is the French a pas, at
a (good) pace. But it seems to be a f;ict, although unnoticed
in the " New Dictionary," that this word did not at first
imply haste or speed. There is an example in Chaucer
{Troilus II. 89-90), and another cited by Prof. Skeat from
the Canterbury Tales, where it may imply a steady or con-
tinuous pace, but most certainly not a quick one.
What are we to say about a case like this"? The sub-
sequent drift of meaning is as unaccountable as it is clear.
We look in vain for any word sufficiently approaching it
either in meaning or phonetic type to account for the rapid
strengthening of its signification. We find numbers of words
of remoter resemblance, such as race, ch'.ise, haste, which we
might imagine to liave been concerned in the matter : but
this is mere conjecture, and can hardly lead to results of any
specific value. Nevertheless it is important to remember, what
may now be taken to be proved, that most words are sur-
rounded by an atmosphere or firmament of attractions which
whether determinable or indeterminable, exert a powerful
influence on their history.
135
That principle may be furtlier illustrated by cases where
the effect of an outside word or words has been not to
smuggle an additional meaning into another word, but to betid
it from its original intention into something slightly different.
The French word honte, kindness, goodness, is in that
language chained very firmly to its place by the formidable
adjective hon, good; but the former word enters our language
in the form hounty, and it comes without the latter : the
result is that its meaning begins to drift : it is probably
influenced by the companionship of the words abound,
abundant, &c. : its meaning becomes that of charitable gen-
erosity, ^ov does the movement thus set going among these
words terminate with themselves : it spreads to the word boon.
We do not imagine now-a-days when we hear of things
which are " a boon and a blessing to men " that a boon
is properly the Old Northern Avord hon, a prayer. If it after-
wards comes to mean the favour prayed for, and finally to
mean any good thing which might be prayed for, the intellec-
tual sliding here disclosed is not uncaused and motiveless, but
largely the result of phonetic attraction : and we shall not
arrive at a sound understanding of changes like this until we
view them not only on their intellectual but also on their
phonetic side.
Similar instances of the deflection of words miglit be
multiplied. The word baffle conveys to us the meaning of
unexpected defeat, and defeat implies conflict or attack. But
its original meaning has nothing to do with conflict : it means
to revile, disgrace, or belittle a man. It only drifts into a
meaning associated witli conflict, l)y the constant suggestion
of battle. It is probable in the same way that auburn (alburnus),
wliich was formerly accented on the second syllable, and bnrnisfi,
which is originally to make broicn, owe some of the Ijrilliancy
of tlieir English meaning to association with burn and its
compounds.
Here, again, there are, doubtless, multitudes of other less
palpable cases which we may be certain to exist, although they
136
elude specitic investigation. The word balderdash, for example,
signifies originally a kind of liquor; but it would be profitless
to attempt to guess the attractions which have gradually drawn
it into its present meaning, however sure we may feel that some
of them at least were phonetic.
Sometimes, but more rarely, phonetic association takes
effect upon the form of words, and not upon their meaning.
Amaranth is properly amarant, Ijut the suggests of polya7ith-us,
helianth-as, &c., have been too strong for it : the common word
tight begins at first with a th, but the phonetic influence of
tie transmutes it into t : twit had once a long i for its vowel,
but is perhaps shortened by tivitch : hat, a winged animal, in
Middle English is JxiJcke, the change being perhaps due to its
beating the air : and 77iafe, a companion, in place of the long
established form make, is perhaps partly due to concurrent
associations of meet, adj., and meet, verb.
The contrasted phenomena of Dissociation have already
been incidentally touched upon, especially in case of the
attraction of words out of one family into another : but it
now demands a fuller treatment.
It is surprising how small a phonetic change will effect
a great dissociation. It may be in the pronunciation : the word
one undergoes historically a remarkable change in sound, and
straightway the word at-one loses half its meaning : the word
diary adopts ch where it formerly had c or ce, and forthwith
its relationship to care is totally forgotten : the word brid
(doubtless from resemblance to breed and brood) long signified
young birds, fledglings, but when it changed to the less
similar form bird it easily spread its meaning further : the
French brunir, to embrown, Avas able, — when it changed its
form to burrtir, — to shake off the close association of colour and
assume the meaning of burnishing as well as bronzing : the
Latin biiUire, to boil, gives birth to an Italian verb bulicare,
very expressive of lively ebullition, but the same line of
descent, carried through the French boufljger to the English
budge, yields us a word wherein all thought of boiling is
137
forgotten and tli8 motion ilenoted is not at all lively but
unwilling and slow. Compare with this result the Aryan
root BHUGII and its Sanskrit derivative hhuj, to bend, to
yield.
Sometimes a mere change of accent is enough to effect
the dissociation. Few people habitually remember that the
■words antic anrl antique are in their origin absolutely identical.
The simple change of accent has cut the former quite away
from its cognates and allowed changes to supervene which,
if the accent had maintained its place, would have been
manifestly impossible. A similar thing seems to happen in
the pair of etymologically identical words aggravate and aggrieve.
The former is at once seen, according to the well known rules
of Romanic philology, to be a learned, and the other a popular,
form. Bat, contrary to the general rule, the more regular word has
in English the more forcible meaning. The explanation seems
to lie in the accent; the accented syllable of the one happens
to recall the very forcible root AG, of which many offshoots
such as agony ami antagonid are familiar in English^ and
it thus acquires an adventitious poignancy which enables it
to outrival its old compeer.
Sometimes again dissociation takes place because the words
which once afforded to another its finu amdiorage have become
almost or altogether obsolete. (-)ue excellent instance has been
given already in the case of bondage. Another is afforded
by the adjective wo-hegonc. The picture which that word calls
up to us is that of one given up, self-abandoned, to wo.
But the latter part of it is really the past participle of the
old verb bc-ga-n, to he-go, i.e., to surround or encompass, and
was undoubtedly intended to call up a somewhat different
image.
Another kind of dissociation has been already hinted at
in the case of the words bounty and Ixirricada; it is that
which arises when the same word is exposed to the phonetic
surroundings of two dilfeicut languages. If the connection
suggested by Prof. Skeat between English agog and French
^411)9!
138
a gogo is real, nothing could better display tlie extreme
distance to Avliich twin words may be drawn apart under
such circumstances. The English word, under the powerful
influence of the verb to go, acquires a very active and bustling
meaning, whilst the French one seems to fall into the hardly
weaker hands of the word gout and its surroundings, so that
vivre a gogo is to live as one pleases, to be in clover or
at ease.
The same principle again is illustrated by the case of
doublets, i.e., of words etymologically identical which have
gradually come to express different meanings. When pairs of
words such as dip and clasp, grope and grasp), smile and smirh,
which once expressed identical meanings, are found to drift
apart, it is not unnatural to seek an explanation in that very
difference of form which alone makes at first any distinction
between them. For difference of form means to some extent
difference of phonetic affinities and therefore difference of
history. The word grasp is at first a mere derivative and
duplicate of the verb to grope, l)ut its altered form brings it
into phonetic relationship with clasp and hasp), which in turn
revive its affinity with its ancient cognate grip-en, A. 8. grip-an,
to grip : and so the alteration of form draws after it a still
greater alteration of meaning. The case of smile and smirk is
not very dissimilar. The first is Scandinavian, the second
Old English ; they meet as competitors of identical meaning
upon Middle English ground : but in modern English the
associations of jerk, quirk, and others, seem to have degraded
the Anglo-Saxon in favour of the Northern word.
Some instances have already l)een given, such as hout,
demean, and tidy, where words have been drawn very far
towards an alien root, but it is possible to give instances of
complete dispossession : the alien word has not simply drawn
the other out of its original place, it has planted itself in its
seat, usurped its office and ol)literated its remembrance. No
one, when he thinks about it, doubts for a moment that the
words accord, concord, and discord are derived from the Latin
139
cor, the heart : but it is eqiiallj certain that no ordinary man,
and perhaps very few scliolars, are at all reminded of cor,
the heart, when they use those words. The metaphor which
they each and all recall is a musical one, — harmony or the
want of it. Whence this strange concurrent deflection 1
Clearly from the Latin chorda, the English clwrd and cord.
The associations of that totally disconnected root have dis-
possessed tlie original cor to such an extent that the latter
counts for nothing and the former for everything in the
picture which those words call up.
When we speak of a man being cashiered the picture
called up in the mind of tlie heaver is that of liis being dis-
missed from his employment and paid off by the cashier :
but it is really a <|uite different woid, being in fact the
French casser, imported ])y way of Hollajid by the soldiers
of Elizabeth. The Dutch form is kasseren, and the earliest
English forms are casseer and casheer. But both of them
have at first the full meaning of the French casser, to break
up, to annul, as well as to discharge. Its subsidence into
the last sense only is due to the complete expulsion of its
original associations by an utterly alien word.
The word blunderbuss is properly the Dutch donder-bus,
thunder-box, the name of a Dutch fire-arm : but to an English
ear the word donder did not so immediately suggest thunder
as dunder-head and its revise<l version blunder-head, both of
Avhich were already current in the language. The perversion
thus suggested doubtless received countenance, as indicated by
Dr. Murray, from the random firing of the weapon, and the
displacement of donder by blunder was soon complete.
The word blindfold again would certainly not be used
to-day of any one who was really blind, nor of anybody
except one whose eyes were bandaged : but it originally means
one who is really l)lind, and it has nothing whatever to do
with bandaging. Had it come down to us in a regular form
it would have been blind-felled, smitten or struck blind. Here
again an alien word has completely ousted the original possessor.
140
Having thns illustrated in its chief aspects tlio behaviour
of individual words under the influence of phonetic attraction,
it will be interesting to note its effect upon the growth and
fortunes of families or groups of Avords. It is now obvious
that the leading result of this attraction must be to con-
solidate and enlarge, perhaps even to create, such groups.
The instances adduced will not have conveyed to us tlieir
right impression if we are led to imagine that phonetic
attraction is in its normal operation an innovating force.
The most noticeable effects of physical gravitation are the
downfalls and crashes which it produces from time to time
upon the surface of the earth, but they are all simply nothing
to the statical energy which it continually and unobtrusively
exerts in holding the framework of the globe together. So
likewise the great families of words Avhich in many cases
have descended to us not only through all history, Ijut through
an almost inscrutable antiquity beyond, may perhaps be found
to owe their wonderful solidarity and family permanence not
really to etymology but to the force of phonetic attraction.
The theory of Aryan roots in its present uncompleted
condition is quite as unsatisfactoiy as any which has preceded
it. Max Miiller in his Lectures pours well deserved ridicule
upon the hypothesis of a congress of hitherto speechless sages
assembling to discuss the invention and promulgation of language :
but when he enlarges upon the predicative nature of roots and
the very highly general or abstract nature of the ideas which
some of tliem express, does he not render it equally incredible
that language in its ruder stages ever Ijuilt itself consciously
upon such roots 1 Yet so long as we continue to follow his
(excellent temporary) advice and continue to regard Aryan
roots as ultimate facts, it is almost impossible to avoid that
implication.
The habit of tracing back all or most words to the
hypothetical Aryan forms of a far-off antiquity gives to the
latter an air of infinite priority and remoteness. The habit
of calling these forms roots gives to words the appearance of
141
having grown out of these roots, although we have in many
cases no knowledge whatever of such a process. The habit of
talking of them as if they had a real and separate existence
leads us into some danger of assuming that words of a very
highly abstract meaning formed the staple vocabulary of a bar-
barous people.
It cannot be too steadily kept in mind that an Aryan
root is simply the syllable or sound in which a number of post-
Aryan words of nearly related meaning arc found, after due
allowance for the regular divergence of sounds in language,
to agrep. It is to be feared that many etymologists, consciously
or unconsciously, regard the relationship between an Aryan
root and its associated words exactly as they would regard the
relationship between the English words, amour, amHij, amlahle,
&c., and the root of the Latin am-o. In other words, they
seem to be always implying that the words are derived from
the root. But there is not the least justification for such an
assumption. It is quite as feasible, when avc look into the
evidence, to suppose that the root was derived from the words,
as that words were derived from the roots. It is not a case of
literary derivation at all, but simjdy of a resemblance in form
and meaning, of whose origin we know nothing Avhatever, except
perhaps, that in all likelihood it was )iot literary.
Let us take, for example, a root which has already been
incidentally mentioned, the root BHEAG, and let us briefly
examine the large class of Wdrds which in any way resemble
it or its olfshoots in form and meaning. They will be found
to fall into several vei-y remarkably distinct categories. In the
first line we have the English hrealc, the Latin freg-i, and the
Greek pi'j'y-vvixi, of which it is perhaps more correct to say
that theif radical syllables are allotropic forms of the root
BHIiAG than to say that they are derived from it. Then we
have a second class wherein this root has been somewhat modified
by known inflectional or other influences, such as the English
broken, the Latin fract-uw, and the Greek ippo}'y6<i, all meaning
broken. After these come two sub-classes of palpable derivatives,
142
the one from tlie unmodified, and the other from the modified,
stems ; such as frag-ile and frag-ment, hreali-age and break-able
of the first named class, and brolicn-ly and broken-ness, fract-ure
and fracf.-ionalhj, or the Greek pcoya?, cloven, and pco^, a cleft,
of the other class.
Up to this point all is plain sailing ; the words have
all a real and a direct etymological connexion with the root
BHRAG; but below these we find three very important classes
whose connexion with it is either indirect, or conjectural,
or purely phonetic. And beyond these agnin there is a very
important body of unclassed words, which are freely assumed
by some etymologists to be cognates, not because they are seen
to obey any regular formative rale, but because they exhibit
some general phonetic resemblance and because our ignorance
of their antecedents relieves the hypothesis of derivation from
the possibility of being absolutely confuted.
First of all then, after the four classes of direct cognates,
come those whose relationship is real but indirect, of which we
have apt instances in English in the noun brlch- and the verb
f'raj/^ to pound or l)ruise. These are, of course, the French brlque
and brairc, but French in its turii derived them from the Teu-
tonic forms brifl- and brecli-cn, which are the close relatives of
our own verb to break. When therefore the words brick and
bray made their way into English, and into close companion-
ship with the verb to break, they Avere but wanderers
I'eturning home again. But at the same time we must clearly
understand that they returned entirely in the guise of strangers
and that, if their adoption was aided by the verb to break, it
was purely by associations of sound and meaning, not at all
by etymology. They would have stood exactly the same chance
of adoption if they had been totally unrelated.
iSText comes the class whose etymological relationship to
the root EHRAG is more or less conjectural. We have
already given reasons for thinking that the meaning of the
word brink is influenced phonetically by those of the break-
class. We traced it back to a Scandinavian source, iind there
us
is just a possibility tliat it may go beyond that again to the
root BHRAG ; but it is a pure speculation. The case of
the adjective brittle is still more instructive. It goes back to
the Anglo-Saxon hreot-an, a synonym of hrfc-an, to break, but
the identification of these two verbs with one another is a
step of very doubtful propriety. We have no knowledge what-
ever of any process Tiy wliicli the one verb could give birth
to the other ; and if we ascrilje their parallel existence to
phonetic attraction, which is a cause capable of exactly
accounting for them, we shuU act much more scientifically
than in assuming derivations of a type for which we have no
vestige of authority. It is true that we can trace out types
parallel to hreot-an in all the Scandinavian languages, but that
does not affect the matter. If we could trace it back to the
primeval Aryan it would still remain more probable that the
two roots had attracted each other into paralkdism than that
either had given birth to the other by any process of deriva-
tion. The converse influence of the same attraction is well
seen in the temporary development of a form hrlclde.
There still remains a class of words which though perhaps
strongly influenced by the root BHRAG in virtue of its phon-
etic alliances are really known to be of historically diverse
origin. The word Jiroach has been already instanced ; and to
this may be added the word fractious, which Professor Skeat
traces back to the Middle English verb fraccli-en, to squeal.
But it would be idle to dispute that the modern use of frac-
tious is far more determined by its phonetic allies, such as
refractory and others of the BHRAG class, than by its real
ancestor, fracch-en, to squeal.
We now come to that residuum of instances which clearly
do not belong to tht' first four classes, but which we have
hesitated to distribute among the three last classes, because
etymologists seem generally to speak of them as if they were,
in the ordinary and direct sense, cJerlred from £ome wortl or
words of the BHRAG type. In Greek there is the word
pTjyfiLV, the surf, the water's edge, the brink (of anything).
Q
U4
This has very mucli tlie air of a couipouud, and if any distinct
force, either independent or formative, could be assigned to the
second syllable it might be admitted to be such : but in the
absence of evidence it is better to consider such a Avord as
having indeed strong phonetic affinities with pijy-vufxi and
drawing therefrom vast picturesque force, but not necessarily
derived from it. Compare with it another phonetically
resembling word, pa^i?, the backbone (of an animal), the ridge
(of a mountain). It also derives a picturesque jaggedness from
its connection with pijyvv/xt, but in this case clearly without
etymological justification, because its real English cognate seems
to be the Avord ridge, Anglo-Saxon hrijcg, the back.
A Latin form here also claims attention. It will have
been noticed that the perfect tense freg-i has been taken as
the typical Latin form of the root BHRAG, because it presents
no modification of form which cannot be fairly accounted for ;
whilst the present tense, frang-o, contains a nasal element
whose origin is not clear. To say that it is derived from a
more primitive form frag-o, by nasalization, is not quite a satis-
factory explanation. The probability that sucli a primitive
form existed is very great, not only from Grimm's law, but from
the actual survival of forms such as frag-or and re-frag-or, which
seem to postulate it. But what is meant l)y the nasalization
of such a form 1 If nasalization means simply the addition of n,
then the assertion that fi'cig-o becomes frang-o by nasalization
is only a worthless truism. If on the other hand it means
that the Latin language was always at liberty to nasalize its
stems, or any class of them, it is obviously untrue. There is
no regular formative process known to the classic dialect of
Latin by which the n can be accounted for. It is at best a
dialectal, possibly even an unrelated or foreign, form which at
some period gained an entrance into Latin by the help of the
older frag-o, and then by dint of some superiority in its felt
expressiveness superseded the word under whose patronage it
had first made its way. We have only to consider what a
mass of ostensibly nasalized forms we could catalogue in
145
English, if the early history of our language was as scanty as
that of Latin, in order to see that the supposed i)rocess of
nasalization must be regarded as mythical luiless it can be
historically confirmed. The grain of truili Avliich it contains is
that wliich has been already insisted on, that the additional
presence of the nasal is unable to prevent the older word from
exerting a very powerful attraction upon the younger, and
eftecting its speedy entrance or re-entrance into the language.
Granting even that it might be really a re-entrance (from
some nasal-loving dialect), it woidd still be true that the way
for its return was made clear, not by etymology, but by mere
phonetic attraction.
If, then, the root BHRAG still maintains itself as the
head of a powerful family of living English Avords it may be
fairly said that in every instance outside those of direct and
palpable derivation, it owes their attachment to the force of
phonetic attraction. Every example, from the re-attachment
of cognate words like hricli and hray and probably frango,
to the attraction of utterly alien words like broach and frac-
tious, is found to OAve its existence to the same force.
Such is the result of the examination of the root BHRAGr
and its adherents. But if we choose a root Avliose history runs
down, not through the polite literature of Greece and Rome,
but through obscure popular and barbarous dialects, the results
will bear much more strongly upon the probable life of roots
in Aryan and post-Aryan antiquity: and it Avill be interesting
to note whether in this case the evidences of phonetic attraction
are greater or less.
Let us take the root BHALGH, to bulge, which ought
in the regular course of things to yield us English forms in
halg-, or something differing only from that by the normal
course of vowel-change. Tt Avill be also quite riglit to keep a
look-out for forms Avhich might conceivably be ranged under
an English type hag- or hal-. These minor radicals are very
likely indeed to be found growing alongside of a type like halg-;
yet it would be rash to say that they might grow out of it.
U6
Now tliat we are familiar with tlie power to produce parallelisms
of this kind wliicli is })OSsessed by mere phonetic attraction,
such expressions as "derived" or " weakened " or "syncopated"
stems seem to convey unwarranted assumptions of processes
whose existence or possibility we are quite ignorant of.
Setting aside all regular grammatical derivatives, which
are both few in number and for the present purpose unimportant,
we find ourselves able to assemble so goodly a concourse of
words resembling the types named that, if English were a
language without a history, we might easily imagine that this
whole triform family had descendeil to us from Aryan times.
Resembling the first or full type we find huhje, hihje, bulJc,
belch: the second — hag, hig, hndget, huggage, : the third —
bellows, billow, belly, boil, hall, hide, bale, howl, holder, ballot^
bald, boulder, bullet. But the following tabulated list puts a
very different face upon the matter : —
Found ill
English ^^^j_
A.D.
Earliest
English form.
Earliest
English meaning.
Origin traceable
to
1000 belch
bealc-ian
bt^lch, ejaculate
English —
,, bellows
(blast-) bclig
(blow-) bag
Common Teutonic.
„ belly
helig
bag, pod
« !5
,, boil (sb.) byl
tumour
5) J5
„ bowP
holla
bowl, basin
J5 55
,, bolster
holster
pillow
)> 5 )
1230 bulge
bulge
bag, jioucli
Ereucli — Gaulish.
„ I'a^'
bagge
bag
Scaud. ?
1297 bald
hallede
rotund, hairless
Eng. from ball or
Welsh %
1300 big
big
stout, stioiig
dialectal — Scand. %
„ ball
bal
globe
Scand. ] Com.
132.5 bale
bale
bale
Fr. or Flem.f Tent.
1300 boulder
hulder
cobble-(stone)
dialectal — Scand J
„ bnll
holle
bubble
variant of howl}
1314 bole
bole
tree-trunk
Scandinavian.
1413 bowP
buule
ball
French — Latin.
1430 baggage
uagage
baggage
French — Romanic.
U7
Found in
English ^^^^.^^
AD.
Earliest Earlics';
English form. English meaning.
Origin traceable
to
1440 Lulk
hoik
a heap
Scandinavian.
1450 budget
hoirgetle
liag, poucli
French dim. oibnhjc.
1513 bilge
hilge
hull (of ship)
variant of buhje.
1549 ballot^
ballot
voting ball
Ital. dim. of ball.
1552 billoAv
helloice
billow
Scand. — Teut.
1557 bullet
ballet
cannon ball
French dim. of: bo tcP
1865 ballot^
ballot
small bale
„ „ bale
Instead
of finding
that our three
leading types go all
straight back to Aryan antiquity, we hud ourselves unable to
trace the bag- forms back to the Anglo-Saxon at all, nor can
we accept bealci-an as a normal representative of the radical
bait/-. It is the subordinate form bal- which alone finds full
and strong representation in the earliest English. Xot that
the complete root baJ[/- is totally ab.sent : it is found in the
now long extinct verb belg-an, to swell with rage, but it is
not a familiar power in the language like its so-called Aveaker
derivative, hal-.
The subsequent history of the group quite accords with
these beginnings. The existence of such a compact body of
Anglo-Saxon words of one type and meaning fticilitates the
adoption of more. Eighteen such words are here catalogued ;
but it is instructive to notice that 07ili/ one of them turns out
to be in any way a derivative or variant of any of the original
six. Yet they markedly adhere to the same phonetic type and
to the same class of meanings, insomuch that the majority of
them might have easily been conjectured to have etymological
relations to the root bal-, if the materials for historical research
had not existed.
These facts cast a strong light backward upon the original
group which is found existing in Anglo-Saxon. What reason
have we to suppose any greater community of origin in these
words than in their successors, or any more filial principle of
growth in Anglo-Saxon than in Early English? "Would not fuller
knowledge have shewn the same diversity of origin in them also ?
These are questions which cannot he ansAvered, hut the
fact tliat they can ho leasoiiahly asked ought to inspire caution
in asserting relationship between the words which seem to
range thoni&elves under tlie same etymological radical, unless
they exhibit, at the least, a form and meaning which can be
exactly accounted for, either by phonetic law or by grammatical
derivation. It is clear that even then we may easily admit
some relationships which have no right to be admitted.
The groups often hitherto assumed to be etymological turn
out to be largely phonetic, nor is such a group much less stable
or permanent than an etymological one. The present example
would show it to be even more so. The death of the A.S.
verb he.lg-mi. left two of the three main divisions of the great
BHALGH tribe extinct in English, and powerless to revive by any
process of etymology. But the still remaining link of sound helped
back the 5a/_7-forms, and these in turn, losing their I in forms
like houge and budge (for huhje) may have helped back the
Z'a^-forms : and it is thus possible that this ancient family of
words now at length finds itself reconstituted in English by
the same force Avhich first, in all likelihood, created it, the force
of phonetic attraction.
Some assumptions are involved here which it is best to
state. (Jiic is that the variability of Keltic consonants might
permit the h of bulge to be identified with Aryan BH : and
the other is that the fcrtr/-forms, or some of them, really go
back through Scandinavian to a Teutonic or Aryan source.
Yet the reconstituting force, after all, was not etymological
but phonetic; and liaving by this example shown that ancient roots
continue to grow in modern times by phonetic attraction, we
will endeavour to show, finally, that their very origin may be
sometimes due to the same cause.
It has already been hinted that there are signs of the
growth of new and indigenous word-families in English during
the historical period. A list of such a family is given below,
which seems to cluster round, rather than to groAv out of, the
root syllable bom-.
149
Found in
Word.
English.
1225 bounce
Earliest English
form.
Earliest English
meaning.
Origin.
hunse
to thump, to Lang prob, imitative,
(to rebound, not till 1519)
bob
bonche
honcJie
bom
to pommel
a bunch, a hump
to tlmmp, to punch
part of the body
a kind of cannon
to hum or boom
prob. imitative.
ig
unknown, cf. bimch^
French — Latin.
imitative.
Fr. — Lat. — Greek.
imitative.
1588 bomb
1593 bound
1597 bumble
1280 bob
1325 bunch'
1362 bunch"
1387 bum
1430 bombard bumbard
1440 boom bomhon
1553 bombast bombage waddinf
1566 bump bump to cause to swell
(1611, to strike heavily)
borne an explosive Spanish — Latin.
bound to leap French — Latin.
bombill buzzing, bluster imitative.
The first thing which strikes us on scanning these particulars
is tliat the group is decidedly not Aryan ; it not only appears
to arise without the aid of cither imported or inherited models,
but it is without any clear Aryan prototype at all. The next
thing worthy of remark is that its origin is even more purely
phonetic than it appears to be : for Avhen we trace back tlie
four apparent exceptions we are led straight back in two cases
to the imitative Latin word bomb-us, Greek ^o/j.^a, a booming
sound ; in the case of bound, which is the French word boiid-ir,
we find a wonderful parallel to the English bounce and bump,
for its early meaning in French is to resound ; and in the case
of bombast we have an apt instance of an uncom})leted phonetic
and historical attraction, from a totally alien source, in actual
operation under our eyes.
The thiid point which arrests attention is the practical
identity of the radical syllable in nearly all the early forms,
coupled with the absence of any vestige of an etymological
relationship. There is not a word upon the list which can clearly
be said to be a variant or a derivative of any otlier of tliem.
Can we suppose then that there is no kin<l of unity Ijetweeu
150
tliem 1 Decidedly not ; Liit it is only such a unity as we might
fairly expect to be developed hy phonetic attraction, ami
hardly in any other way.
It will he noticed, perhaps, that there is not the same
consonance in the column of meanings that there was in the
BHALGH class : but this again admits of partial explanation
on the hypothesis of attraction. The growth of that class had
a very firm and definite staning point, in five strong Saxon
words, all meaning a rotund body of some sort ; and the
result is seen in a column of meanings adhering most remarkably
to that general type down to the present day : whilst the
meanings on the present list, though fewer, embody at least
five logically distinct ideas, — those of a dull continued sound,
a dull sudden sound, a heavy blow, a rebound, and a lump or
hunch. But though logically distinct they are all very obviously
associated in nature except the last; and Professor Skeat
conceives even that also to arise from natural association, through
the swelling which is the result of a heavy blow. Nor can it
be considered unnatural that, in the absence of anything which
conld limit them to a fixed type of meaning, the signification
of these imitative words t-hould wander over all the phenomena
with which their sound was intimately associated, and that
they should actually seem to countenance each other in these
wanderings. But if they had found a solid body of English words
already attached exclusively to one of these meanings the result
might have been different. And if the type had had its origin
in the same antiipiity as the root BHALGH it is also possible
that the struggles of the intervening ages would have led in
this case also to tiie more decisive predominence of a
single meaning, and to the banishment or atrophy of the
remainder.
We have now pursued the subject of phonetic attraction
as far as it can conveniently be pursued by itself. We are
already at a point where the case is complicated by questions
of int'llectual ai-sociation ; and some treatment of that subject
would certainly be necessary before any attempt was made to
151
discuss the question of roots in its fullest extent, seeing" that a
very large number of them are not of that phonetic and
kinetic type of meaning Avhich alone can be accounted for by
direct imitation.
But the minor task which was proposed at the outset is
now complete, and it will be useful in conclusion to summarize
the residts attained. It is here maintained that every word in
a language, particularly if it be a word of comparatively rare
emplojanent and undefined meaning, is sul)jected on every side
to attractions proceeding from all words possessing any com-
munity of form and import, and that these attractions continually
tend to draw it into still closer conformity : that the chief result
of this tendency has been to draw words together into clusters
of a more or less resembling form and signification, and its
chief office still is to keep these assemlilages intact : that this,
its statical effect, is lialjle to be overlookcil, being commonly
ascribed to etymological or quasi-etymological causes : tliat its
exceptional effects in changing and removing the meanings,
and occasionally the forms, of words are nevertheless very
striking: that they are to be clearly traced in every class of
cases where the hypothesis of attraction would teach us to look
for them : that the attraction set up by form needs Init a very
slight resemblance of meaning in order to make itself sensibly
felt : that, as a rule, this attraction midtiplies itself, by
creating an increased resemblance of signification : that this
is seen much better in the popular vocabulary than in words
which possess any literary or scientific fixity : that the
theory applies therefore still more strongly to Aryan or
paulo-post-Aryan times than to modern literary ages : tliat
phonetic attraction had ])robably a good deal to do with the
growth of Aryan roots, or some of them : tliat modern example
shews how a tribe of words o\\ning the same common radical
may grow up under purely phonetic influences without any
ostensible etymological process : that in fact it seems to be the
first corollary from the doctrine of phonetic attraction that some
roots at least have grown, not, as the name would inqily, from
H
152
within, but like a sand bank or a (Tystal, from the continual
attraction and addition of similar parts from without.
It remains only to add that, as this thesis is put forward
as a study in English philology, the argument and the instances
are confined as much as possible to the English language, but
it is believed that the conclusions will hold good for other
languages in the degree of their similarity. The author submits
his conclusions to that process of natural selection and survival
of the fittest which rules as much the fate of philological
theories and of Aryan word-clusters as of other sublunary things.
Stockton, Calif.
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