Philological Proofs of the Original Unity and Recent Origin of the Human Race — John Shaqi
Philological Proofs of the Original Unity and Recent Origin of the Human RaceJohnes, Arthur James
History
Philological Proofs of the Original Unity and Recent Origin of the Human Race
Johnes, Arthur James
Ethnology; Human beings -- Origin; Language and languages; Monogenism and polygenism
For example: “The Esk” is from Eask (_Irish_), and Esseg (_Dongolan, North
Africa_), “Water.” “The Usk” or “Ou-isg,” as the word is pronounced by the
Welsh, from Uisge, “Water” (_Irish_), connected with Eask (_Irish_). “The
Ayr” is identical with A.r. “A River,” also “To flow” (_Hebrew_), “The
Yarrow” with Iaro (_Egyptian_), and the Hebrew words Ee.a.ou.r Ee.a.r
(modifications of A.r, _Hebrew_). Some able Celtic scholars have attempted
to explain the origin of such names as “Ayr and Yarrow,” which are very
common as names of rivers in Celtic countries, by means of a Celtic term
which means “Gentle,” an explanation very inapplicable in many instances.
The error of these writers arises from the assumption they are prone to
adopt, that the Celtic is an unchanged language, the truth being that the
changes which it can be shown to have undergone in more recent times, form
a distinct ground for the conclusion that, long prior to the earliest
period to which our most ancient Celtic specimens can be referred, the
Celts must have lost many words which their forefathers brought with them
from the East.
In the names above noticed, not only the general features, but the finer
shades of inflection of the Oriental words reappear.
Numerous examples may be pointed out, of words applied in some languages
to “Water” generally, appropriated exclusively, in others to the “Sea or
Ocean.” Thus we have Shui in Chinese, and Su in _Turkish_, “Water.” In the
_German_ See, the _Anglo Saxon_ Seo Sae, the _English_ “Sea,” and in other
analogous terms to be met with in all the Gothic tongues, we recognize the
same term as a word for a “Lake,” or for “The Sea.” Adelung has pointed
out the resemblance which in some other instances the Turkish bears to the
German. The ancestors of the Turks and Germans, it may be observed, are
both traceable to contiguous regions of Northern Asia, the great “High
Road of Nations” from China to Europe.
Again, in various dialects of the North American Indians we meet with
Oghnacauno, Oneekanoosh, &c. “Water.” In Latin and Greek we find the same
term “Ocean-os, Ocean-oio”, &c., applied exclusively to “The Ocean.” (See
for other examples Appendix A, p. 77.)
Words for Mountains and Hills are almost universally identical with words
for “The Head, The Back, The Breast,” &c. Thus even in the English, in
which the first meanings of words are often lost, we have “Ridge” (A Back
and A Hill), “Head-land,” “_Saddle-back_” (the name of a mountain.) In the
Principality of Wales, in which a less changed and a less conventional
language prevails, the common names for hills, “Cevn, Pen, Vron,” &c., are
words for “The Back, The Head, The Breast,” &c., appropriated according to
the particular _shapes_ of the hills. The same words, as will appear
hereafter, were used as names of mountains in ancient Gaul and Spain, &c.
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