Also, from the root of the Sansc. _sri_, to flow, I take to be Gael. _sruam_, and again taking the phonetic _t_, the word _stream_, _strom_, common to all the Teutonic dialects. In these two forms we find the ancient names of two rivers--the SYRMUS of Thrace, and the STRYMON or STRUMON, the present STRUMA, of Macedonia. FOOTNOTES: [67] The derivation at p. 120 I must retract, finding _beg_ as a termination of other Irish river-names. [68] Wiegand, (Oberhessische ortsnamen), refers this name to Old High Germ. _braht_, fremitus. CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION. The names of rivers form a striking commentary on the history of language, so admirably expounded to the general reader in the recent work of Professor Max Müller. When we review the long list of words that must have once had the meaning of water or river, we can hardly fail to be struck with the number that have succumbed in what he so aptly terms "the struggle for life which is carried on among synonymous words as much as among plants and animals." We see too how large a portion of this long list of appellatives may ultimately be traced back to a few primary roots. And how even these few primary roots may perhaps be resolved into a still smaller number of yet more simple forms. I take for instance, as a primitive starting point in river-names, the Sansc. root _î_, _â_, or _ay_, signifying to move, to flow, to go. We have appellatives even in this simple form, as the Old Norse _â_, Anglo-Sax. _aê_, water, river. But whether they directly represent the root, or whether, like the French _eau_, p. 30, they have only withered down to it again, after a process of germinating and sprouting, I do not take upon me to determine. Then we have the roots, also of the kind called primary, _ab_, _ar_, _ir_, _ag_, _ikh_, _il_, _it_, all having the same general meaning, to move, to go, and from which, as elsewhere noticed, are also derived a number of appellatives for water or river in the various Indo-European languages. I should be inclined to suggest that the whole of these are formed upon, and are modifications of the simple root _î_, _â_, or _ay_, and that the following remarks made by Max Müller respecting secondary roots, may be extended also to them. "We can frequently observe that one of the consonants, in the Aryan languages, generally the final, is liable to modification. The root retains its general meaning, which is slightly modified and determined by the changes of the final consonants." He instances the Sansc. _tud_, _tup_, _tubh_, _tuj_, _tur_, _tuh_, _tus_, all having the same general meaning, to strike. Again--there are forms such as _ang_, _amb_, _and_, &c., which are merely a strengthening of the roots _ag_, _ab_, _ad_, or _at_, and which also are found in a number of appellative forms.