been the same, namely, ancient Asiatic words descriptive of quality; but the composition for the purpose of indicating the new objects, or an object viewed under new relations, and the farther history of this word, belong to a comparatively new formation. Words like akhatr for hare, probably a x-tr, destroyer of the shoots, as the Hebrew name of the hare is usually explained according to Bochart; and arnebet, one that gnaws off the corn (Dietrich explains it differently, p. 287. of his "Dissertations on Semitic Etymology"), belong to this class. The form syat for hare is clearly only a contraction of the other.

There is a very singular composition in this secondary formation in the well-known name of the crocodile, emsuh what comes out of the egg, because the Egyptians remarked that this monstrous fish-like animal possessed this peculiarity.

All these circumstances explain the fact of there being in this department very much fewer analogies with the Semitico-Iranian.

Baka means balsam, in Egyptian, Hebrew, and Arabic; but in Egyptian it means also date-palm and palm-wine. In Semitic it stands isolated; the derivation from baka, to weep (Egyp. akab), is a mere fancy.

Hamham, to bellow; Hebr. hamah; the simple Egyptian word, therefore, is the pure root. The Hebrew extended it triliterally; the Egyptian, by reduplication, like the Hebrew form Pilpel.

Ruma, man; in Gipsy language, Rumi; comp. Gr. pun, strength. In Egyptian, also, it is very significant, the erect. The same occurs in many other instances, as will be seen in the comparative dictionary.

II.

THE RESULT, AS REGARDS LANGUAGE AND HISTORY, OF THE INQUIRY INTO THE FORMATION OF WORDS AND ROOTS IN EGYPTIAN.

I. THE RESULT AS REGARDS LANGUAGE.

If we sum up the facts in the oldest Egyptian formations which have been elucidated above, and the gradual growth of complete radical stems in that language, we shall find, first, that we are obliged to admit that the Khamitic formation, in its original shape, represents a far older stage than the one on which the Semitic is based. We shall also find in this obscure department of primeval creations a corroboration of the assumption that both the Khamitic and Semitic merely represent different stages of formation of the same Western branch of the primitive world of Asia. The Semitic inhabitants of Asia were not Africans in an advanced state, for their common elements extend also to Arian roots, indeed, to germs of Arian forms.

We found this relation holding good in all the details, according to the general laws of the development of language. Very naturally: for these laws are nothing but the application of the highest logical truths to language, which is the most original, regular, and creative expression of thought in its relations to things.

The forms which in the first instance imply a change from a particle language into one consisting of parts of speech, are the pronouns.

There is especially the repetition of the designation of I and Thou and He in the singular and plural, in every sentence, and consequently in every, even the simplest, phrase. It is combined with the noun, and especially with the verb, by means of affixes or suffixes, and it imparts to them a special signification. The personal pronouns indicate that the mind is awakening to a consciousness of its personality and

self-determination: their use by children is the sign of a new epoch in the development of mind. Whenever then two languages have these pronouns in common, there must have existed between them a most primitive community of life. They must be a most ancient common heirloom. Now there is almost a perfect identity in Egyptian and Semitic between the personal pronouns, and the explanation of their meaning is found in most instances in the former.

This primary fact in the conscious formation of language is implied in all that follow; for instance, in the formation of that series of pronominal and adjectival expressions by means of the choice of a few roots which indicate the independence and substantiality of the nouns. In this series, again, fewer analogies are found. The race who migrated to Egypt, or who were driven thither, began there its own coinage of forms out of full roots. It exercised the same creative power in the coinage of nouns into prepositions of space and time, and into particles designating causality, and similar intellectual relations. Here, also, we find the Egyptian mind in the stage of the first awakening of consciousness. We can almost universally recognise the full meaning of the particles which are used to express the relations. Now what here are prepositions are postpositions in the North-Eastern form of that stage in Turanism.

Here, again, as well as in the plural particle (U) and the verbal conjugational roots, we find material community of concrete roots, out of which those words are coined, especially in Western Asia, with the historical Semitic. But the coinage itself belongs to a stage anterior to this Semism, to Khamism.

We have therefore, throughout, an organic transparent development in the creation of formative words.

But the comparison of the original roots themselves takes us back, of necessity, to a still earlier time. We can, it is true, already (thanks to Birch's researches) assume the number of Old Egyptian words, which are certainly

known, to be more than 1500. Of these there will be some 600 actual stems and roots. If we add to these such Coptic stems as point to simple genuine Egyptian stems, the earliest form of which is still unknown, we get about 100 more. The other words are produced out of them by development, extension, or composition, or they are proper names in the wider sense; that is, names of plants, animals, articles of dress, and the like, the ideal or qualificative designation of which we cannot recognise.

The theory of secondary formation, which we proposed in 1847, explains the fact. For if we consider our vocabulary according to it, we shall easily distinguish the original and the secondary formation. The roots which are used to form personal pronouns are resolved into monosyllabic words. Most of them can be pointed out in Egyptian among the full (concrete) roots, but merely in this original monosyllabic form; they having already taken the shape of extension, or even composition. Great part of the pronouns are compound words. When the oldest form was worn down the amplification by means of internal development was resorted to, or a similar word was coupled with it.

The particle iri (to do) is that most frequently used in the conjugation of the verbs; it is bisyllabic, and consequently cannot be of the oldest formation.

We discover the same phenomenon in the comparison of the above stems. The central point of the whole process of formation is the working out of particles having still a concrete meaning, into biliteral nouns and verbs expressing qualities. This is necessarily a much older stage of language than the Semitic, which has abandoned almost entirely the monosyllabic root, and is based upon the triliteral (bisyllabic) verb as the root of the other formations.

Now, as in our grammatical analysis of Egyptian we have discovered elements which are wholly un-Semitic and the germs of Arian forms, so also in making our lexi

cographical comparisons we have met with roots which are known to us as exclusively, or more decidedly Arian, and which do not exist in Semitic, or have fallen into disuse. We thus arrive at the formula:

The Egyptian language proves, both grammatically and lexicographically, the original identity of the Semitic and Arian.

The number of Egyptian words which occur in Semitic, and which, though perhaps in a less degree, can be pointed out in Arian, is far greater than could have been expected; for it comprises by far the larger half of the roots in the vocabulary.

But this concordance appears still more astonishing and important, when we consider the pervading internal analogy, both as regards the points of agreement and discrepancy.

The main pillars of the linguistic consciousness of the ancient world, and, indeed, of our own living languages, the monosyllabic radicals and nouns, turn out almost without exception to be common property, and an inheritance of the primitive ages. But in Egyptian they make their appearance, not, as is frequently the case with us, as despised prepositions, or little formative words, or unmeaning syllables; nor, as is especially the case in Semitic, dressed up in a later artificial systematic garb; but in their full majesty, and in their original, or very nearly original, simplicity and child-like

nakedness.

The compound words, and those which have grown into quadriliterals, and even farther, have much less connexion with the Asiatic, which is quite in harmony with the same organic laws. Indeed, the more the above words bear the impress of pure Egyptian, the more must the groundwork, the original root, necessarily be affected and obscured.

We may therefore close the inquiry with the following assertion: