Part 16

Singular. Plural. ner-ë-dide ner-ë-didon. ner-ë-didest ner-ë-didon. ner-ë-dide ner-ë-didon.

And as _ner-ë-dide_ dwindled down to _nerëde_, so _nerëde_ would, in modern English, become _nered_. The _d_ of the preterite, therefore, which changes _I love_ into _I loved_ is originally the auxiliary verb _to do_, and _I loved_ is the same as _I love did_, or _I did love_. In English dialects, as, for instance, in the Dorset dialect, every preterite, if it expresses a lasting or repeated action, is formed by _I did_,(216) and a distinction is thus established between “’e died eesterdae,” and “the vo’ke did die by scores;” though originally _died_ is the same as _die did_.

It might be asked, however, very properly, how _did_ itself, or the Anglo-Saxon _dide_, was formed, and how it received the meaning of a preterite. In _dide_ the final _de_ is not termination, but it is the root, and the first syllable _di_ is a reduplication of the root, the fact being that all preterites of old, or, as they are called, strong verbs, were formed as in Greek and Sanskrit by means of reduplication, reduplication being one of the principal means by which roots were invested with a verbal character.(217) The root _do_ in Anglo-Saxon is the same as the root _thē_ in _tithēmi_ in Greek, and the Sanskrit root _dhâ_ in _dadâdmi_. Anglo-Saxon _dide_ would therefore correspond to Sanskrit _dadhau_, I placed.

Now, in this manner, the whole, or nearly the whole, grammatical framework of the Aryan or Indo-European languages has been traced back to original independent words, and even the slightest changes which at first sight seem so mysterious, such as _foot_ into _feet_, or _I find_ into _I found_, have been fully accounted for. This is what is called comparative grammar, or a scientific analysis of all the formal elements of a language preceded by a comparison of all the varieties which one and the same form has assumed in the numerous dialects of the Aryan family. The most important dialects for this purpose are Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Gothic; but in many cases Zend, or Celtic, or Slavonic dialects come in to throw an unexpected light on forms unintelligible in any of the four principal dialects. The result of such a work as Bopp’s “Comparative Grammar” of the Aryan languages may be summed up in a few words. The whole framework of grammar—the elements of derivation, declension, and conjugation—had become settled before the separation of the Aryan family. Hence the broad outlines of grammar, in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, and the rest, are in reality the same; and the apparent differences can be explained by phonetic corruption, which is determined by the phonetic peculiarities of each nation. On the whole, the history of all the Aryan languages is nothing but a gradual process of decay. After the grammatical terminations of all these languages have been traced back to their most primitive form, it is possible, in many instances, to determine their original meaning. This, however, can be done by means of induction only; and the period during which, as in the Provençal _dir vos ai_, the component elements of the old Aryan grammar maintained a separate existence in the language and the mind of the Aryans had closed, before Sanskrit was Sanskrit or Greek Greek. That there was such a period we can doubt as little as we can doubt the real existence of fern forests previous to the formation of our coal fields. We can do even more. Suppose we had no remnants of Latin; suppose the very existence of Rome and of Latin were unknown to us; we might still prove, on the evidence of the six Romance dialects, that there must have been a time when these dialects formed the language of a small settlement; nay, by collecting the words which all these dialects share in common, we might, to a certain extent, reconstruct the original language, and draw a sketch of the state of civilization, as reflected by these common words. The same can be done if we compare Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, and Slavonic. The words which have as nearly as possible the same form and meaning in all the languages must have existed before the people, who afterwards formed the prominent nationalities of the Aryan family, separated; and, if carefully interpreted, they, too, will serve as evidence as to the state of civilization attained by the Aryans before they left their common home. It can be proved, by the evidence of language, that before their separation the Aryans led the life of agricultural nomads,—a life such as Tacitus describes that of the ancient Germans. They knew the arts of ploughing, of making roads, of building ships, of weaving and sewing, of erecting houses; they had counted at least as far as one hundred. They had domesticated the most important animals, the cow, the horse, the sheep, the dog; they were acquainted with the most useful metals, and armed with iron hatchets, whether for peaceful or warlike purposes. They had recognized the bonds of blood and the bonds of marriage; they followed their leaders and kings, and the distinction between right and wrong was fixed by laws and customs. They were impressed with the idea of a divine Being, and they invoked it by various names. All this, as I said, can be proved by the evidence of language. For if you find that languages like Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, or Slavonic, which, after their first separation, have had but little contact with Sanskrit, have the same word, for instance, for _iron_ which exists in Sanskrit, this is proof absolute that iron was known previous to the Aryan separation. Now, _iron_ is _ais_ in Gothic, and _ayas_ in Sanskrit, a word which, as it could not have been borrowed by the Indians from the Germans or by the Germans from the Indians, must have existed previous to their separation. We could not find the same name for house in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Slavonic, and Celtic,(218) unless houses had been known before the separation of these dialects. In this manner a history of Aryan civilization has been written from the archives of language, stretching back to times far beyond the reach of any documentary history.(219)

The very name of _Arya_ belongs to this history, and I shall devote the rest of this lecture to tracing the origin and gradual spreading of this old word. I had intended to include, in to-day’s lecture, a short account of _comparative mythology_, a branch of our science which restores the original form and meaning of decayed words by the same means by which comparative grammar recovers the original form and meaning of terminations. But my time is too limited; and, as I have been asked repeatedly why I applied the name of _Aryan_ to that family of language which we have just examined, I feel that I am bound to give an answer.

_Ârya_ is a Sanskrit word, and in the later Sanskrit it means _noble_, _of a good family_. It was, however, originally a national name, and we see traces of it as late as the Law-book of the Mânavas, where India is still called _Ârya-âvarta_, the abode of the _Âryas_.(220) In the old Sanskrit, in the hymns of the Veda, _ârya_ occurs frequently as a national name and as a name of honor, comprising the worshippers of the gods of the Brahmans, as opposed to their enemies, who are called in the Veda _Dasyus_. Thus one of the gods, _Indra_, who, in some respects, answers to the Greek Zeus, is invoked in the following words (Rigveda, i. 57, 8): “Know thou the Âryas, O Indra, and they who are Dasyus; punish the lawless, and deliver them unto thy servant! Be thou the mighty helper of the worshippers, and I will praise all these thy deeds at the festivals.”

In the later dogmatic literature of the Vedic age, the name of Ârya is distinctly appropriated to the three first castes—the Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaiśyas—as opposed to the fourth, or the Śûdras. In the Śatapatha-Brâhmaņa it is laid down distinctly: “Âryas are only the Brahmans, the Kshatriyas, and Vaiśyas, for they are admitted to the sacrifices. They shall not speak with everybody, but only with the Brahman, the Kshatriya, and the Vaiśya. If they should fall into a conversation with a Śûdra, let them say to another man, ‘Tell this Śûdra so.’ This is the law.”

In the Atharva-veda (iv. 20, 4; xix. 62, 1) expressions occur such as, “seeing all things, whether Śûdra or Ârya,” where Śûdra and Ârya are meant to express the whole of mankind.

This word _ârya_ with a long _â_ is derived from _arya_ with a short _a_, and this name _arya_ is applied in the later Sanskrit to a Vaiśya, or a member of the third caste.(221) What is called the third class must originally have constituted the large majority of the Brahmanic society, for all who were not soldiers or priests, were Vaiśyas. We may well understand, therefore, how a name, originally applied to the cultivators of the soil and householders, should in time have become a general name for all Aryans.(222) Why the householders were called _arya_ is a question which would carry us too far at present. I can only state that the etymological signification of Arya seems to be “one who ploughs or tills,” and that it is connected with the root of _arare_. The Aryans would seem to have chosen this name for themselves as opposed to the nomadic races, _the Turanians_, whose original name _Tura_ implies the swiftness of the horseman.

In India, as we saw, the name of Ârya, as a national name, fell into oblivion in later times, and was preserved only in the term Âryâvarta, the abode of the Aryans. But it was more faithfully preserved by the Zoroastrians who migrated from India to the north-west, and whose religion has been preserved to us in the Zend-avesta, though in fragments only. Now _Airya_ in Zend means venerable, and is at the same time the name of the people.(223) In the first chapter of the Vendidád, where Ahuramazda explains to Zarathustra the order in which he created the earth, sixteen countries are mentioned, each, when created by Ahuramazda, being pure and perfect; but each being tainted in turn by Angro mainyus or Ahriman. Now the first of these countries is called _Airyanem vaêjô_, _Arianum semen_, the Aryan seed, and its position must have been as far east as the western slopes of the Belurtag and Mustag, near the sources of the Oxus and Yaxartes, the highest elevation of Central Asia.(224) From this country, which is called their seed, the Aryans advanced towards the south and west, and in the Zend-avesta the whole extent of country occupied by the Aryans is likewise called _Airyâ_. A line drawn from India along the Paropamisus and Caucasus Indicus in the east, following in the north the direction between the Oxus and Yaxartes,(225) then running along the Caspian Sea, so as to include Hyrcania and Râgha, then turning south-east on the borders of Nisaea, Aria (_i.e._ Haria), and the countries washed by the Etymandrus and Arachotus, would indicate the general horizon of the Zoroastrian world. It would be what is called in the fourth cardé of the Yasht of Mithra, “the whole space of Aria,” _vîśpem airyô-śayanem_ (totum Ariæ situm).(226) Opposed to the Aryan we find in the Zend-avesta the non-Aryan countries (anairyâo dainhâvô),(227) and traces of this name are found in the Ἀναριάκαι, a people and town on the frontiers of Hyrcania.(228) Greek geographers use the name of Ariana in a wider sense even than the Zend-avesta. All the country between the Indian Ocean in the south and the Indus in the east, the Hindu-kush and Paropamisus in the north, the Caspian gates, Karamania, and the mouth of the Persian gulf in the west, is included by Strabo (xv. 2) under the name of Ariana; and Bactria is thus called(229) by him “the ornament of the whole of Ariana.” As the Zoroastrian religion spread westward, Persia, Elymais, and Media all claimed for themselves the Aryan title. Hellanicus, who wrote before Herodotus, knows of Aria as a name of Persia.(230) Herodotus (vii. 62) attests that the Medians called themselves Arii; and even for Atropatene, the northernmost part of Media, the name of Ariania (not Aria) has been preserved by Stephanus Byzantinus. As to Elymais its name has been derived from _Ailama_, a supposed corruption of _Airyama_.(231) The Persians, Medians, Bactrians, and Sogdians all spoke, as late as the time of Strabo,(232) nearly the same language, and we may well understand, therefore, that they should have claimed for themselves one common name, in opposition to the hostile tribes of Turan.

That _Aryan_ was used as a title of honor in the Persian empire is clearly shown by the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius. He calls himself _Ariya_ and _Ariya-chitra_, an Aryan and of Aryan descent; and Ahuramazda, or, as he is called by Darius, Auramazda, is rendered in the Turanian translation of the inscription of Behistun, “the god of the Aryans.” Many historical names of the Persians contain the same element. The great-grandfather of Darius is called in the inscriptions Ariyârâmna, the Greek _Ariaramnēs_ (Herod, vii. 90). Ariobarzanēs (_i.e._ Euergetēs), Ariomanes (_i.e._ Eumenēs), Ariomardos, all show the same origin.(233)

About the same time as these inscriptions, Eudemos, a pupil of Aristotle, as quoted by Damascius, speaks of “the Magi and the whole Aryan race,”(234) evidently using Aryan in the same sense in which the Zend-avesta spoke of “the whole country of Aria.”

And when, after years of foreign invasion and occupation, Persia rose again under the sceptre of the Sassanians to be a national kingdom, we find the new national kings the worshippers of Masdanes, calling themselves, in the inscriptions deciphered by De Sacy,(235) “Kings of the Aryan and un-Aryan races;” in Pehlevi, _Irân va Anirân_; in Greek, Ἀριάνων καὶ Ἀναριάνων.

The modern name of Irán for Persia still keeps up the memory of this ancient title.

In the name of _Armenia_ the same element of _Arya_ has been supposed to exist.(236) The name of Armenia, however, does not occur in Zend, and the name _Armina_, which is used for Armenia in the cuneiform inscriptions, is of doubtful etymology.(237) In the language of Armenia, _ari_ is used in the widest sense for Aryan or Iranian; it means also brave, and is applied more especially to the Medians.(238) The word _arya_, therefore, though not contained in the name of Armenia, can be proved to have existed in the Armenian language as a national and honorable name.

West of Armenia, on the borders of the Caspian Sea, we find the ancient name of _Albania_. The Armenians call the Albanians _Aghovan_, and as _gh_ in Armenian stands for _r_ or _l_, it has been conjectured by Boré, that in _Aghovan_ also the name of Aria is contained. This seems doubtful. But in the valleys of the Caucasus we meet with an Aryan race speaking an Aryan language, the _Os_ of _Ossethi_, and they call themselves _Iron_.(239)

Along the Caspian, and in the country washed by the Oxus and Yaxartes, Aryan and non-Aryan tribes were mingled together for centuries. Though the relation between Aryans and Turanians is hostile, and though there were continual wars between them, as we learn from the great Persian epic, the Shahnámeh, it does not follow that all the nomad races who infested the settlements of the Aryans, were of Tatar blood and speech. Turvaśa and his descendants, who represent the Turanians, are described in the later epic poems of India as cursed and deprived of their inheritance in India. But in the Vedas Turvaśa is represented as worshipping Aryan gods. Even in the Shahnámeh, Persian heroes go over to the Turanians and lead them against Iran, very much as Coriolanus led the Samnites against Rome. We may thus understand why so many Turanian or Scythian names, mentioned by Greek writers, should show evident traces of Aryan origin. _Aspa_ was the Persian name for _horse_, and in the Scythian names _Aspabota_, _Aspakara_, and _Asparatha_,(240) we can hardly fail to recognize the same element. Even the name of the Aspasian mountains, placed by Ptolemy in Scythia, indicates a similar origin. Nor is the word Arya unknown beyond the Oxus. There is a people called _Ariacœ_,(241) another called _Antariani_.(242) A king of the Scythians, at the time of Darius, was called _Ariantes_. A cotemporary of Xerxes is known by the name of _Aripithes_ (_i.e._ Sanskrit, _aryapati_; Zend, _airyapaiti_); and _Spargapithes_ seems to have some connection with the Sanskrit _svargapati_, lord of heaven.

We have thus traced the name of _Ârya_ from India to the west, from Âryâvarta to Ariana, Persia, Media, more doubtfully to Armenia and Albania, to the Iron in the Caucasus, and to some of the nomad tribes in Transoxiana. As we approach Europe the traces of this name grow fainter, yet they are not altogether lost.

Two roads were open to the Aryans of Asia in their westward migrations. One through Chorasan(243) to the north, through what is now called Russia, and thence to the shores of the Black Sea and Thrace. Another from Armenia, across the Caucasus or across the Black Sea to Northern Greece, and along the Danube to Germany. Now on the former road the Aryans left a trace of their migration in the old name of Thrace which was _Aria_;(244) on the latter we meet in the eastern part of Germany, near the Vistula, with a German tribe called _Arii_. And as in Persia we found many proper names in which _Arya_ formed an important ingredient, so we find again in German history names such as _Ariovistus_.(245)

Though we look in vain for any traces of this old national name among the Greeks and Romans, late researches have rendered it at least plausible that it has been preserved in the extreme west of the Aryan migrations, in the very name of _Ireland_. The common etymology of _Erin_ is that it means “island of the west,” _iar-innis_, or land of the west, _iar-in_. But this is clearly wrong.(246) The old name is _Ériu_ in the nominative, more recently _Éire_. It is only in the oblique cases that the final _n_ appears, as in _regio_, _regionis_. _Erin_ therefore has been explained as a derivative of _Er_ or _Eri_, said to be the ancient name of the Irish Celts as preserved in the Anglo-Saxon name of their country, _Íraland_.(247) It is maintained by O’Reilly, though denied by others, that _er_ is used in Irish in the sense of noble, like the Sanskrit _ârya_.(248)

Some of the evidence here collected in tracing the ancient name of the Aryan family, may seem doubtful, and I have pointed out myself some links of the chain uniting the earliest name of India with the modern name of Ireland, as weaker than the rest. But the principal links are safe. Names of countries, peoples, rivers, and mountains, have an extraordinary vitality, and they will remain while cities, kingdoms, and nations pass away. _Rome_ has the same name to-day, and will probably have it forever, which was given to it by the earliest Latin and Sabine settlers, and wherever we find the name of Rome, whether in Wallachia, which by the inhabitants is called Rumania, or in the dialects of the Grisons, the Romansch, or in the title of the Romance languages, we know that some threads would lead us back to the Rome of Romulus and Remus, the stronghold of the earliest warriors of Latium. The ruined city near the mouth of the Upper Zab, now usually known by the name of Nimrud, is called _Athur_ by the Arabic geographers, and in Athur we recognize the old name of Assyria, which Dio Cassius writes Atyria, remarking that the barbarians changed the Sigma into Tau. Assyria is called Athurâ, in the inscriptions of Darius.(249) We hear of battles fought on the _Sutledge_, and we hardly think that the battle field of the Sikhs was nearly the same where Alexander fought the kings of the Penjáb. But the name of the _Sutledge_ is the name of the same river as the _Hesudrus_ of Alexander, the _Śatadru_ of the Indians, and among the oldest hymns of the Veda, about 1500 B. C., we find a war-song referring to a battle fought on the two banks of the same river.

No doubt there is danger in trusting to mere similarity of names. Grimm may be right that the Arii of Tacitus were originally Harii, and that their name is not connected with Ârya. But the evidence on either side being merely conjectural, this must remain an open question. In most cases, however, a strict observation of the phonetic laws peculiar to each language will remove all uncertainty. Grimm, in his “History of the German Language” (p. 228), imagined that _Hariva_, the name of _Herat_ in the cuneiform inscriptions, is connected with Arii, the name which, as we saw, Herodotus gives to the Medes. This cannot be, for the initial aspiration in _Hariva_ points to a word which in Sanskrit begins with _s_, and not with a vowel, like _ârya_. The following remarks will make this clearer.

Herat is called _Herat_ and _Heri_,(250) and the river on which it stands is called _Heri-rud_. This river _Heri_ is called by Ptolemy Ἀρείας,(251) by other writers _Arius_; and _Aria_ is the name given to the country between Parthia (Parthuwa) in the west, Margiana (Marghush) in the north, Bactria (Bakhtrish) and Arachosia (Harauwatish) in the east, and Drangiana (Zaraka) in the south. This, however, though without the initial _h_, is not Ariana, as described by Strabo, but an independent country, forming part of it. It is supposed to be the same as the _Haraiva_ (Hariva) of the cuneiform inscriptions, though this is doubtful. But it is mentioned in the Zend-avesta, under the name of _Harôyu_,(252) as the sixth country created by Ormuzd. We can trace this name with the initial _h_ even beyond the time of Zoroaster. The Zoroastrians were a colony from northern India. They had been together for a time with the people whose sacred songs have been preserved to us in the Veda. A schism took place, and the Zoroastrians migrated westward to Arachosia and Persia. In their migrations they did what the Greeks did when they founded new colonies, what the Americans did in founding new cities. They gave to the new cities and to the rivers along which they settled, the names of cities and rivers familiar to them, and reminding them of the localities which they had left. Now, as a Persian _h_ points to a Sanskrit _s_, _Harôyu_ would be in Sanskrit _Saroyu_. One of the sacred rivers of India, a river mentioned in the Veda, and famous in the epic poems as the river of Ayodhyâ, one of the earliest capitals of India, the modern Oude, has the name of _Sarayu_, the modern _Sardju_.(253)

As Comparative Philology has thus traced the ancient name of Ârya from India to Europe, as the original title assumed by the Aryans before they left their common home, it is but natural that it should have been chosen as the technical term for the family of languages which was formerly designated as Indo-Germanic, Indo-European, Caucasian, or Japhetic.

LECTURE VII. THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE.