GERMAN ORIGIN OF TRE LATIN LANGUAGE.
AbiONG some very able articles in the new Number of the Foreign Quarterly Review, we observe one which deserves attention for the novelty of its materials. It is a review of Professor JAKEL'S work on the German Origin of the Latin Language. The subject j; no less curious than the method of treatment. Etymology has undoubtedly been hitherto a pursuit to shake the head at : but the Germans, who put industry and method into every thing, have led the way to new views on the subject, which we hope will be followed up with the ordinary vigour and judgment of British students by our own philologists. It is in the Teu- tonic languages that discoveries have been chiefly made; and surely we are as much interested in them as any German of them all. Instead of random likenesses and differences, which were frittered and hocuspocused into any sounds or signs whatever, by the old etymologists, the professors of Germany have set them- selves to study their own language and all its cognate sounds. Here is a sure ground to go on : and if we could once get a com- plete history and analysis of any one family of languages, the gate would straightway be laid open into the heart of that most myste- rious but most interesting of subjects, the nature and history of language generally. An extract from the critique will show how very curious are the relations that have been detected between the Latin and the old Northern tongues.
As, then, a very trifling number of Gallic words are really found in Latin, and on the contrary a very large proportion of pure German and these principally of Clam I., a much closer union between the Romans and Germans, than between the Romans and the Gauls, becomes manifest ; and since many words are iso- lated in Latin, which in German have all their forms and numerous derivatives, =I since from various causes many later Latin words have become obscured, while the pure full forms, and the most resembling the old Latin, are yet found in German, we must assume that the Germans were the head stem of the Roman people, and their language the foundation of the Latin.
" A few examples will make this clear (p. 1:3)— '. Wind is not derived from wens, but ventus from wind. It is in fact the participle of =hen, wehend, by contraction wind. The Latin has no word nhen.
Ordo, ordinj, ordinare. Ordnung and ordnen spring from the word ort, which is found in all the German dialects, and they denote the endeavour to assign to each his proper place. The Latin does not know this root.
" Fenestra fenster, signifies both in Latin and German, originally, not the opening Of the house through which the light enters—for this is called melee— bat the board which shuts it up (hence Horace's junetas quatiunt fenestras,' i. 25); and which, as long as glass is unknown, darkens the house ; it conies then from finster (dark), a German word.
" Urlis (probably pronounced with the digamma) comes from the Old High Dutch Huuarban, hwarban (Kero), to go about in a circle, to make a circle. In the building of a city, they really did make a circle with the plough. Teu- tonic, warbes (a circle), urbes, urbs. [Hence also onus, we yet have wirbel, wirbelwincl.] Where a door was to stand, the plough was lifted off; whence from the ancient b linden (portare), biirde, porta, pforte."
We pass over four more examples, viz. Vir, Virtus, Capo, Mulgere and pro- ceed to select one or two of words which, though they are isolated in Latin, have numerous connexions in German.
"Reran, kern (lord), stands alone in Latin ; we have herrscher, herrschaft, herrschen, herlich, and it connects itself with ehre.
" Prirsagire' prcesagit 'liens, and sages, vorhersagen and wahrsager, very old Latin words, which stand there isolated ; while in German, sagen is a com- plete verb, with many compounds—ver, ant, vor sagen. Also in Persian, the word is sachun.
" Esse, mile, have an infinitive form, which is very unusual in the Latin lan- guage ; and point, since they express the earliest notions of men, to a high antiquity. In many parts of Germany, we at this day hear ease and wolle for Cozen and wollen. The Danes, moreover, form their infinitive in e." We omit Libet, Muscipula, and Sum.
em The older the Latin is, the nearer is its connexion to the German. In the Lex Name we find the word loebesom-- Sei quips homonem loebesom mortei
" duet, &c. So in the song of the Arvalian brothers we have Neve luervein, Mannar, sins incurrere in pleores—Let, Mars, too plague, destruction, come upon our plains. Pleores has sometimes been explained by plures, sometimes
by flares, neither one nor the other will do ; while the old for or fur, Sedan, acner, (Som. Diet. Aug. Sax. and Stiler Tines. L. Germ.) does very well. We have Stadtflnr, Dorffiur, Flurschfitz, Hausflur, which byno means uOme from Latin /ores. " Lingua and Zunge have little similarity; but Martins Victorinns says, anti- ques diaisse Dinguam pro lingua, Ulphilas's tugga, the Swedish tunga, the Anglo-Sa.xon tung, have thus with the Old Latin dingua the greatest similarity. " Milo and Lis seem to have no relationship to the German ; but the older forms were :mitt° (yet in the compound word cosmitto), and stlis =stilt (Fest. d Paid. stlitein antiqui pro litem dice/ant. Cony. Schneid. Gram. a.495), and show the connexion with schineissen ; English, to mite; Swe- dish, smta, and stride."
It should be added, that the German's etymologies are not always satisfactory to the English reviewer, who has sifted the claims of
MallYn of his derivations with great acuteness. In fact, JAKEL is not a man to swear by ; and we.apprehendle isselected for review rather on account of the interesting nature of his book, than that he is a leader in the grand study at etymology in Germany. And even as we see it, partially, in the Review, it is a stimulat- ing work. We recommend the writer of the article to perse- vere in his own course of study and. researoh ; for success in which he shows considerable aptitudo Not the least of his quail. fications are caution and modesty.
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