Current Literature
A SUMER-ARYAN DICTIONARY : an Etymological Lexicon of the English and other Aryan Languages Ancient and Modern and the Sumerian Origin of Egyptian and its Hieroglyphics. Part I. By L. A. Waddell. (Luzac and Co., 1927.)—The title of this attractive-looking book sufficiently explains its contents. It is a monument of labour and ingenuity, but unfortunately the labour and ingenuity arc misplaced. Scientific philology has no existence for the author and we are taken back to the wildest philological speculations of the Middle Ages. English readers will appreciate the etymological method which connects the Sumerian azu, "physician," with the English wise, Latin augur and Greek hadios. We arc reminded of the period when " vowels counted for nothing and etvirelnants for very little." Col. Waddell's knowledge of Sumerian, however.
like his knowledge of Egyptian,, is but rudimentary, and Sumerian scholars will be astonished at some of the words and signifieations which he has discovered in it. lle has done good work in Central Asia ; he would do wisely to leave the British people and their Phoenician or Sumerian origin to themselves.
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