That some of these forms are no true inflexions, but appended prepositions, is speedily stated in the text. If so, it is probable that, in another author or in a different dialect, the number of cases will vary. At any rate, the agglutinate character of the language is indicated. The numerals are This the author connects with the word tqo= also, overagain (auch, wiederum), as if it were 10 doubled, which it most likely is. In like manner tqeexc is one from twenty= undeviginti : 100=pxauztqa=5 x 20. 200 içatatq=10×20. 500=tqauzig pxauztqa=20 × 20+ 100. = 1000 sac tqauziqa icaiqa=2× 400+200. The commonest signs of the plural number are -i and -si, the latter is in Tshetshents. The suffixes -ne and -bi, the latter of which is found in Lesgian, is stated to be Georgian in origin. No reason, however, against its being native is given. In verbs, the simplest form is (as usual) the imperative. Add to this -a, and you have the infinitive. The sign of the conditional is he or h; that of the conjunctive le or . The tenses are (1.) Present, formed by adding -a or -u to the root: i. e. to the imperative form, and changing the vowel. (2.) Imperfect, by adding -r to the present. (3.) Aorist, formed by the addition of -r to the (4.) Perfect; the formation of which is not expressly given, but which is said to differ from the present in not changing the vowel. However, we have the forms xet=find, xeti= found; (perf.) xetin=found (aorist). From the participle of the perfect is formed the (5.) Pluperfect by adding -r.. (6.) The future is either the same as the present, or a modification of it. I give the names of those moods and tenses as I find them. The language of the Latin grammar has, probably, been too closely imitated. The first and second persons are formed by appending the pronouns either in the nominative or the instructive form. That an oblique form of the pronoun should appear in the personal inflexion of verbs is no more than what the researches of the late Mr. Garnett, with which we are all so familiar, have taught us to expect. At the same time, the extent to which the instructive and nominative forms are alike must be borne in mind. Let either be appended, and when so appended undergo, under certain conditions, certain modifications, and a double origin is simulated. That this is the case in the instances of the work under notice is by no means asserted. The possibility of its being so is suggested. The participle of the present tense is formed in -in; as dago eat, dagu-in=eating. The participle of the preterite ends in -no; as xaçe=hear, xac-no-heard. There are auxiliary verbs, and no small amount of euphonic changes; of which one, more especially, deserves notice. It is connected with the gender of nouns. When certain words (adjectives or the so-called verb substantive) follow certain substantives, they change their initial. Thus-hatxleen wa= the prophet is, hatxleensi ba=the prophets are, waso wa=the brother is, wasar ba=the brothers are. Again-naw ja=the ship is, nawr ja= the ships are; bstiuno ja=the wife is, bstee da=the wives are. This is said to indicate gender, but how do we know what gender is? The words themselves have neither form nor inflexion which indicates it. Say that instead of gender it means sex, i. e. that the changes in question are regulated by natural rather than grammatical characters. We still find that the word naw is considered feminine-feminine and inanimate. This, however, is grammatical rather than natural, sex-" das weibliche Geschlecht wird bey unbelebten Gegenständen auch im Plural durch j-, bei belebten durch a ausgedrückt." Then follow the examples just given. How, however, do we know that these words are feminine? It is submitted that the explanation of this very interesting initial change has yet to be given. It recalls, however, to our memory the practice of more languages than one, the Keltic, the Woloff, the Kafre, and several other African tongues, wherein the change is initial, though not always on the same principle. So, also, the division of objects into animate and inanimate recalls to our mind some African, and numerous American tongues. Such is the notice of the first of the Mizhdzhedzhi or Tshetshents (we may say Lesgian) forms of speech of which the grammatical structure has been investigated; a notice which suggests the question concerning its affinities and classification. The declension points to the Ugrian, or Fin, class of languages; with which not only the Tshetshents, but all the other languages of Caucasus have long been known to have miscellaneous affinities. The resemblance, however, may be more apparent than real. The so-called cases may be combinations of substantives and prepositions rather than true inflexions, and the terminology may be more Ugrian in form than in reality. Even if the powers of the cases be the same, it will not prove much. Two languages expressing a given number of the relations that two nouns may bear to each other will, generally, express the same. Cases are genitive, dative and the like all the world over-and that independent of any philological affinity between the languages in which they occur. The extent to which they are also caritive, adessive and the like has yet to be investigated. The Ugrian affinities, then, of the Tshetshents are indirect; it being the languages of its immediate neighbourhood with which it is more immediately connected. In the way of vocabularies the lists of the Asia Polyglotta have long been competent to show this. In the way of grammar the evidence is, still, far from complete. The Georgian, to which Maggi gives no more than six cases, has a far scantier declension than the Tushi, at least as it appears here. The Circassian, according to Rosen, is still poorer. In the verbs the general likeness is greater. In the pronouns, however, the most definite similarity is to be found; as may be seen from the following forms in the Circassian: The amount of likeness here is considerable. Over and above the use of s for the first person singular, the s' in the second person plural should be noticed. So should the b and in the Circassian u-bart; both of which are plural elements in the Tushi also. Finally (as a point of general philology), the double forms of the Tushi plurals wai and to suggest the likelihood of their being exclusive and inclusive; one denoting the speaker but not the person spoken to, the other both the person spoken to and the person who speaks; plurals of this kind being well known to be common in many of the ruder languages. V. ON THE CONNEXION OF THE KELTIC WITH THE TEUTONIC LANGUAGES, AND ESPECIALLY WITH THE ANGLO-SAXON. BY THE REV. JOHN DAVIES, M.A. [Read February the 19th and March the 5th.] The connexion of the Keltic and Teutonic languages would appear to be a subject of great difficulty, if we are to judge from the diverse and even conflicting opinions of linguistic scholars on the subject. These opinions range through every degree of difference, from a positive identity, or very close relationship, to an entire and absolute separation, excluding them from any position in the same family or class of languages. The first opinion was commonly maintained by the philologists of the last century; an age, however, in which conclusions about the relationship or identity of languages were often made on slight and insufficient grounds. Philology had certainly not then risen to the dignity of a science. A few instances, hastily compared, with a careless disregard of the true laws of induction, were held sufficient to establish a very close affinity between a large class of languages. From an examination of this nature, Bishop Nicholson thought himself entitled to declare that the Teutonic and Keltic languages differed little, if at all, from each other. "Lingua Teutonica" he writes, (sub qua Germaniæ Superioris et Inferioris Belgica, Anglica, Danica, Suevica, Norvegica, &c. comprehenduntur) ut ante judicatum est, a Kelticâ parum aut nihil differebat*." Vitringa ventures to assert that the Kelts and the Germanic races had only one common language, the apparent divergence being merely a difference of pronunciation, and that it was derived from the Greek and the Oriental languages :-" Hinc enim colligimus primo, linguam Scytharum, Celtarum, Gothorum, Getarum, Massagetarum, Cimbrorum, Teutonum, Germanorum, id est, Belgicam Veterem (omnes enim hæ gentes uno idiomate ante fuerunt usæ, licet pronunciandi ratio aliquomodo per successum temporis fuerit variata) ex * Dissertation at the end of Chamberlayne's 'Oratio Dominica.' |