§ 298
The voice of animals serves only to express the will in its stirrings and movements; but that of man serves also the expression of knowledge. In this connection, the voice of animals, with the exception of a few birds, almost invariably makes a disagreeable impression on us.
With the origin of human speech, it is quite certain that interjections were the first things to express not concepts but, like the noises of animals, feelings or movements of the will. Their different forms appeared at once and from their variety there occurred the transition to substantives, verbs, personal pronouns, and so on.
The word of man is the most durable material. If a poet has incorporated in exactly suitable words his most momentary and transient feeling, such lives in them for thousands of years and is aroused afresh in every reader who is susceptible to it.
§ 298a
It is well known that languages, especially from a grammatical point of view, are the more perfect the older they are, and that by degrees they become ever inferior, from the lofty Sanskrit down to English jargon, that cloak of ideas which is patched and compiled from scraps of different materials. This gradual degradation is a serious argument against the favourite theories of our fatuous and ridiculous optimists concerning 'mankind's steady and constant progress to something better'. For this purpose, they would like to distort and falsify the history of the race of bipeds, but this is indeed a problem that is very difficult to solve. However, we cannot help picturing to ourselves the first race of men, sprung somehow from the womb of nature, as in a state of complete and childish ignorance and consequently as crude and dull. Now how is such a race supposed to have invented these extremely ingenious structures of language, these many different and complex grammatical forms, even assuming that the vocabulary was gradually accumulated? On the other hand, we see men everywhere adhere to the language of their fathers and only very gradually make minor alterations in it. Experience, however, does not tell us that languages are perfected grammatically in the course of successive generations, but rather, as I have said, the very opposite of this; thus they are for ever becoming simpler and worse. Nevertheless, are we to assume that the life of a language is like that of a plant which, sprouting from a single seed, a simple, insignificant, young shoot, slowly develops, reaches its zenith, and then gradually grows old and declines, but that, in the case of language, we have information only of this decline and not of the previous growth? This is only a figurative hypothesis and, moreover, one that is quite arbitrary; a simile, but not an explanation! Now to arrive at such an explanation, the most plausible thing seems to me the assumption that man invented language instinctively, since there is originally in him an instinct by virtue whereof he produces, without reflection and conscious intention, the instrument that is absolutely necessary for the use of his faculty of reason and the organ thereof. When language once exists and that instinct is no longer brought into use, the latter is in the course of generations gradually lost. Now all works that are produced from mere instinct, such as the cell-structures of bees and wasps, the lodges of beavers, and the nests of birds, appearing in such a variety of always appropriate and suitable forms, have their own characteristic completeness and perfection, in that they are and achieve precisely what their purpose demands, so that we marvel at the profound wisdom inherent in them. It is the same with the first and original language that had the great perfection of all works of instinct. To trace this for the purpose of bringing it into the light of reflection and clear consciousness, is the work of grammar which first appeared thousands of years later.
§ 299
The learning of several languages is not only an indirect, but also a direct, means of acquiring culture; an intellectual means that is profoundly effective. Hence the utterance of Charles V: 'When one knows many languages, just as many times is one a man. (Quot linguas quis callet, tot homines valet.) The thing itself is due to the following.
For every word in a given language there is not the exact equivalent in every other; and so not all the concepts described by the words of one language are exactly the same as those expressed by the words of another; although this is often the case, sometimes surprisingly so, as for example with uu;>v"TJtJ;tC; and conceptio, Schneider and tailleur; but they are often concepts that are merely similar and cognate, yet different through some modification. Meanwhile, the following examples may help to make clear what I mean:
[x], rudis, roh, coarse.
[x], impetus, Andrang, pressure.
[x], Mittel, medium, means.
seccatore, Qualgeist, importun, tiresome person.
ingenieux, sinnreich, clever.
Geist, esprit, wit.
Witzig, facetus, plaisant, funny.
Malice, Bosheit, wickedness.
Countless other, and certainly even more striking, examples may be added to the list. With the method, usual in logic, of rendering concepts perceptible through circles, this close identity could be expressed by circles which cover one another approximately, but yet are not quite concentric, thus:
Sometimes the word for a concept is wanting in one language, whereas it is to be found in most, if not all, other languages. A positively scandalous example of this is furnished in French by the absence of a word for the verb to stand. Again, for some concepts there is only in one language a word which then passes into the others, such as the Latin 'affect', the French naif, and the English' comfortable', 'disappointment', 'gentleman', and many others. Sometimes a foreign language expresses a concept with a nuance which our own language does not give to it and with which we then exactly conceive it. Everyone, who is concerned with the precise expression of his own ideas, will then use the foreign word without paying any attention to the yelping of pedantic purists. In all cases where, in one language, not exactly the same concept is expressed by a definite word as in the others, the dictionary renders this by several expressions that are akin to one another, all of which aim at the meaning of the word, yet not concentrically, but close to it on different sides, as in the above figure. In this way, the limits between which it lies are plotted; thus, for example, the Latin word honestum will be rendered by 'fair', 'decent', 'respectable', 'honourable', 'glorious', 'esteemed', 'virtuous', and so on. The Greek word [x] can be treated analogously.* This is the reason for the necessarily defective nature of all translations. We are hardly ever able to translate from one language into another any characteristic, pregnant, and significant passage in such a way that it would produce the same effect precisely and completely. Poems cannot be translated, but merely recast, which is always a precarious proceeding. Even in mere prose the best of all translations will at most be related to the original as the transposition of a given piece of music into another key is to the piece itself. Those who understand music know the importance of this. Every translation, therefore, remains dead and its style is forced, stiff, and unnatural; or it becomes free, in other words, rests content with an it peu pres and is, therefore, incorrect. A library of translations is like a picture gallery of copies. Even the translations of the authors of antiquity are a substitute for them just as is chicory coffee for the real thing.
Accordingly in learning a language, the chief difficulty lies in getting to know every concept for which it has a word, even when our own language does not possess a word that corresponds exactly to this, as is often the case. When learning a foreign language we must, therefore, mark out in our minds several entirely new spheres of concepts. Consequently concept-spheres arise where there were previously none; and so we learn not merely words, but gain concepts and ideas. This is especially the case when we learn the ancient languages, since the mode of expression of the ancients is much more different from our own than is that of modem languages from one another. This is shown by the fact that, when we translate into Latin, we must resort to turns of phrase quite different from those possessed by the original. In fact in many cases, the idea to be rendered into Latin has to be entirely remoulded and recast; here it is broken down into its ultimate elements and is again recomposed. The great improvement derived by the mind from learning the ancient languages is due precisely to this process of recasting. Only after we have correctly grasped all the concepts which the language to be learnt expresses through separate individual words; only when we directly call to mind in the case of each word of the language exactly the concept that corresponds thereto and do not first translate the word into a word of our own language and then think of the concept expressed by this word-a concept that never corresponds exactly to the first one and likewise in respect of whole phrases-only then have we grasped the spirit of the language to be learnt and have made a great step forward in our knowledge of the nation that speaks it. For just as the style of the individual is related to his spirit, so is the language related to the spirit of the nation that speaks it.* But a man is a complete master of a language only when he is capable of translating into it not merely books but himself, so that, without suffering a loss of individuality, he is able to convey in it what he wants to say and is then just as agreeable and interesting to foreigners as he is to his own countrymen.
Those of limited ability will not readily master a foreign language in the real sense of the term. They learn the foreign words, it is true, but always use them only in the sense of their approximate equivalent in their own tongue, and invariably retain the idioms and phrases peculiar thereto. However, it is the spirit of the foreign language which they are unable to master; and this is really due to the fact that their thinking itself does not take place from their own resources, but is for the most part borrowed from their mother tongue, whose current idioms and phrases are for them equivalent to original ideas. And so even in their own language they always merely make use of hackneyed phrases (phrases banales, abgenutzte Redensarten); and even these are put together with so little skill that we see how imperfectly aware they are of their meaning and how little their whole thinking goes beyond the mere words, so that it is not very much more than parrot chatter. For the opposite reason, originality of idiom and individual fitness of every expression used by a man are an infallible symptom of outstanding intellect.
From all this it is clear that, with the learning of every foreign language, new concepts are formed to give meaning to new symbols; that concepts are separated which previously combined to form a wider, and thus less definite, concept simply because only one word existed for them; that connections and references, previously not known, are discovered because the foreign language expresses the concept of its own characteristic trope or metaphor; that accordingly by means of the newly acquired language, we become conscious of an immense number of nuances, analogies, variations, differences, and relations of things; and that we thus obtain a more comprehensive view of everything. Now it follows from this that in each language we think differently; that in consequence, through the study of each new language, our thinking undergoes a fresh modification, a new shading; and that polyglottism with its many indirect uses is, therefore, a direct means if mental culture, since it corrects and perfects our views through the striking number of the aspects and nuances of concepts. It also increases the skill and quickness of our thinking since through our learning many languages the concept becomes ever more separated from the word. The ancient languages, by virtue of their great difference from our own, achieved this to an incomparably greater degree than the modern, a difference that does not allow us to translate word for word, but requires that we shall remould our whole idea and recast it in another form. (This is one of the many reasons for the importance of learning ancient languages.) Or, if I may use a chemical simile, whereas translation from one modern language into another demands at most that the period to be translated is decomposed into its nearest and first ingredients and is recomposed therefrom, translation into Latin very often requires a decomposition into its remotest and ultimate elements (the pure content of thoughts), whence it is then regenerated into entirely different forms. For example, what is expressed by substantives in the one case is expressed by verbs in the other, and vice versa. The same process takes place when we translate from ancient into modern languages; and from this we can see how remote is an acquaintance with ancient authors which is made by means of such translations.
The Greeks dispensed with the advantage of language study, whereby they certainly saved a great deal of time, which they then spent less economically, as is testified by the long daily saunterings of the free citizens in the [x]. [1] This reminds us even of the lazzaroni and of all the stir and movement in the Italian piazza.
Finally from what has been said, it can readily be seen that imitating the style of the ancients in their languages, which in grammatical perfection far surpass our own, is the best possible way of preparing ourselves for the expression of our ideas skilfully and perfectly in our own mother tongue. In fact, this is absolutely necessary if a man is to become a great author; just as it is necessary for the budding sculptor and painter, before proceeding to works of their own, to train and educate themselves by imitating the models and examples of antiquity. It is only through writing Latin that we learn to treat diction as a work of art whose material is language which must, therefore, be treated with the greatest care and caution. Accordingly, increased attention is then given to the meaning and value of words, their combination and grammatical forms. We learn to weigh these carefully and exactly and thus to handle the precious material which is capable of assisting the expression and preservation of valuable ideas. We learn to have respect for the language in which we write, so that we do not set about it in an arbitrary and capricious fashion for the purpose of remodelling it. Without this preliminary schooling, writing readily degenerates into mere jargon.
The man who does not understand Latin resembles one who happens to be in a fine country during foggy weather; his horizon is extremely limited. He sees clearly only those things that are quite near to him; a few steps beyond and everything is lost in vagueness and indefiniteness. The horizon of the Latin scholar, on the other hand, is very wide and covers recent centuries, the Middle Ages, and antiquity. Greek and also Sanskrit naturally extend the horizon very much further. Those who do not understand Latin belong to the crowd, even if they are great virtuosi on the electrical machine and have in their crucibles the basic ingredient of hydrofluoric acid.
In your authors who understand no Latin, you will soon have none but blustering barber's assistants. They are well on the way to this with their Gallicisms and their phrases that must be light and facile. Well, my noble Germans, to coarseness and vulgarity you have turned and coarseness and vulgarity are what you will find. A positive indication of indolence and a hotbed of ignorance are the editions of Greek, and even (horribile dictu) [2] Latin, authors which have the audacity to appear with German notes! What an infamous business! How can any pupil learn Latin if in the meantime he is always spoken to in his mother tongue? In schola nil nisi latine [3] was, therefore, a good old rule. The humour of the situation is that the professor cannot write Latin with ease and the pupil cannot read it with ease, whatever stand you may take. Behind them, therefore, are indolence and her daughter ignorance, nothing else; and it is scandalous. The one has learnt nothing, and the other will learn nothing. Cigar smoking and pot-house politics have in our day ousted scholarship and learning, just as for big children picture-books have taken the place of critical reviews and literary journals.
§ 299a
The French, including the academies, treat the Greek language scandalously. They take over its words for the purpose of disfiguring them. For example, they write etiologie, esthetique, and so on, whereas it is in French alone that the two letters ai are together pronounced as in Greek. Again we have bradype, Oedipe, Andromaque, and many others; that is to say, they write Greek words as would a French peasant youth who had caught them from the lips of a foreigner. It would really be quite pleasant if French scholars would at any rate try to look as though they understood Greek. To see the noble Greek language recklessly mutilated for the benefit of a nauseating jargon, such as is French by itself (this shockingly spoilt Italian with the long hideous end-syllables and the nasal sound), is like watching a large West Indian spider devour a humming bird, or a toad a butterfly. Now as the gentlemen of the Academy always address one another with the title mon illustre confrere, [4] which through mutal reflection has an impressive effect especially at a distance, I request the illustres confreres for once to consider the matter carefully. And so I ask them either to leave Greek alone and to manage with their own jargon, or to use Greek words without mutilating them; the more so as, when they contract and distort these, we frequently have great difficulty in guessing the Greek word that is so expressed, and thus in unravelling the meaning of the expression. I ought to mention in this connection the exceedingly barbarous practice, customary among French scholars, of fusing together a Greek and a Latin word; pomologie for example. Well, my illustres confreres, such things savour of barber's assistants. In this censure I am perfectly justified, for in the republic of learning political boundaries are of as little consequence as they are in physical geography; and the boundaries of languages exist only for those who are ignorant; but louts and Philistines should not be tolerated in this republic.
§ 300
It is right and even necessary that an increase of concepts should be accompanied by an addition to the vocabulary of a language. If, on the other hand, the latter occurs without the former, it is merely a sign of poorness of intellect which would indeed like to produce something and, as it has no new ideas, comes forward with new words. The enrichment of the language in this way is now very much the order of the day and a sign of the times. But new words for old concepts are like a new dye on an old garment.
Incidentally, and merely because the example happens to be under discussion, we should use the words 'former and latter' only when, as above, each of these expressions represents several words and not when it represents only one, where it is better to repeat that one word. Generally speaking, the Greeks did not hesitate to do this, whereas the French are most anxious to avoid it. The Germans sometimes get mixed up with their formers and latters to such an extent that we no longer know what is before and what behind.
§ 301
We look down on the written characters if the Chinese; but as the task of all these is to create in the rational minds of others concepts through visible signs, it is obviously a very roundabout proceeding first to present to the eye only a symbol of their audible symbol and first of all to make this the supporter of the concept, whereby our written character is only a symbol of the symbol. And so the question is asked what advantage the audible symbol has over the visible to induce us to leave the straight path from the eye to the faculty of reason and to go the long way round of letting the visible symbol speak to the mind of another first by means of the audible; whereas it would obviously be simpler to make the visible symbol, after the manner of the Chinese, the direct supporter of the concept and not the mere symbol of the sound. It would be simpler because the sense of sight is susceptible to more and finer modifications than is that of hearing and also because it permits a co-existence of impressions whereof the affections of hearing, on the other hand, as being given exclusively in time, are not capable. Now the reasons, here asked for, would probably be the following: (1) By nature, we resort first of all to the audible symbol in order to express primarily our emotions, but subsequently also our ideas. In this way, we arrive at a language for the ear before we have even thought of inventing one for the eye. But later on, where it becomes necessary, it is shorter to reduce the visible language to the audible than to invent, or let us say learn, an entirely new, and indeed quite different, language for the eye, especially as it was soon discovered that the thousands of words could be reduced to very few sounds and thus be easily expressed by means thereof. (2) It is true that the eye can apprehend a greater diversity of modifications than can the ear; but without organs we cannot produce such modifications for the eye as we can for the ear. Moreover, we could never produce the visible symbols and make them change as rapidly as we can the audible by virtue of the tongue's volubility. Evidence of this is given also by the imperfect nature of the finger-language of deaf-mutes. Therefore from the very first, this makes hearing the essential sense of language and thus of our faculty of reason. Accordingly, at bottom, there are only external and accidental grounds, not those that have sprung from the essential nature of the question itself, why the direct path is here, by way of exception, not the best one. Consequently, if we consider the matter in the abstract, purely theoretically, and a priori, the method of the Chinese would be the really correct one; so that one could reproach them only with a little pedantry in so far as they have here taken no account of the empirical circumstances that recommend a different path. Meanwhile, experience has brought to light a very great advantage of the Chinese characters, namely that, to express ourselves therein, we do not need to know Chinese, but everyone reads them off in his own language, just as we read off our numerical symbols which in general are for numerical concepts what the Chinese characters are for all concepts, and algebraical signs are even for abstract concepts of quantities. Therefore, as I was assured by an English tea-merchant who had been to China five times, Chinese characters are throughout the Indian Ocean the common medium whereby merchants of very different nations understand one another, although they have no language in common. My English friend was even definitely of the opinion that in this capacity those characters would one day spread all over the world. An account which agrees entirely with this is given by J. F. Davis in his work The Chinese, London, 1836, chap. 15.
§ 302
The deponent verbs are the only irrational and even absurd feature of the language of the Romans; and it is much the same as regards the middle voice in Greek.
But a special defect in Latin is that fieri represents the passive of facere. This implies and implants in the rational mind of the person learning the language the fatal error that everything which is or at any rate has come into existence, is something made [ein Gemachtes]. In Greek and German, on the other hand, [x] and werden are not regarded directly as the passives of [x] and machen. In Greek I can say: [x]; but this could not be rendered literally into Latin as it can be into German: nicht jedes Gewordene ist ein Gemachtes [not everything that has originated is something that has been made].
§ 303
The consonants are the skeleton and the vowels the flesh of words. The former (in the individual) is unchangeable, the latter very changeable, in colour, character, and quantity. Therefore in the course of centuries or even when passing from one language into another, words generally preserve their consonants but readily change their vowels; and so in etymology we should pay much more attention to the consonants than to the vowels.
Of the word superstitio we find all kinds of etymologies collected in Delrio's Libri disquisitionum magicarum, lib. I, c. I, and also in Wegscheider's Institutiones theologiae christianae dogmaticae, Prolegomena, c. I, § 5, d. I suspect however, the origin of the word to be in its having from the first expressed merely a belief in ghosts, namely: defunctorum manes circumvagari, ergo mortuos adhuc SUPERSTITES esse. [5]
I hope I am not saying anything new when I observe that [x] and forma are the same word and are related in the same way as are renes and Nieren, horse and Ross. Likewise of the similarities between Greek and German, one of the most significant is that in both the superlative is formed by st (-[x]), whereas such is not the case in Latin. I would sooner doubt that we already know the etymology of the word arm [poor], namely that it comes from [x], eremus, Italian ermo; for arm means 'where there is nothing' and hence 'deserted', 'empty'. (Jesus ben Sirach 12: 4: [x] for 'to make poor', 'to impoverish'.) On the other hand, I trust that it is already known that Unterthan [subject, vassal] comes from the Old English Thane, vassal, which is frequently used in Macbeth. The German Luft [air] comes from the Anglo-Saxon, preserved in the English words lofty, the loft, le grenier, since originally the upper part, the top, the atmosphere, was expressed by the word Luft just as we still have in der Luft for oben. The Anglo- Saxon first has retained in English its more general meaning, but in German it survives in the word Furst, princeps.
Further, I consider the words Aberglauben [superstitions] and Aberwitz [mania, craziness] to have come from Ueberglauben and Ueberwitz by way of Oberglauben and Oberwitz (like Ueberrock, Oberrock; Ueberhand, Oberhand), the O being then corrupted into A, as conversely A has been corrupted into O in Argwohn [suspicion] instead of Argwahn. I also believe that Hahnrei [cuckold] is a corruption of Hohnrei, an expression that we see retained in English as an exclamation of derision, o hone-a-rie! It occurs in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: With Notices of his Life, by Thomas Moore, London, 1830, vol. i, p. 441. Generally speaking, English is the storehouse where we again find archaic German words and also the original meaning of those German words that are still in use; for example, the above-mentioned Furst in its original meaning of 'the first', princeps. In the new edition of the original text of Deutsche Theologie I know and therefore understand many words merely from the English. It is surely no new idea that Epheu comes from Evoe.
Es kostet MICH is nothing but a solemn, affected, and time-honoured error of speech. Kosten, like the Italian costare, comes from constare. Therefore es kostet mich is me constat instead of mihi constat. Dieser Lowe kostet mich cannot be said by the owner of the menagerie, but only by the man who is being eaten by the lion. [6]
The resemblance between coluber [serpent] and Kolibri [humming-bird] must be entirely fortuitous, or else, since humming-birds are to be found only in America, we should have to look for its source in the earliest history of the human race. Different or even antagonistic as the two animals are, since the Kolibri [humming-bird] is often the praeda colubri, [7] a confusion is conceivable in this case, analogous to that in consequence whereof aceite in Spanish means 'oil', not 'vinegar' [Essig]. Moreover, we find an even more striking agreement between many names, originally American, and those of European antiquity, for example between the Atlantis of Plato and Aztlan, the ancient indigenous name for Mexico, which is still to be found in the names of the Mexican towns of Mazatlan and Tomatlan; and between the name of the mountain Sorata in Peru and Soractes (Italian Sorate) in the Appennines.
§ 303a
Our German scholars of today (according to an article in the Deutsche Vierteljahrs-Schrift October-December 1855) divide the German (diuske) language into the following branches: (1) the Gothic; (2) the Norse, i.e. Icelandic, whence we get Swedish and Danish; (3) the North German, whence we have Low German and Dutch; (4) the Friesian; (5) the Anglo-Saxon; (6) the High German, which is said to have appeared at the beginning of the seventh century and is divided into Old, Middle, and Modern High German. This entire system is by no means new, but has already been proposed, also with a denial of Gothic origin, by Wachter, Specimen glosarii germanici, Leipzig, 1727. (See Lessing's Kollektanea, vol. ii, p. 384) But I believe that in this system there is more patriotism than truth, and I back that of the honest and discerning Rask. Coming from Sanskrit, Gothic is divided into three dialects, Swedish, Danish, and German. Nothing is known of the language of the ancient Germans and I venture to surmise that such a language was entirely different from the Gothic and so also from modern German. The Germans are Goths, at any rate so far as language is concerned. Nothing annoys me more than the expression Indo-Germanic languages, that is, the language of the Vedas brought into line with some jargon of the aforesaid idlers. Ut nos poma natamus! [8] The so-called Germanic, more correctly Gothic, mythology together with the myth of the Nibelungen and so on, was to be found much more highly developed and genuine in Iceland and Scandinavia than among our German idlers, and indeed Norse antiquities, objects found in tombs, runic characters, and so forth, when compared with the German, are evidence of every kind of higher cultural development in Scandinavia.
It is remarkable that no German words are found in French as they are in English, for in the fifth century France was occupied by Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks, and was ruled by Frankish kings.
Niedlich [neat, dainty] from Old German Neidlich = Beneidenswerth [to be envied]. Teller [plate] from patella. Viande from the Italian vivanda. Spada, espada, epee, from [x], sword, used in this sense, [or example, by Theophrastus in Ethici characteres, chap. 24, [x]. Affe [ape] from Afer because the first apes introduced to the Germans by the Romans were described by this word. Kram [goods, chattels] from [x] [mixture], [x] [to mix, to compound]. Taumeln [to stagger] from temulentus [intoxicated]. Vulpes and Wolf are probably connected in some way due to the confusion of two species of the genus canis. It is highly probable that Welsch is merely a different pronunciation of Galisch [Gaelic], i.e. Celtic, and meant to the ancient Germans the non-German, or rather non-Gothic, language; whence it now means Italian in particular, thus the Romance language. Brod [bread] comes from [x]. Volo and [x] or rather [x] are radically the same word. Heute [today] and oggi both come from hodie, and yet do not bear any resemblance to one another. The German Gift [poison] is the same as the English gift; thus it comes from geben [to give] and states what is administered [eingegeben]; hence also vergeben [to confer, bestow] instead of vergiften [to poison]. Parlare probably comes from perlator, bearer, messenger; hence the English word parley. To dye is evidently connected with [x], [x] [to wet, to smear], just as tree is with [x]. Geier [vulture] is from Garhuda, the eagle of Vishnu. Maul [muzzle] from mala. Katze [cat] is the contracted form of catus. Schande [disgrace] is from scandalum which is probably related to the Sanskrit chandala. Ferkel [young pig] is from ferculum [dish, course] because it comes on to the table whole. Plarren [to snivel] is from pleurer and plorare. Fullen, Fohlen is from pullus. Poison and Ponzonna from Potio. Baby from Bambino. Brand, Old English; brando, Italian. Knife and canif are the same word, possibly of Celtic origin. Ziffer, cifra, chiffre, ciphre, probably come from the Welsh and hence Celtic Cyfrinach, Mystery. (Pictet, Mystere des bardes, p. 14.) The Italian tuffare [mergere] and the German taufen [to baptize] are the same word. Ambrosia appears to be related to Amriti; the Aesir are probably akin to [x] [fate, destiny]. [x] is identical with labbern [to gabble] both as regards the word and the sense. [x] is Aile. Seve is Saft [sap]. It is strange that the word Geiss [she-goat] is Zieg [goat] reversed. The English bower, Laube, is the German Bauer meaning 'cage' as in Vogelbauer.
I know that Sanskrit scholars and philologists are inclined to derive etymology from its sources in quite a different way; nevertheless I hope that it is still possible to glean many a fruitful morsel from my dilettantism in the subject.
________________
Notes:
* The Greek [x] [prudence] has no adequate equivalent in any language.
* To be really master of several modern languages and to read them with ease is a way of setting ourselves free from that national narrow-mindedness which usually sticks to everyone.
1 ['Market-place'.]
2 ['Horrible to relate'.]
3 ['In school only Latin should be spoken.']
* ['My illustrious colleague'.]
5 ['That the spirits of the departed wander about and hence the dead are still standing near or surviving'.]
6 [The transitive verb kosten means 'to taste', 'to sample'.]
7 ['The prey of the serpent'.]
8 ['See how we apples swim!']