ON THE TUSHI LANGUAGE.
READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
FEBRUARY THE 15TH. 1858.
So little light has been thrown upon the languages of Caucasus, that a publication of the year 1856, entitled Versuch über die Thusch-Sprache, by A. Schieffner, may be allowed to stand as a text for a short commentary.
The Tushi is a language belonging to the least known of the five classes into which Klaproth, in his Asia Polyglotta, distributes the languages of Caucasus: viz. (1.) the Georgian. (2.) the Osset or Iron. (3.) the Lesgian. (4.) the Mizhdzhedzhi. And (5.) the Tsherkess or Circassian. It is to the fourth of these that the Tushi belongs; the particular district in which it is spoken being that of Tzowa, where it is in contact with the Georgian of Georgia; from which, as well as from the Russian, it has adopted several words.
The data consist in communications from a native of the district, Georg Ziskorow, with whom the author came in contact at St. Petersburg. They have supplied a grammatical sketch, a short lexicon, and some specimens in the way of composition, consisting of translations of portions of the Gospels, and two short tales of an Arabic or Persian rather than a truly native character. They are accompanied by a German translation.
Taking the groups as we find them in Klaproth, we may ask what amount of illustration each has received in respect to its grammar. In respect to the vocabularies, the Asia Polyglotta gives us specimens of them all.
The Georgian has long been known through the grammar of Maggi, published upwards of two centuries ago. The researches of Rosen on its several dialects are quite recent. Of the Iron there is a copious dictionary by Sjögren, and a short sketch of its grammar by Rosen. The alphabet is Russian, with additions. Rosen has also given a grammatical sketch of the Circassian: This, however, as well as his notice of the Osset, is exceedingly brief. Of the Lesgian we have no grammar at all; and of the Mizhdzhedzhi, or Tshetshent group, the first grammatical sketch is the one before us.
The alphabet is the ordinary Roman modified; the work being addressed to the Russians rather than the natives, and to the European savans in general rather than to the Russians. Otherwise the Georgian alphabet might have been used with advantage; for it is especially stated that the Georgian and Tushi sound-systems are alike. The modifications to which our own alphabet has been subjected, are those that Castrèn has made in his Samoyed grammar and lexicon. So that we may say that it is in Castrèn's Samoyed mode of writing that Schieffner's Tushi grammar and lexicon are exhibited.
In respect to the general relations of the language, the evidence of the work under notice is confirmatory (though not absolutely) of the views to which the present writer has committed himself, viz.—(1.) that the languages of Caucasus in general are so nearly mono-syllabic as to be with fitness designated pauro-syllabic; (2.) that the distinction drawn by Klaproth between the Mizhdzhedzhi and Lesgian groups is untenable; both belonging to the same class, a fact by which the philologic ethnography of Caucasus is, pro tanto, simplified. Upon the first of these points Schieffner writes, that the avoidance of polysyllabic forms has introduced all manner of abbreviations in the language; upon the second, that the little he has seen of the Lesgian grammar induces him to connect it with the Tshetshents. It should be added, however, that in respect to its monosyllabic character, he maintains that the shortness of many of its words is due to a secondary process; so that the older form of the language was more polysyllabic than the present.
Of the chief details, the formation of the cases of the nouns comes first. The declension of the personal pronouns is as follows. With a slight modification it is that of the ordinary substantive as well.
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—
| CARDINAL. | ORDINAL. | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | cha | duihre. |
| 2. | ṡi | silǵe. |
| 3. | x̣o | x̣alǵe. |
| 4. | ahew | dhewloǵe. |
| 5. | ṗxi | pxilǵe. |
| 6. | jeṫx | jeixloǵe. |
| 7. | worl | worloǵe. |
| 8. | barl | barloġe. |
| 9. | iss | issloġe. |
| 10. | itt | ittloġe. |
| 11. | cha-itt | cha-ittloġe. |
| 12. | si-itt | si-ittloġe. |
| 19. | tqeexç | iqeex̣cloġe. |
| 20. | tqa | tqalġe. |
This as a word 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 tqeexç is one from twenty=undeviginti:—
| 100 = | ṗxauztqa = 5 × 20. |
| 200 = | içatatq = 10 × 20. |
| 300 = | ṗxiiæatq = 12 × 20. |
| 400 = | tqauziq = 20 × 20. |
| 500 = | tqauziġ ṗxauztqa = 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 ḥe or ḥ; that of the conjunctive ḷe or ḷ.
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, xeṫi=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 xac̣e=hear, xac̣-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 ḥaṫxleen wa=the prophet is, ḥaṫxleensi ba=the prophets are, waṡo wa=the brother is, waṡar 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:—
Ab=father.
| 1. | S-ab=my father. | 2. | H-ab=our father. |
| W-ab=thy father. | S'-ab=your father. | ||
| L-ab=his father. | S-ab=their father. |
To which add—
| Sa-ra=I. | Ha-ra=we. |
| Wa-ra=thou. | S'a-ra=ye. |
| Ui=he. | U-bart=they. |
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 r 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 tx̣o 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.
ON THE NAME AND NATION OF THE DACIAN KING DECEBALUS, WITH NOTICES OF THE AGATHYRSI AND ALANI.
READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
APRIL 17TH 1854.
The text of Herodotus places the Agathyrsi in Transylvania (there or thereabouts). (See F. W. Newman On Scythia and the surrounding Countries, according to Herodotus, Philological Society's Proceedings, vol. i. p. 77.)
The subsequent authors speak of them as a people who painted (tattooed?) their bodies; the usual epithet being picti.
The same epithet is applied to the Geloni; also a population of the Scythia of Herodotus.
For accurate knowledge the locality of the Agathyrsans was too remote—too remote until, at least, the date of the Dacian wars; but the Dacian wars are, themselves, eminently imperfect in their details, and unsatisfactory in respect to the authorities for them.
There is every reason, then, for a nation in the locality of the Agathyrsi remaining obscure—in the same predicament (say) with the Hyperborei, or with the occupants of Thule.
But there is no reason for supposing the obliteration of the people so called; nor yet for supposing a loss of its name, whether native or otherwise.
Hence, when we get the details of Dacia we may reasonably look out for Agathyrsi.
How far must we expect to find their name unmodified? This depends upon the population through whom the classical writers, whether Latin or Greek, derived it. Now it is submitted, that if we find a notice of them in the fifth century A. D., and that in an account relating to Dacia and Pannonia, the medium has, probably, been different from that through which Herodotus, amongst the Greek colonies of the Black Sea, obtained his accounts. The details of this difference of medium are not very important, and the discussion of them would be episodical to the present paper, if not irrelevant. It is enough to remark, that a difference of medium is probable; and, as a consequence thereof, a difference in the form of the name.
This is preliminary and introductory to the notice of the following passage of Priscus, to whom we owe the account of one of the embassies to Attila—[a]Ὁ πρεσβύτερος ἧρχε τῶν Ἀκατζίρων καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν ἐθνῶν νεμομένων τὴν πρὸς τὸν Πόντον Σκυθικέν]. Another form (also in Priscus) is [a]Ἀκατίροι]. They are specially called Akatiri Hunni. Jornandes' form is Acatziri.
Place for place, this gives us the Agathyrsi of Herodotus as near as can be expected; and, name for name it does the same: the inference being that the Akatziri of Priscus are the descendants of the Agathyrsi of Herodotus. Of course, evidence of any kind to the migration, extinction, or change of name on the part of the population in question would invalidate this view. Such evidence, however, has not been produced, nor has the present writer succeeded in finding, though he has sought for it.
Descendants then of the Agathyrsi, and ancestors of the Akatziri may have formed part of the population of Dacia when Domitian and Trajan fought against Decebalus; a part that may have been large or small, weak or powerful, homogeneous with the rest of Dacia or different from it. Assuming it to have been different, it may still have supplied soldiers—even leaders. Decebalus himself may as easily have belonged to the Agathyrsan part of Dacia as to any other. A very little evidence will turn the balance in so obscure a point as the present.
Now, no German and no Slavonic dialects give us either the meaning of the name Decebalus or any name like it. It stands alone in European history. Where does it appear? In the history of the Turks. The first known king of the Turks bears the same name as the last of the Dacians. Dizabulus ([a]Διζαβούλος]) was that khan of the Turks of Tartary to whom Justinian sent an embassy when the Avars invaded the Eastern empire.
This (as is freely admitted) is a small fact, if taken alone; but this should not be done. The cumulative character of the evidence in all matters of this kind should be borne in mind, and the value of small facts measured by the extent to which they stand alone, or are strengthened by the coincidence of others. In the latter case they assume importance in proportion to the mutual support they give each other; the value of any two being always more than double that of either taken singly.
On the other hand, each must rest on some separate substantive evidence of its own. To say that Decebalus was an Agathyrsan because the Agathyrsans were Turks, and that the Agathyrsans were Turks because Decebalus was one of them, is illegitimate. There must be some special evidence in each case, little or much.
Now the evidence that the Agathyrsi were Turks lies in the extent to which (a) they were Scythians (Skoloti), and (b) the Scythians (Skoloti) were Turks;—neither of which facts is either universally admitted or universally denied. The present writer, however, holds the Turk character of the Agathyrsi on grounds wholly independent of anything in the present paper; indeed, the suggestion that the Acatziri are Agathyrsi is, not his, but Zeuss'.—(See Die Deutschen and die Nachbarstämme, v. Bulgari, p. 714.)
If Agathyrs- be Akatzir- in some older, what is the latter word in any newer form?—for such there probably is. Word for word, it is probably the same as Khazar, a denomination for an undoubtedly Turk tribe which occurs for the first time in Theophanes:—[a]Τοῦρκοι ἀπὸ τῆς ἐώας οὓς Χαζάρους ὀνομάζουσιν]. This is A. D. 626. Whether, however, the same populations were denoted is uncertain. There are certain difficulties in the supposition that they were absolutely identical.
It is not, however, necessary that they should be so. There might be more than one division of a great stock, like the Turk so called. Nay, they might have been populations other than Turk so designated, provided only that there were some Turk population in their neighbourhood so to call them. More than this. The word may be current at the present moment, though, of course, in a modified form. Suppose it to have been the Turk translation of pictus; or rather, suppose the word pictus to be the Latin translation of Agathyrs- (Akatzir-): what would the probable consequence be? Even this, that wherever there was a painted (or tattooed) population in the neighbourhood of any member of the great Turk stock, the name, or something like it, might arise. Be it so. If the members of the same Turk stock lay wide apart, the corresponding painted or tattooed populations lying wide apart also might take the same name.
The details suggested by this line of criticism may form the subject of another paper. In the present, the author hazards a fresh observation—an observation on a population often associated with the Agathyrsi, viz. the Geloni. Seeing that we have such forms as Unni (the Greek form is [a]Οὖννοι], not [a]Οὗννοι]) and Chuni (=Huns); Arpi and Carpi; Attuarii and Chattuari, &c.; and seeing the affinity between the sounds of g and k; he believes that the word Geloni may take another form and begin with a vowel (Elôni, Alôni). Seeing that their locality is nearly that of the Alani of a latter period; seeing that the middle syllable in Alani (in one writer at least) is long—[a]ἀλκήεντες Ἀλαῦνοι]; seeing that Herodotus, who mentions the Geloni, knows no Alani, whereas the authors who describe the Alani make (with one exception about to be noticed) no mention of the Geloni, he identifies the two populations, Geloni and Alani, or vice versâ. He deduces something more from this root l—n ([a]λ—ν]). Let the name for the Alans have reached the Greeks of the Euxine through two different dialects of some interjacent language; let the form it took in Greek have been parisyllabic in one case, whereas it was imparisyllabic in the other, and we have two plurals, one in -[a]οι], as [a]Γέλωνοι, Ἄλαυνοι, Ἄλανοι], and another in -[a]ες], as [a]Γέλωνες, Ἄλαυνες, Ἄλανες],—possible, and even probable, modifications of the original name, whatever that was. Now, name for name, [a]Αλανες] comes very near [a]Ελληνες]; and in this similarity may lie the explanation of the statement of Herodotus as to the existence of certain Scythian Greeks ([a]ἑλληνες Σκυθαι])—iv. 17. 108.
If so these Scythian Greeks were Alans.
The exception, indicated a few lines above, to the fact of only one author mentioning both Geloni and Alani, is to be found in Ammianus Marcellinus (xxxi. 2. 13. 14). The passage is too long to quote. It is clear, however, that whilst his Alani are spoken of from his own knowledge, his Geloni are brought in from his book-learning, i. e. from Herodotus.