TSAR.
(Vol. viii., p. 150.)
The difficulty in investigating the origin of this word is that the letter c, "the most wonderful of all letters," says Eichhoff (Vergleichung der Sprachen, p. 55.), sounds like k before the vowels a, o, u, but before e, i, in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, as s, in Italian as tsh, in German as ts. It is always ts in Polish and Bohemian. In Russian it is represented by a special letter ц, tsi; but in Celtic it is always k. Conformably with this principle, the Russians, like the Germans, Poles, and Bohemians, pronounce the Latin c as ts. So Cicero in these languages is pronounced Tsitsero, very differently from the Greeks, who called him Kikero. The letter tsi is a supplementary one in Russian, having no corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet, from which the Russian was formed in the ninth century by St. Cyril. The word to be sought then amongst cognate languages as the counterpart of tsar (or as the Germans write it czar) is car, as pronounced in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch. The most probable etymological connection that I can discover is with the Sanscrit
T. J. Buckton.
Birmingham.
In Voltaire's History of the Russian Empire, it is stated that the title of Czar may possibly be derived front the Tzars or Tchars of the kingdom of Casan. When John, or Ivan Basilides, Grand Prince of Russia, had completed the reduction of this kingdom, he assumed this title, and it has since continued to his successors. Before the reign of John Basilides, the sovereigns of Russia bore the name of Velike Knez, that is, great prince, great lord, great chief, which in Christian countries was afterwards rendered by that of great duke. The Czar Michael Federovitz, on occasion of the Holstein embassy, assumed the titles of Great Knez and Great Lord, Conservator of all the Russias, Prince of Wolodimir, Moscow, Novogorod, &c., Tzar of Casan, Tzar of Astracan, Tzar of Siberia. The name of Tzar was therefore the title of those Oriental princes, and therefore it is more probable for it to have been derived from the Tshas of Persia than from the Roman Cæsars, whose name very likely never reached the ears of the Siberian Tzars on the banks of the Oby. In another part of Voltaire's History, when giving an account of the celebrated battle of Narva, where Charles XII., with nine thousand men and ten pieces of cannon, defeated "the Russian army with eighty thousand fighting men, supported by one hundred and forty-five pieces of cannon," he says, "Among the captives was the son of a King of Georgia, whom Charles sent to Stockholm; his name was Mittelesky Czarowitz, or Czar's Son, which is farther proof that the title of Czar or Tzar was not originally derived from the Roman Cæsars." To the above slightly abbreviated description may not be uninterestingly added the language of Voltaire, which immediately follows the first reference:
"No title, how great soever, is of any signification, unless they who bear it are great and powerful of themselves. The word emperor, which denoted only the general of an army, became the title of the sovereigns of Rome and it is now conferred on the supreme governor of all the Russias."
A Hermit at Hampstead.
I beg to inform J. S. A. that the right word is Tsar, and that it is the Russian word answering to our king or lord, the Latin Rex, the Persian Shah, &c. There may be terms in other languages that have an affinity with it, but I believe we should seek in vain for a derivation.
T. K.