CONNEXION OF WORDS—THE WORD "FREIGHT."
The word employed to denote freight, or rather the price of freight, at this day in the principal ports of the Mediterranean, is nolis, nolo, &c. In the Arabian and Indian ports, the word universally employed to denote the same meaning is nol. Are these words identical, and can their connexion be traced? When we consider the extensive commerce of the Phœnicians, both in the Mediterranean and Indian seas, that they were the great merchants and carriers of antiquity, and that, in the words of Hieron, "their numerous fleets were scattered over the Indian and Atlantic oceans; and the Tyrian pennant waved at the same time on the coasts of Britain and on the shores of Ceylon"—it is natural to look to that country as the birthplace of the word, whence it may have been imported, westward to Europe, and eastward to India, by the same people. And we find that it is a pure Arabic word,
نول
nawil and
نولن
nawlun, or nol and nolan, both signifying freight (price of carriage), from the root
نوه
noh, pretium dedit, donum. I am not aware that the word freight (not used in the sense of cargo or merchandise, but as the price of carriage of the merchandise, merces pro vectura) is to be found in the Old Testament, otherwise some light might be thrown on the matter by a reference to the cognate Hebrew word.
But here an interesting question presents itself. The word freight in Greek is ναῦλος or ναῦλον, and in Latin naulum. Have these any connexion with the Arabic word, or are they to be traced to an independent source, and the coincidence in sense and sound with the Arabic merely accidental? If distinct, are the words now in use in the Mediterranean ports derived from the Greek or the Arabic? If the words be not identical, may not the Greek be derived from the Sanscrit, thus
nau, or in the pure form
nawah, or resolved, naus, a ship or boat;
nauyáyin quasi nouyáyil, or abbreviated naul, that which goes into a ship or boat, i.e. freight, fare, or, by metonyme, the price of freight, or passage-money. It is to be noted that nolis, though in general use in the Mediterranean ports (Marseilles, for example) to denote the price of freight, or of carriage, is not so in the northern parts of France. At Havre the word is frêt, the same as our freight, the German fracht, viz. that which is carried or ferried, and, by metonyme, as before, the price of carriage.
J. Sh.
Bombay.