The following are some examples of permutation affecting the H:—
Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin hard sounds become Aspirate sounds in English; example:—
| Sanskrit, hrid (= krid) Greek, kardia Latin, cor-dis | } | = | English Heart. |
The true English Aspirate corresponds to the Sanskrit K, and has nothing to do with the old Aryan H. The Latin H in habere has no Aryan root, and remains unexplained. English have is related to the Latin capere, not habere.
Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin Aspirates, represented by g:—
| Sanskrit, Hansa Greek, chen Latin, (h)anser | { | = | English, goose. German, gans. Russian, gus. Breton, gwaz. |
Some of the other changes that H undergoes in Indo-European languages may be briefly summarized:—
| H = ch, | example: | Lat. | humus, | Gr. | chama. |
| H = chth | „ | „ | hes, heri, | „ | chthes. |
| H = s | „ | „ | septum, | „ | hepta. |
| H = w | „ | „ | many Greek words discarded the digamma for the Aspirate. | ||
That H = f, has been shown in a Sabine and a Spanish example (page [24]), and the same may be seen in a few French words—e.g., Lat. foris, Fr. hors; and Lat. fabulari, Fr. habler. But the descendants of the Gauls are not chargeable with having reduced this last word to its present stunted condition; the mutilation of fabulari was another act of vandalism perpetrated at an early date in Spain, the word having (according to Brachet[[14]]) crossed the Pyrenees, disguised as “hablar” in the sixteenth century.
Disguises still more extraordinary happen in the Gothic languages. H is exchangeable with c. This substitution, together with the subsequent disappearance of the H, are causes of confusion, and often effectually conceal the relationship of cognate words. At first sight the English word raw seems to be considerably less than kin to the Italian crudo; but on collating the several synonymous words—English, raw; (Dutch, raauw); Saxon, hreaw; Latin, cruor and crudus; (French, cru), and Italian crudo; their family likeness and community of origin become a little more discernible.