In the works of Horne Tooke and others it has been abundantly shown that Pronouns are merely Nouns, viz. Names of the Human Species, “Man, Woman,” &c. In other words they belong to a section of the terms of the First Class.
Hence it will be manifest that an analysis, completely embracing numerous specimens of nouns of the First Class, virtually embraces also numerous specimens of words of the Four other Classes, which, together with the First, compose the principal elements of Human Language. For it must be observed that—
Though the African nouns belonging to the First Class form the only basis or subject of inquiry, the inquiry itself will be found to embrace an extended comparison of those nouns with the kindred terms of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Classes, which are discoverable in the languages of the other three continents.
Finally, a principle must here be stated and applied, which will be more fully illustrated hereafter.
The names of Objects can be shown in a great variety of instances to be identical with Verbs or terms descriptive of some dominant or conspicuous quality which those Objects display.
This remark applies even to the terms for the Members of the Human Frame, and other Objects of which the names are included in the First Class of Words,—as appears by abundant illustrations in works of authority and research confined to an investigation of the European languages. But the same truth may be much more clearly and unequivocally demonstrated even by the most cursory examination of more ancient and therefore more primitive tongues, such as the Hebrew and the Sanscrit. The application of this principle will be found to unfold a wide range of facts serving to connect the languages of Africa with those of the other Continents; the same terms, which present themselves as Nouns or Conventional names in the languages of Africa, occurring in a great variety of examples in those of the other continents, unaltered or very slightly changed in sound, fulfilling the functions of the corresponding descriptive terms or verbs. Here it may be remarked that the descriptive or metaphorical character, which originally belonged to nouns, and the various modes in which the same objects are susceptible of description, may be viewed as the source of these numerous names for the same objects. But this is a subject which will be more fully discussed in a subsequent part of this work.
The following examples will serve to illustrate at once the principle last stated, and also another principle before suggested, viz. that “The Hand”[24] and its perceptions have metaphorically given names in many instances—not only to the faculties of the Mind,—but also to the other perceptive organs and their functions. For further illustrations, see Appendix A, p. [65], and the subsequent pages.
Tom, (Heb.) “To try,” “To try an experiment,” “To perceive.”
Tom, “The Hand,” (Mexico.)