| dâ-s-yâ-mi, | dâ-s-ya-si, | dâ-s-ya-ti, | dâ-s-yâ-mas, | dâ-s-ya-tha, | dâ-s-ya-nti, |
Greek (δω-εσ-ιω):—
| δώ-σ-ω,[21] | δώ-σ-εις, | δώ-σ-ει, | δώ-σ-ομεν, | δώ-σ-ετε, | δώ-σ-ουσι. |
Latin:—
| pot-ero, | pot-erĭs, | pot-erit, | pot-erĭmus, | pot-erĭtis, | pot-erunt. |
A verbal form of very frequent occurrence in Sanskrit is the so-called gerundive participle which signifies that a thing is necessary or proper to be done. Thus from budh, to know, is formed bodh-ya-s, one who is to be known, cognoscendus; from guh, to hide, gúh-ya-s, or goh-ya-s, one who is to be hidden, literally, one who goes to a state of hiding or being hidden; from yaj, to sacrifice, yâj-ya-s, one who is or ought to be worshipped. Here, again, what is going to be becomes gradually what will be, and lastly, what shall be. In Greek we find but few analogous forms, such as ἅγιος, holy, στύγ-ι-ος, to be hated; in Latin ex-im-i-us, to be taken out; in Gothic anda-nêm-ja, to be taken on, to be accepted, agreeable, German angenehm.[22]
While the gerundive participles in ya are formed on the same principle as the verbal bases in ya of the passive, a number of substantives in ya seem to have been formed in close analogy to the bases of denominative verbs, or the bases of neuter verbs, in all of which the derivative ya expresses originally the act of going, behaving, and at last of simple being. Thus from vid, to know, we find in Sanskrit vid-yâ, knowing, knowledge; from śi, to lie down, śayyâ; resting. Analogous forms in Latin are gaud-i-um, stud-i-um, or with feminine terminations, in-ed-i-a, in-vid-i-a, per-nic-i-es, scab-i-es; in Greek, μαν-ί-α, ἁμαρτ-ί-α, or ἁμάρτ-ι-ον; in German, numerous abstract nouns in i and e.[23]
This shows how much can be achieved, and has been achieved, in language with the simplest materials. Neuter, denominative, causative, passive verbs, optatives and futures, gerundives, adjectives, and substantives, all are formed by one and the same process, by means of one and the same root. It is no inconsiderable portion of grammar which has thus been explained by this one root ya, to go, and we learn again and again how simple and yet how wonderful are the ways of language, if we follow them up from stratum to stratum to their original starting-point.
Now what has happened in these cases, has happened over and over again in the history of language. Everything that is now formal, not only derivative suffixes, but everything that constitutes the grammatical framework and articulation of language, was originally material. What we now call the terminations of cases were mostly local adverbs; what we call the personal endings of verbs were personal pronouns. Suffixes and affixes were mostly independent words, nominal, verbal, or pronominal; there is, in fact, nothing in language that is now empty, or dead, or formal, that was not originally full, and alive, and material. It is the object of Comparative Grammar to trace every formal or dead element back to its life-like form; and though this resuscitating process is by no means complete, nay, though in several cases it seems hopeless to try to discover the living type from which proceeded the petrified fragments which we call terminations or suffixes, enough evidence has been brought together to establish on the firmest basis this general maxim, that Nothing is dead in any language that was not originally alive; that nothing exists in a tertiary stratum that does not find its antecedents and its explanation in the secondary or primary stratum of human speech.
After having explained, as far as it was possible in so short a time, what I consider to be the right view of the stratification of human speech, I should have wished to be able to show to you how the aspect of some of the most difficult and most interesting problems of our science is changed, if we look at them again with the new light which we have gained regarding the necessary antecedents of all language. Let me only call your attention to one of the most contested points in the Science of Language. The question whether we may assign a common origin to the Aryan and Semitic languages has been discussed over and over again. No one thinks now of deriving Sanskrit from Hebrew, or Hebrew from Sanskrit; the only question is whether at some time or other the two languages could ever have formed part of one and the same body of speech. There are scholars, and very eminent scholars, who deny all similarity between the two, while others have collected materials that would seem to make it difficult to assign such numerous coincidences to mere chance. Nowhere, in fact, has Bacon’s observation on this radical distinction between different men’s dispositions for philosophy and the sciences been more fully verified than among the students of the Science of Language:—Maximum et velut radicale discrimen ingeniorum, quoad philosophiam et scientias, illud est, quod alia ingenia sint fortiora et aptiora ad notandas rerum differentias; alia ad notandas rerum similitudines. . . . . . Utrumque autem ingenium facile labitur in excessum, prensando aut gradus rerum, aut umbras.[24] Before, however, we enter upon an examination of the evidence brought forward by different scholars in support of their conflicting theories, it is our first duty to ask a preliminary question, viz.: What kind of evidence have we any right to expect, considering that both Sanskrit and Hebrew belong, in the state in which we know them, to the inflectional stratum of speech?