Though I state these views on the authority of M. Pictet, I think it right to add the following note which an eminent Irish scholar has had the kindness to send me:—“The ordinary name of Ireland, in the oldest Irish MSS., is (h)ériu, gen. (h)érenn, dat. (h)érinn. The initial h, is often omitted. Before etymologizing on the word, we must try to fix its Old Celtic form. Of the ancient names of Ireland which are found in Greek and Latin writers, the only one which hériu can formally represent is Hiberio. The abl. sing. of this form—Hiberione—is found in the Book of Armagh, a Latin MS. of the early part of the ninth century. From the same MS. we also learn that a name of the Irish people was Hyberionaces, which is obviously a derivative from the stem of Hiberio. Now if we remember that the Old Irish scribes often prefixed h to words beginning with a vowel (e.g. h-abunde, h-arundo, h-erimus, h-ostium), and that they also often wrote b for the v consonant (e.g. bobes, fribulas, corbus, fabonius); if, moreover, we observe that the Welsh and Breton names for Ireland—Ywerddon, Iverdon—point to an Old Celtic name beginning with iver—, we shall have little difficulty in giving Hiberio a correctly latinized form, viz. Iverio. This in Old Celtic would be Iveriu, gen. Iverionos. So the Old Celtic form of Fronto was Frontû, as we see from the Gaulish inscription at Vieux Poitiers. As v when flanked by vowels is always lost in Irish, Iveriû would become ieriu, and then, the first two vowels running together, ériu. As regards the double n in the oblique cases of ériu, the genitive érenn (e.g.) is to Iverionos as the Old Irish anmann ‘names’ is to the Skr. nâmâni, Lat. nomina. The doubling of the n may perhaps be due to the Old Celtic accent. What then is the etymology of Iveriû? I venture to think that it may (like the Lat. Aver-nus, Gr. Ἄφορ-νος) be connected with the Skr. avara, ‘posterior,’ ‘western.’ So the Irish des, Welsh deheu, ‘right,’ ‘south,’ is the Skr. dakshina, ‘dexter,’ and the Irish áir (in an-áir), if it stand for páir, ‘east,’ is the Skr. pûrva, ‘anterior.’
“M. Pictet regards Ptolemy's Ἰουερνια (Ivernia) as coming nearest to the Old Celtic form of the name in question. He further sees in the first syllable what he calls the Irish ibh, ‘land,’ ‘tribe of people,’ and he thinks that this ibh may be connected not only with the Vedic ibha, ‘family,’ but with the Old High German eiba, ‘a district.’ But, first, according to the Irish phonetic laws, ibha would have appeared as eb in Old, eabh in Modern-Irish. Secondly, the ei in eiba is a diphthong = Gothic ái, Irish ói, óe, Skr. ê. Consequently ibh and ibha cannot be identified with eiba. Thirdly, there is no such word as ibh in the nom. sing., although it is to be found in O'Reilly's dictionary, along with his explanation of the intensive prefix er—, as ‘noble,’ and many other blunders and forgeries. The form ibh is, no doubt, producible, but it is a very modern dative plural of úa, ‘a descendant.’ Irish districts were often called by the names of the occupying clans. These clans were often called ‘descendants (huí, hí, í) of such an one.’ Hence the blunder of the Irish lexicographer.”—W. S.
Benfey, Grammatik, § 147:—
Roots of the 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 classes: 226
Roots of the 1, 4, 6, 10 classes: 1480
Total: 1706, including 143 of the 10th class.
If two words are placed like jin ta, the first may form the predicate of the second, the second being used as a substantive. Thus jin ta might mean the greatness of man, but in this case it is more usual to say jin tci ta.
“Another instance, chen, virtue; Ex. jin tchi chen, the virtue of man; chen, virtuous; Ex. chen jin, the virtuous man; chen, to approve; Ex. chen tchi, to find it good; chen, well; Ex. chen ko, to sing well.”—Stanislas Julien.
M. Stanislas Julien remarks that the numerous compounds which occur in Chinese prove the wide-spread influence of the principle of agglutination in that language. The fact is, that in Chinese every sound has numerous meanings; and in order to avoid ambiguity, one word is frequently followed by another which agrees with it in that particular meaning which is intended by the speaker. Thus:—
chi-youen (beginning-origin) signifies beginning.
ken-youen (root-origin) signifies beginning.
youen-chin (origin-beginning) signifies beginning.
meï-miai (beautiful-remarkable) signifies beautiful.
meï-li (beautiful-elegant) signifies beautiful.
chen-youen (charming-lovely) signifies beautiful.
yong-i (easy-facile) signifies easily.
tsong-yong (to obey, easy) signifies easily.
In order to express “to boast,” the Chinese say king-koua, king-fu, &c., both words having one and the same meaning.
This peculiar system of juxta-position, however, cannot be considered as agglutination in the strict sense of the word.