I wonder did the German historian take his cue from the conjecture of the Irish lexicographer? It is literally marvellous if he did not; for, by a most unaccountable coincidence, while tracing the foundation of a name, descriptive of two localities at opposite points of this mundane ball, one boldly asserts, and the other more than insinuates, that its root is to be found in one and the same English word!—and this, too, when those countries were blazing in glory, before three words of the English language were broken into train!
A difference, however, breaks out amongst those partners, which seems to sever the prospects of their metallic union. It is, that though each would make iron to be the substratum of their respective hobbies, yet would my namesake have his so called as abounding therein; whereas, the professor, who betrays a respectable insight into geology, and fearing that the womb of Persia could not conceive so hard an ore, wishes us at once to believe that it acquired its ancient epithet from the fixedness of that metal; and thus would one ex abundantiâ, and the other ex similitudine, have the common name of Iran for Ireland and for Persia be derived from an English word, which was not concocted for many centuries after the decay of those two regions, when the very metal it represented first grew into use![142]
“Moullah Feroze, an excellent Palahvi scholar, tells me,” says Sir John Malcolm, “that Iran is the plural of Eir, and means the country of believers.” And again, when he had occasion to consult his oracle, he states the answer as follows:—
“I gave this inscription[143] to Moullah Feroze, a learned priest of the Parsees, at Bombay, and he assured me that the translation of De Sacy was correct. Feroze explained the word An-Iran to mean unbelievers. Eer, he informed me, was a Pehlivi word, which signified believer; Eeran was its plural: in Pehlivi, the a or an prefixed is a privative, as in Greek or Sanscrit; and consequently, An-Eeran meant unbelievers. The king of Eeran and An-Eeran he interpreted to mean king of believers and unbelievers; of Persia and other nations. It was, he said, a title like king of the world. This however,” adds Sir John, of himself, “is like all conjectures founded on etymology, very uncertain.”
It was natural enough that Sir John should express himself slightingly as to a mode of proof, the principle of which he must have seen violated in so many instances; and, independently of this, it is an infirmity in human nature to affect disregard for any knowledge which we do not ourselves understand. I do not mean, however, to vindicate Feroze’s interpretation; on the contrary, I purpose to show that it is not only imperfect, but incorrect; yet while doing so, I am bound to acknowledge, that, if he has not hit off the whole truth, he has a part of it; and even this is such a treat, in the wilderness through which we have been groping for some time back, that I welcome it as an oasis, and offer him my thanks thus beforehand.
To prove however, that he is in error, I need but confine myself to the unravelling of his own words. At first he affirms that Eeran is the plural of Eer, and means the country of believers; if so, the singular must mean the country of a believer; but he tells us afterwards, that Eer signifies a believer alone, consequently Eeran must believers alone, without any consideration of the word country. And the same inconsistency, which manifests itself here, applies with equal strictness to An-Eiran also.
Should these papers ever reach the observance of this distinguished foreigner, whom I appreciate even for his approximation to the precincts of the thought, they will, I doubt not, readily disabuse him of a radical misconception. Eeran is not a plural at all, but a compound word: its constituents being Eer and An,[144] of which the former signifies Sacred and the latter a Territory. So that the united import will be the Sacred Territory; and An-Eeran, of course, is but its negative.
This exposition I gain from the Irish language, which I take to be the primitive Iranian or Persic language. By it I am furthermore enabled to inform the German “professor” that Turan, though now inhabited by “Nomad tribes,” obtained not its name from that circumstance, but from a widely different one. Tur[145] means prolific, whether as regards population or rural produce; and An, as before, a territory—the whole betokening a prolific territory.[146] And he should remember, what he is not at all unconscious of, that eastern denominations are not varied by recent occupants, but continue in uninterrupted succession, from age to age, as imposed at the outset.