CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION.
The names of rivers form a striking commentary on the history of language, so admirably expounded to the general reader in the recent work of Professor Max Müller.
When we review the long list of words that must have once had the meaning of water or river, we can hardly fail to be struck with the number that have succumbed in what he so aptly terms "the struggle for life which is carried on among synonymous words as much as among plants and animals."
We see too how large a portion of this long list of appellatives may ultimately be traced back to a few primary roots. And how even these few primary roots may perhaps be resolved into a still smaller number of yet more simple forms.
I take for instance, as a primitive starting point in river-names, the Sansc. root î, â, or ay, signifying to move, to flow, to go. We have appellatives even in this simple form, as the Old Norse â, Anglo-Sax. aê, water, river. But whether they directly represent the root, or whether, like the French eau, p. [30], they have only withered down to it again, after a process of germinating and sprouting, I do not take upon me to determine.
Then we have the roots, also of the kind called primary, ab, ar, ir, ag, ikh, il, it, all having the same general meaning, to move, to go, and from which, as elsewhere noticed, are also derived a number of appellatives for water or river in the various Indo-European languages. I should be inclined to suggest that the whole of these are formed upon, and are modifications of the simple root î, â, or ay, and that the following remarks made by Max Müller respecting secondary roots, may be extended also to them. "We can frequently observe that one of the consonants, in the Aryan languages, generally the final, is liable to modification. The root retains its general meaning, which is slightly modified and determined by the changes of the final consonants." He instances the Sansc. tud, tup, tubh, tuj, tur, tuh, tus, all having the same general meaning, to strike.
Again—there are forms such as ang, amb, and, &c., which are merely a strengthening of the roots ag, ab, ad, or at, and which also are found in a number of appellative forms.
We might pursue the subject still further, and enquire whether the secondary forms, such as sar, sal, car, cal, all having the same general meaning, to move, to go, may not be formed, by the prefix of a consonant, on the roots ar and al, and so also be ultimately referred to the simple root î or â.