| ἐρυθρὸς | ruber | |
| rufus |
παχὺς, pinguis
βραχὺς, brevis
| βραδὺς | tardus | |
| βαρδὺς |
χαὸς, cavus
τέρην, tener
πλέος, plenus
μείων, minor
μάσσων, major
νέος, novus
ἄλλος, alius
ὄρθος, ordo[539]
ὕπτιος, supinus
γραῦς, gravis
| λεπτὸς | levis | |
| lentus |
λεῖος, lævis
γενναῖος, gnavus
δέξιος, dexter
ὅλος, solus
ἡδὺς, suavis
πικρὸς, acris[540].
Classes of words which differ.
A very extensive list of perhaps one hundred or more verbs might be added, which are either identical or nearly related in the Greek and Latin languages: but it would not, I think, materially enlarge or diminish the general effect of those words which have been enumerated. We have before us about one hundred and eighty words in the classes of substantive and adjective only. They might nearly form the primitive vocabulary of a rustic and pacific people. Two exceptions may be named, which may deserve remark. It will be observed, that the senses are inadequately represented, only two of them, smell and taste, being included. The other three are also connected in the two languages as follows: touch, by the relation of θιγγάνω and tango: sight, by εἴδω and video: hearing, by the evident connection of the Latin audire with the Greek αὔδη, the proper name in Homer for the voice.
The other marked exception is that of religion. With slender exceptions, such as θεὸς = deus, the connection of rex with ῥέζω, of numen with νεύω, of λοιβὴ with libo, and that of ἀράομαι, ἀρητὴρ with orare, orator, ara, there is a considerable want of correspondence in the leading words, such as ἱερὸς, ἅγιος, θύω, βῶμος, νῆον, ἄγαλμα, σέβω, μάντις, of the one tongue, and sacer, sanctus, pius, templum, vates, macto, mola, of the other. The greater part of the Pelasgian vocabulary must have been displaced on the one side or on the other: and as it is in Greece that we have much fuller and clearer evidence of the advent of a superior race, which gave its own impress to life and the mind in the higher departments of thought, we must conclude that this substitution probably took place in Greece, and was of Hellenic for Pelasgian words.
The proposition of Niebuhr with respect to terms of war, appears to me to be in the main well sustained by the facts. Let us take for example the following list: which appears to show that, in this department, with the exception of a pretty close relation between βέλος and telum, and a more remote one between πόλεμος and bellum, possibly also between lorica and θώρηξ, there is hardly in any case the faintest sign of relationship between the customary terms employed in the two languages for the respective objects.