more probable that the explanation of this fact is to be sought
in the more permanent preservation of such elements of
• speech, and in the original derivation of these languages, now
so greatly diversified, from a remote parent stock, rather than
in any organic tendency. The numerals, however,—namely,
the first ten, and particularly the first five,—afford, in the
opinion of M. Bopp, the most unequivocal evidence of affinity,
lie does not think it probable that the lowest numerals can
have been introduced among any people by foreigners,* On
this he places his chief stress. I must lay before my readers
some specimens of the sort of resemblance which he has
endeavoured to trace, and shall commence with the nuioerals.
1. The Sanskrit word for one, eka, is preserved:- in the
Greek Ihute^os, Sanskrit, ekataras, a comparative Jtrm*,? and
in exacTTog. In Latin we trace the same etymon in eocles. In
the Gothic, which affects, as i t is well known, aspirates ifor
palatines, we find kaihs, one-eyed, from the themes ha-ihat
with which the Latin ccecus may be compared; in, <ha-vfs,
one-handed, and in other analogous words.
In the Malayo-Polynesian dialects we fin d a syllable derivable
from eka, though not strictly used as a numeral ’ (Cp,
in the Tagala is an indefinite article; rendered un and un.fi
by Dom. de los Santos, as ca-tava,, un hombre, a man, which
may be rendered in Sanskrit hy eka-dhava. DouMedii this
particle means “ only one,” as Gaca-potol, rendered :.f‘ un solo
pezaro.” Humboldt considers the prefix ^ca, which is set
before ordinal numbers, as the same word; and Bppp, has
suggested that the ha, well known in the language .of New
Zealand, and in some of the most remote dialects, as a prefix
to several numerals, ha-tahi, for one, ka-riia, two, has a
similar origin, as if we should say one monad, one decad,
or one couple. |
This numeral is expressed by different words in various
Indo-European languages, in which the other numerals are
* This, if conceded fully, would oblige us to admit some Papua languages
into the groupe of idioms, according to this view of the subject a very comprehensive
one, which are supposed to have had an original affinity*,,
nearly identical; and various words for it occur in the Malayo-
Polynesian dialects Bopp observes, that this is owing to its
being interchanged .with detaonstrativejpronofins. Thus it is
in the Tagala and Malecassian isa, perhaps from the Sanskrit
demonstrative &sha, or etisa.
•. 2. Th*e second numeral is in ?the Malayan and Maorian
languages dua, ■ coinciding with the Indo-European cognate:
duct is modified in some dialects by an usual change of consonant
to lua, ruaJhWoo., ■
f .3/ The third numeral .is in the Taffitiatn and ip ih c fgmpte
language of Easter island,' where .ancient forms, are likely to
have been preserved, torouortbriL Asiljese languages always
separate two consonants by-an inteweningi vowel, torii is
equivalent to 4*6* which ds.not remote from tri,.the toot of this
word in many Indo-European- languages, and tolofi may be
compared with the Chaldee tells*
4. Four is in Malay ampat, in Maleoassiaii e$Qt, . or effete
tra, which probably stands; f o r | J$owifef&tw ,pr #ffa-
trdf i£inot remote from the Indo-European numeral, when
we take'into .consideration that / i s : the initiaL- COnsonant of
the Word that stands, for.,four in- several .of . these* languages,-
as in fidwor, four.'. The ordinary- \ and»
Nation of consonants, which al readyis,an established principle
in the comparison of Indo-European languages; shews-a very
near approach ofthe-Malecassian word for. four, ,effutTaf and
the Sanskrit chatwara, and fatrw is but - the Tegular modification
;of quadra, tstja, pedwar, fidwor.-'.
. A. In Tahitian pae may represent ’panGha &r %em, it being
the characteristic-off this dialect to reject, consonants from; the
middle of words.
The name for five, means, in many languages; a hand,
pointing to the physical origin of quinary and decimal arithmetic.
In the Hawaiian dialect; lima means both a hand
and the number five: it has both these^meanings in the Bugis
of Celebes : in the either dialects it’retains the'derived sense
* The analogy of the Sanskrit'^» with the TahitiatHoHi was pointed out
by HuHibbldt.* Kawi Sptache, 3Th. S.' 262* -