only, and is modified to rima or dima.* In the original
sense of hand, it has a cognate in th^Celtie lamh.f
The remainder of the numerals are more remote from the
Indo-European. M. Bopp has subjected them to a most
elaborate etymological dissection, in the course of which he
has pointed out analogies with the Indo-European numerals,
but they are perhaps remote, and require in aid too many
conditions supported by slight evidence to afford any result
that carries full Conviction.
Baron v. Humboldt seems to have been strongly inclined
to the opinion that there is an essential connection between
the Indo-European and the Malayo-Polynesian languages' in
the system of pronouns belonging to each family. Bopp has
devoted a particular memoir to the elucidation of this affinity,
which he regards as indubitable. I shall lay before my
readers some of the most striking of the facts which he has
pointed out.
He observes that the Sanskrit, and all the languages most’
nearly allied to it, agree in forming the pronoun of the first
person singular by means of two roots, one of which we find
in the nominative, with a guttural for its consonant, (I, Ich);
the other, beginning with m, forms the oblique cases. This
prevails through nearly all the Arian languages of Europe
and Asia. The Celtic, however, has mi for its nominative^
In the Malayo-Polynesian, which have nothing like inflection
or declension, we could not expect to find this0precise fact,
but it is observable that both the forms, analogues of uh or
ihf and of me, occur in words denoting the pronoun of the
first person, though in different numbers. The Sanskrit aham,
ego, is represented by the Malecassian ahau, contracted in
* So observes Bopp. Humboldt says the word lima, rima, riPma> dima
retains the meaning; of. hand only in the South Sea, Polynesia, dnd in Bali,
Borneo, and Celebes. Elsewhere, as in Malay, it is only the number J iv e .
The word used for ten means also, in the Hawaiian, the. hand. /Humb,. K. S.
3 Th. S. 308.
f Dr’ bepsius derives the word expressing ten in all Indo-European languages
from'the Maeso-Gothic, Tai-hun, viz. tm karris. Taihan ri the next
form; iheaeedashan, -decern, dig, he.
the New Zealand into au. The,.other dialects take Alike the
Grothic, tk; as Malay, dAfiff Javan,, aha; Tagala, aco. The
Tonga, Tahitian, and Hawaiian dialects* like the, English*
drop'the and keep only the vowel form
au, for ahu or aku. Many laqguagek take ku as a suffix
possessive.
Most of the Polynesian dialects have also the other form
of thif Same pronoun, like the .Sanskrit and its, sister languages^
this occurs in the dual and plural (we two, and we.»
rifiEis) as follows:—dual, md~ua, N. Z., ma-ua, Tahiti,
ma-ua, Haw.; plural,. ma-tu,4m,: Z , 0i*iou, Tah,r ma-kou,
Haw.
In expressing the second person, tu, Sanskrit iwa, the
Malayo-Polynesian sometimes retains the t ; in other cases,
like many languages,df Europe and Asia, changes it for a k.
In Kawi ta stands for thou. There is a peculiar, pronoun
expressing thou and I together. It is ./a-ua in NffZ. and
Tah. The Tagala has icao, and iff short, ea for ta, thou;
and on this Bopp remarks the coincidence with the Semitic
languages, whieh take kd for the suffix pronoun of the second
person. The near relationship and easy mutual substitution
of thp guttural or palatine for the dental consonant is noted
as a point of connection dr resemblance iff pronouns of the
Indo-European and Semitic languages, in some of: s which it is
more strongly marked than in the Malayo-Polynesian. The
Hebrmo-African dialects, the Ghyz, Berber, &c. carry the
substitution of'the guttural for the dental further than the
other Semitic languages, as they not only usje.A iff tffe secppd,
person of Hie v e ro b u t * In the first.* Bopp a^yerts for
an a lo g to the Armenian, in which t and A. are,,, the pronominal
signs of the second person of vdrbs, and a® such are
interchanged for each other: M tu, thou, kho, tuus, khiez,
tibi. He might have pointed out analogies iff the Finaish
and Tartarian languages. The possessive, thine, is in Tahitian
to, Haw. Ao.
Third person. Several Indo-European languages want a
* See Mr. F. W. Newman’s Essay,on the,Hebraeo-African languages appended
to the fourth volume of my Researches.