Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/284

262 French compter (where the p is still written, though not pronounced)—in fact, the same word as the evidently made-up compute? Of apparent monosyllabic verbal roots like this, which are readily proved by a little historical study to be of polysyllabic origin, or to contain the relics of formative processes, our language contains no small number: other instances are preach from pre-dicare, vend from venum-dare, blame from Greek blas-phēmein; don and doff from do on and do off; learn, of which the n is a passive ending, added to lere, 'teach,' whence comes lore, 'doctrine;' to throng, a denominative from the noun throng, which is derived from thring (Anglo-Saxon thringan), 'press,' lost in our modern use (as if we were to lose sing, and substitute for it to song, from the derived noun song); to blast, a like denominative from blast, a derivative from blæsan, 'to blow, blare;' and so on. Such are to be found also abundantly in other languages, modern and ancient; why not as well among the alleged Indo-European roots? Now there can be no question whatever that such additions to the stock of verbal expression have been produced at every period of the growth of language, not only throughout its recorded career, but also in times beyond the reach of historic analysis. There is not a known dialect of our family which does not exhibit a greater or less number of seeming roots peculiar to itself; and of these the chief part may be proved, or are to be assumed, to be of secondary origin, and not at all entitled to lay claim to the character of relics from the original stock, lost by the sister dialects. Even the Sanskrit, upon which we have mainly to rely for our restoration of Indo-European roots, possesses not a few which are such only in seeming, which are of special Aryan or Indian growth, and valueless for the construction of general Indo-European etymologies. And, yet farther, among those very radical syllables whose presence in the tongues of all the branches proves them a possession of the original community before its dispersion, there are some which show the clearest signs of secondary formation. As a single example, let us take the root man, 'think' (in Latin me-min-i, moneo, mens; Greek men-os, man-tis; Lithuanian men-û;