Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/411

X all linguistic literature, ancient and modern, teems; which have been drawn out, with infinite expenditure of ill-directed ingenuity and misapplied labour, from the vocabularies of tongues of every age and every clime. There is not one among them which has not a much higher primâ facie plausibility than the identity of évêque and bishop, or of filius and hijo, or than numberless others of the true etymologies established upon sufficient evidence, by the scientific student of languages: but their value is in seeming only; they are baseless and worthless, mere exemplifications of the effects wrought by the process we are considering—the process which brings out accidental analogies, phonetic and significant, between words historically unrelated. The greater portion of false etymologies are to be ascribed directly to its influence; and their number is a sufficient and striking proof of the wide extent of its action, the frequency and variety of the results it produces.

The fact is well established, that there are no two languages upon the face of the earth, of however discordant origin, between which may not be brought to light by diligent search a goodly number of these false analogies of both form and meaning, seeming indications of relationship, which a little historical knowledge, when it is to be had, at once shows to be delusive, and which have no title to be regarded as otherwise, even if we have not the means of proving their falsity. It is only necessary to cast out of sight the general probabilities against a genetic connection of the languages we are comparing (such as their place and period, their nearer connections, and the pervading discordance of their structure and material), and then to assume between them phonetic transitions not more violent than are actually proved to be exhibited by other tongues—and we may find a goodly portion of the vocabulary of each hidden in that of the other. Dean Swift has ridiculed the folly which amuses itself with such comparisons and etymologies, in a well-known caricature, wherein he derives the names of ancient Greek worthies from honest modern English elements, explaining Achilles as 'a kill-ease,' Hector as 'hacked-tore,' Alexander the Great as 'all eggs under the grate!' and so