Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/334

324 affirmative particles which characterized their respective dia- lects, and served as landmarks of the provinces in which they prevailed — oil — and oc. From oil that belonging to the North of France, came the modern French oui by drop, ping the l; as at the present day they constantly pronounce Neuilly, Neuiy, the l being hardly perceptible; and as in Italian, it was after a consonant supplanted by the vowel i. Le Duchat in his notes to Menage has justly remarked that this fact of its having been oil overthrows the Etymology of "hoc est" which his author maintains to be the true one. At the same time he suggests one rather more improbable, "hoc illud"! Home Tooke's adoption of the derivation from oui^ the part participle of ouir, is a good specimen of the practice of fitting etymologies on to words as they exist at present, without taking the trouble of searching into their history. This becomes valueless the moment one recurs to the earlier form oil. Grimm, whilst he does not consider the conjecture satisfactory, suggests that oil may be a modification of the particle ja joined with the pronoun of the third person, like the German ja er, and oc the same particle with the first person ic, equivalent to ja ich. The analogy of nenil is strongly in favour of this derivation and the objection that we find them applied to all persons as well as the third and first is not conclusive, for words in such frequent use might very soon cease to be changed ac- cording to the sense, especially if formed in the intercourse of two races, imperfectly acquainted with each other's language; a circumstance which may account for the adoption of the Roman pronoun il in one case, and the German ich in the other. The use of the negative of the third or first person for all the others does not appear more irregular than such phrases as the Greek where the grammatical connection is completely gone; if indeed the question be asked why the Provencal should have selected the first, and the Northern dialect, the third person, I do not know that we can assign a more satisfactory reason, than for the fact, that the Italians took the termination of the ablative for their nouns in the singular number, and the Spaniards that of the accusative for their nouns in the plural.