Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/230

212 cacak,' 'to crack, krachen.' With this sound corresponds a whole family of Peruvian words, of which the root seems to be the guttural cca, coming from far back in the throat; ccallani, 'to break,' ccatatani, 'to gnash the teeth,' ccacñiy, 'thunder,' and the expressive words for 'a thunder-storm,' ccaccaccahay, which carries the imitative process so much farther than such European words as thunder-clap, donner-klapf. In Maori, pata is 'to patter as water dropping, drops of rain.' The Manchu language describes the noise of fruits falling from the trees as pata pata (so Hindustani bhadbhad); this is like our word pat, and we should say in the same manner that the fruit comes pattering down, while French patatra is a recognized imitation of something falling. Coptic potpt is 'to fall,' and the Australian badbadin (or patpatin) is translated into almost literal English as pitpatting. On the strength of such non-Aryan languages, are we to assign an imitative origin to the Sanskrit verb-root pat, 'to fall,' and to Greek ?

Wishing rather to gain a clear survey of the principles of language-making than to plunge into obscure problems, it is not necessary for me to discuss here questions of intricate detail. The point which continually arises is this, — granted that a particular kind of transition from sound to sense is possible in the abstract, may it be safely claimed in a particular case? In looking through the vocabularies of the world, it appears that most languages offer words which, by obvious likeliness or by their correspondence with similar forms elsewhere, may put forward a tolerable claim to be considered imitative. Some languages, as Aztec or Mohawk, offer singularly few examples, while in others they are much more numerous. Take Australian cases: walle, 'to wail;' bung-bung-ween, 'thunder;' wirriti, 'to blow, as wind;' wirrirriti, 'to storm, rage, as in fight;' wirri, bwirri, 'the native throwing club,' seemingly so called from its whir through the air; kurarriti, 'to hum, buzz;' kurrirrurriri, 'round about, unintelligible,' &c.;