Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan Volume 1-3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 Excerpt: ... so far from being visionary, or mere accidental coincidences, would, he believed, be found to rest, in nearly every instance, on a true philological basis. He did not agree with the objection made to this paper that the only true way to study the affinities of language was to begin with the grammatical construction. It was a much readier and surer way to begin with the comparison of vocables. The first word adduced by Mr. Aston, na, English name, which had been objected to as a false example, is certainly of Aryan origin. The word runs through most of the oriental languages. In India its pronunciation fluctuates between nam and nao, while the Sanskrit is naman, the two forms corresponding to the Japanese na and namaye. Mr. Brown thought the suggestion, in the paper read, that the changes of form in Aryan words found in Japanese, were regulated by determinate and discoverable laws, was an important one; and he thought it a confirmation of this idea that the Bonzes, in transliterating Indian terms into Japanese characters, invariably represent the Sanskrit letters by the values which Mr. Aston gives them, h or/ for the Sanskrit p, ph and b, and k for the Sanskrit h. The Sanskrit ti is naturally softened to tsi or chi, the sibilant being intercalated for ease or euphony, as it is also, not unfrequently, in the Western languages. In philological inquiries similarity of sound is not alone a proof of radical identity; we must also trace the historical connection of the words compared. Nor does dissimilarity of sound disprove identity; words that are very unlike in pronunciation often prove to. have been originally the same. For example, the English word pot and the Japanese hachi are as far apart as they well could be, and yet, on historical grounds, we must pro...