Aryan Philology According to the Most Recent Researches

§ 1. In the first part of this book, the part in which we shall discuss the individual elements of the Aryan languages, and in the first place the sounds, we rejoice that it is our duty to begin with the praises of a distinguished Italian philologist, who appears in the foremost rank among those who have continued the work admirably begun by Bopp, by J. Grimm, by Pott, by Diez. The Corsi di glottologia1 of G. I. Ascoli, as may be clearly seen from the first instalment, form a work such that even German science might well be proud of it. They will comprise "Comparative phonology of Sanscrit, Greek and Latin," "General introduction to morphology," "Comparative morphology" of the three languages mentioned, and "Iranian phonology." "Far, however, from confining myself," writes the author, "rigorously within the restricted limits of the 2 three languages, I shall, in the Italic province, constantly

1 Corsi di glottologia dati nella R. Academia scientifico-letteraria di Milano, Vol. i. Lezioni di fonologia comparata del sanscrito, del greco e del latino, Torino e Firenze, E. Loescher, 1870, Part i. pp.

i-xvi. 1-240. For the scientific life of Ascoli, see the Cenni sopra alcuni indianisti viventi of De Gubernatis, Firenze, 1872 (extracted from the Rivista Europea). 2 Ibid. pp. 2-3.

have regard also to the deciphered remains of Oscan and Umbrian, and to the Neo-Latin or Romance dialects; I shall not neglect Modern Greek, and I shall allow myself further to trench also upon the other regions of the Aryan. world, as often as it may seem useful and appropriate for the illustration of those three which have been more especially assigned to us." For reasons both pædagogic and scientific Ascoli does not propose, like Schleicher, to "deduce the Sanscrit, the Greek or the Latin form from the corresponding Proto-Aryan form:" he takes his starting-point from the Sanscrit form which in general remained most faithful of all to the primitive type; "but," he writes, "in comparing together these three historic forms we shall not, for all that, ever omit to push our investigation as far as their common source." What a task the illustrious philologist has set himself in the composition of his work is clearly seen from the following words which we read in the Preface: "The ideal was this to lead him who followed me, point by point, from the first elements to the ultimate niceties of knowledge, without making him experience any sudden shock, without any sacrifice of clearness, without letting the exposition run counter to that natural continuity which exists in the manifold developments of the primitive germs." The first instalment, which as yet has not been followed by another, contains six lectures, the last being incomplete: in the first are put forth some Preliminary remarks; the subject of the 2nd and of the 3rd is The guttural tenuis; of the 4th The guttural media; in the 5th are discussed The aspirates in general and the guttural aspirates in particular; in the 6th are treated the palatals and linguals. This first sample 3 of Ascoli's work, rich in important researches and splendid promises, was greeted with good reason by the most competent critics with candid and ready welcome.

1 Ibid. pp. 5-9.

Ibid. p. ix.

Suffice it to mention the judgments of Benfey1 and of Schweizer-Sidler, who consented to revise the German translation of Ascoli's book by Bazzigher: an unwonted and deserved compliment. And to these judgments we might add that of Whitney, who regarded as much to be deplored the delay in the promised continuation of the work of Ascoli; and that of the French "Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres," which, on the 29th of July 1870, honoured with a prize the Lectures (Corsi), although as yet incomplete, of the Italian philologist. And indeed the portion of them published is indubitably, as SchweizerSidler well remarked, one of the most important works which have appeared during the last few years in the course of the historical investigation of the word. The results of the preceding researches are there seen not only collected and expounded with diligence and exactness, but also subjected to a prudent and independent criticism, and augmented by the researches of the author, at whose uncommon breadth of learning and rare power of analysis and synthesis we are again and again forced to marvel. The exposition of Ascoli puts before us not only the results of the investigation, but the entire progress of this investigation itself, portraying with a fidelity which we might call photographic, all the intellectual labour of the author, and training us to scientific research. The style and language 4 of Ascoli have been frequently, at least in private conversations of Italian scholars, made the subject of vigorous

1 Göttingische gelehrte anzeigen, 1870, i. 793-98.

2 Zeitschrift für vergleichende sprachforschung, etc., xxi. 257-66.

3 Vorlesungen über die vergleichende lautlehre des sanskrit, des griechischen und des lateinischen, etc. I. Halle, 1872.

5 The researches into the Romance dialects more recently given to the public by Ascoli in the Archivio glottologico italiano, established and conducted by him, won him two more prizes, viz., the Bopp prize in 1874, and in the following year the first prize of the Society for the

4 Rivista Europea, anno 4o, I. study of the Romance languages at

criticisms. It is not our intention to maintain that in the book under discussion, and in the other writings of the distinguished philologist, the form is always both clear and pure, and genuinely Italian: but it appears to us right and proper to observe that, besides the merits of exactness and thoroughness which no-one could deny, it must be especially commended as far as regards Italian linguistic nomenclature, which Ascoli has enriched by some technical terms almost all chosen and employed with the happiest daring. We cannot, and we will not, disguise the fact that Ascoli's method does not seem to us the most fitted to initiate the profane into the first studies of philology: but, when any one has begun to read the pages of Ascoli con amore, we believe it may with reason be said that he has learnt much.

Among the subjects treated by the author, one appears to us particularly worthy of attentive consideration-the history of the guttural tenuis (Lectures 2nd and 3rd, pp. 27-95). In the exposition we will follow as far as possible Ascoli himself, availing ourselves frequently of his words. The most notable transformations of this sound in the Aryan languages may be represented by three phonological equations, of which the first is the following Sanscrit and Zend = Lithu-Slavonic sz, s (Lithuanian sz, Slavonic s) = Greek and Latin k. Example: Sanser. Zd. çata- [cento] = Lith. szìm-ta-s, Bulgarian suto =Gr. É-Kaтó-v, Lat. centu-m. This equation shows us the Proto-Aryan & weakened to a sibilant in Indian, Iranic, Lithuanian, and Slavonic, but preserved exempt from such 5 alteration in the other languages of our stock. As Ascoli

1 For the physiological analysis of this sound, and of the cognate sounds, see the quite recent essay of Sievers, Grundzüge der lautphysiologie zur einführung in das studium der lautlehre der indogermanishen spra

chen, Leipzig, 1876, pp. 59-62. We invite the attention of students also to the Phonetische streitfragen, published by Hofforg in the Zeitschr. f. vgl. sprachforsch., xxiii. 525-58.

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