REMARKS

ON THE

SCOTS LANGUAGE.

THE science of Etymology has, of late years, fallen into disrepute, rather, I believe, from the ignorance or negligence of some of its professed admirers, than because it is of little utility or importance to the Republic of Letters. But many attempts, and sometimes with success, have been made in this kind of investigation. The Dutch has been illustrated by the Frisian and Teutonic; the English by the Anglo-Saxon; and the German has been explained, with much labour and care, by Wachter, and others, from the ancient monuments of the Francs, Goths, and Alamanni. The learned Ihre, Professor at Upsal, has illustrated the ancient language and laws of Sweden, in his Lexicon Swio-Gothicum, a work that will ever be regarded as a noble treasury of Scandinavian antiquities.

Men of learning need not to be told how much Britain owes to the labours of Hickes, Junius, Spelman, and Lye. These writers have followed, with indefatigable pains, the faint and almost vanishing traces of our ancient language; and have succeeded, as far as it was possible for men to succeed, without the knowledge of those principles which alone form the basis of true Etymology.

Not attending to this great truth, which we have recorded in the scriptures, that the whole race of mankind formed at Babel one large family, which spoke one tongue, they have considered the different languages now in use all over our globe, as mere arbitrary sounds,-names imposed at random by the several tribes of mankind, as chance dictated, and bearing no other than a relation of convention to the object meant to be expressed by a particular sound. They were ignorant that the primæval language spoken by Noah and his family, now subsists no where, and yet every where; that is to say, that at the dispersion of the builders of Babel, each hord, or tribe, carried the radical words of the original language into the several districts to which the providence of God conducted them; that these radical words are yet, in a great measure, to be traced in all the different

dialects now spoken by men; and that these terms of primary formation are not mere arbitrary sounds, but fixed and immutable, bearing the strictest analogy to the things they describe, and used, with very little material variation, by every nation whose tongue we are acquainted with. The proofs of this great etymological truth rise to view, in proportion to the number of languages the researches of the learned, and the diaries of the traveller, bring to our knowledge; and we hope, by the small collection we have been able to form, and which, at some future period, we propose to lay before the public, to set the truth of our assertion beyond the reach of cavil. But this is not the place to enter further into the arguments by which we propose to elucidate our hypothesis, and therefore we shall present to the reader a word or two, selected from a vast number of others which might be produced, as a specimen' how far our principles are just, and consonant to analogy.

MOON.-Goth. mane. Ulph. mana, A. S. mona. Isl. mana. The primitive is the Oriental mun, enlighten, advertise. Hence Lat. monere, Engl. monish, admonish. Pers. mah, the moon, The Turks write it ma. Gael. mana, Gr. unun, and Æol. μava. Dan. maane. Alam. mano. In the

ancient Arabic manat. Hebr. meni, in Isa. Ixvi. 2. and the Americans of Virginia say mánith, and in the Malabar dialect mena, a month. From man the Greeks formed avia, madness, supposed to be occasioned by the influence of the moon. Hence our maniac, a madman; Menuet, minuet, sacred dance, and of very high antiquity, representing the movements of the sun and moon. The primitive mun, pronounced man, signifies the hand and a sign. Hence mon, men, man, are applied to sun and moon, also to denote every thing relative to signs. Hence Lat. manus, and our month, &c.

Instead of carrying on our researches into the many other collateral meanings of this word, we shall amuse our readers with another, shewing that the same principle of universality in language prevails in all.

MALADY.-Hebr. malul, evil, chagrin, grief; moul, patience. Pers. mall, evil. Hebr. mulidan, to suffer. Arab. mel, patience. Celt. mal, bad, corrupt. Hence Lat. malum; Fr. mal; malade; maladerie, an hospital; the malanders, a disease to which horses are subject; malice, malignity. Lat. B. male-astrosus, ill-starred, as Shakespeare has it, Othello, Act. V.