THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
I contemplate in this work a description of the comparative organization of the languages enumerated in the title page, comprehending all the features of their relationship, and an inquiry into their physical and mechanical laws, and the origin of the forms which distinguish their grammatical relations. One point alone I shall leave untouched, the secret of the roots, or the foundation of the nomenclature of the primary ideas. I shall not investigate, for example, why the root i signifies “go” and not “stand”; why the combination of sounds stha or sta signifies “stand” and not “go.” I shall attempt, apart from this, to follow out as it were the language in its stages of being and march of development; yet in such a manner that those who are predetermined not to recognise, as explained, that which they maintain to be inexplicable, may perhaps find less to offend them in this work than the avowal of such a general plan might lead them to expect. In the majority of cases the primary signification, and, with it, the primary source of the grammatical forms, spontaneously present themselves to observation in consequence of the extension of our horizon of language, and of the confronting of sisters of the same lingual stock separated for ages, but bearing indubitable features of their family connection. In the treatment, indeed, of our European tongues a new epoch could not fail to open upon us in the discovery of another region in the world of language, namely the Sanskṛit,[1] of which it has been demonstrated, that, in its
- ↑ Saṅskṛita signifies “adorned, completed, perfect”; in respect to language, “classic”; and is thus adapted to denote the entire family or race.” It is compounded of the elements sam, “with,” and kṛita (nom. kṛitas, kṛitâ, kṛitam), “made,” with the insertion of a euphonic s (§§. 18. 96.).
