4 CHARACTERS AND SOUNDS.
represented by n or wo than by a long alpha: and though in the Doric the long a has maintained itself in places where the ordinary dialect employs an a, no similar trace of the long a for w is to be found. ufadadhami. "I place," becomes Tinu; dadámi, "I give," dow; the dual termi- nation 1 tâm answers to TV, and only in the imperative to Twv: on the other hand, the dm of the genitive plural is always represented by wv. Never, if we except peculiarities of dialect, does either nor w stand for the Indian diphthongs or d, formed by or an u following a long á: for the first, the Greek substitutes er or or (because for a, and also for a, e and o are the substitutes), and for the last, cu or ou. Thus, zfa mi, "I go," becomes equ; पत्तेस् pates, "thou mayest fall," winTois; véda, "I know," oida; go, mas. fem. "a bullock or heifer," Bou-s. From this dropping of the i or u in the Indian diphthongs # and it [G. Ed. p. 5.] may happen that a, e, or o, answer to these diphthongs; thus, anca kataras, "one of two," becomes Exάrepos; devri,[1] "brother-in-law," Latin, levir (nom. 1 dévá, accus. devar-am), becomes dap (from daFip, daiFrp); DEV dêva-s, “God,” Ocós; and the o in Boós, Boi, stands for Bou-ós, Bou-i, the u of which must have passed into F, and certainly did so at first, as is proved by the transition into the Latin bovis, bovi, and the Indian fa gari locative) from go-i.
5. In Latin we sometimes find the long e, which, however,
may be shortened by the influence of the following conso-
nant, arising from the mixture of a and i, as in the above-
mentioned word levir, and in the subjunctive amêmus; cf.
kamayema, from kúmaya-ima.
6. If we inquire after the greater or less relative weight
of the vowels of different quality, I have discovered, by
- ↑ The original has devr, but, as observed in p. 1, in European texts it is usual to write ri for DEV; and the absence of any sign for the vowel sound is calculated to cause embarrassment: it seems advisable, therefore, to express DEV by ri.—Editor.
