all its branches escaped being superseded by expressions of later growth, although there is hardly one of them which does not here and there exhibit a modern substitute.
The following table will set forth, it is believed, in a plain and apprehensible manner some of the correspondences of which we have been speaking. For the sake of placing their value in a clearer light, I add under each word its equivalents in three of the languages—namely Arabic, Turkish, and Hungarian—which, though neighbours of the Indo-European tongues, or enveloped by them, are of wholly different kindred.
English | two | three | seven | thou | me | mother | brother | daughter |
Germanic: | ||||||||
Dutch | twee | drie | zeven | mij | moeder | broeder | dochter | |
Icelandic | tvö | thriu | siö | thu | mik | modhir | brodhir | dottir |
High-German | zwei | drei | sieben | du | mich | mutter | tochter | |
Mœso-Gothic | twa | thri | sibun | thu | mik | brothar | dauhtar | |
Lithuanic | du | tri | septyni | tu | manen | moter | brolis | dukter |
Slavonic | dwa | tri | sedmi | tü | man | mater | brat | dochy |
Celtic | dau | tri | secht | tu | me | mathair | brathair | dear (??) |
Latin | duo | tres | septem | tu | me | mater | frater | |
Greek | düo | treis | hepta | sü | me | meter | phrater | thugater |
Persian | dwa | thri | hapta | tum | me | matar | ||
Sanskrit | dwa | tri | sapta | twam | me | matar | bhratar | duhitar |
Arabic | ithn | thalath | sab | anta | ana | umm | akh | bint |
Turkish | iki | iich | yedi | sen | ben | ana | kardash | kiz |
Hungarian | ket | harom | het | te | engem | anya | fiver | leany |
I have selected, of course, for inclusion in this table, those words of the several classes represented which exhibit most clearly their actual unity of descent: in others, it would require some detailed discussion of phonetic relations to make the same unity appear. Thus, the Sanskrit panca, the Greek pente, the Latin quinque, and the Gothic fimf, all meaning 'five,' are as demonstrably the later metamorphoses of a single original word as are the varying forms of the primitive tri, 'three,' given above: each of their phonetic changes being supported by numerous analogies in the respective languages. The whole scheme of numeral and pronominal forms and of terms of relationship is substantially one and the same in all the tongues ranked as Indo-European.
These facts, of themselves, would go far toward proving the original unity of the languages in question. To look