Chapter V: Emotional and Imitative Language (2)

The place of interjectional utterance in savage intercourse is well shown in Cranz’s description. The Greenlanders, he says, especially the women, accompany many words with mien and glances, and he who does not well apprehend this may easily miss the sense. Thus when they affirm anything with pleasure they suck down air by the throat with a certain sound, and when they deny anything with contempt or horror, they turn up the nose and give a slight sound through it. And when they are out of humour, one must understand more from their gestures than their words.[268] Interjection and gesture combine to form a tolerable practical means of intercourse, as where the communication between French and English troops in the Crimea is described as ‘consisting largely of such interjectional utterances, reiterated with expressive emphasis and considerable gesticulation.’[269] This description well brings before us in actual life a system of effective human intercourse, in which there has not yet arisen the use of those articulate sounds carrying their meaning by tradition, which are the inherited words of the dictionary.

When, however, we look closely into these inherited sense-words themselves, we find that interjectional sounds have actually had more or less share in their formation. Not stopping short at the function ascribed to them by grammarians, of standing here and there outside a logical sentence, the interjections have also served as radical sounds out of which verbs, substantives, and other parts of speech have been shaped. In tracing the progress of interjections upward into fully developed language, we begin with sounds merely expressing the speaker’s actual feelings. When, however, expressive sounds like _ah!_ _ugh!_ _pooh!_ are uttered not to exhibit the speaker’s actual feelings at the moment, but only in order to suggest to another the thought of admiration or disgust, then such interjections have little or nothing to distinguish them from fully formed words. The next step is to trace the taking up of such sounds into the regular forms of ordinary grammar. Familiar instances of such formations may be found among ourselves in nursery language, where to _woh_ is found in use with the meaning of to stop, or in that real though hardly acknowledged part of the English language to which belong such verbs as to _boo-hoo_. Among the most obvious of such words are those which denote the actual utterance of an interjection, or pass thence into some closely allied meaning. Thus the Fijian women’s cry of lamentation _oile!_ becomes the verb _oile_ ‘to bewail,’ _oile-taka_ ‘to lament for’ (the men cry _ule!_); now this is in perfect analogy with such words as _ululare_, to _wail_. With different grammatical terminations, another sound produces the Zulu verb _gigiteka_ and its English equivalent to _giggle_. The Galla _iya_, ‘to cry, scream, give the battle-cry’ has its analogues in Greek ἰά, ἰή, ‘a cry,’ ἰήïος ‘wailing, mournful,’ &c. Good cases may be taken from a curious modern dialect with a strong propensity to the use of obvious sound-words, the Chinook Jargon of North-West America. Here we find adopted from an Indian dialect the verb to _kish-kish_, that is, ‘to drive cattle or horses’; _humm_ stands for the word ‘stink,’ verb or noun; and the laugh, _heehee_, becomes a recognized term meaning fun or amusement, as in _mamook heehee_, ‘to amuse’ (_i.e._, ‘to make _heehee_’) and _heehee house_, ‘a tavern.’ In Hawaii, _aa_ is ‘to insult;’ in the Tonga Islands, _úi!_ is at once the exclamation ‘fie!’ and the verb ‘to cry out against.’ In New Zealand, _hé!_ is an interjection denoting surprise at a mistake, _hé_ as a noun or verb meaning ‘error, mistake, to err, to go astray.’ In the Quiché language of Guatemala, the verbs _ay_, _oy_, _boy_, express the idea of ‘to call’ in different ways. In the Carajas language of Brazil, we may guess an interjectional origin in the adjective ei, ‘sorrowful,’ and can scarcely fail to see a derivation from expressive sound in the verb _hai-hai_ ‘to run away’ (the word _aie-aie_, used to mean ‘an omnibus’ in modern French slang, is said to be a comic allusion to the cries of the passengers whose toes are trodden on). The Camacan Indians, when they wish to express the notion of ‘much’ or ‘many,’ hold out their fingers and say _hi_. As this is an ordinary savage gesture expressing multitude, it seems likely that the _hi_ is a mere interjection, requiring the visible sign to convey the full meaning.[270] In the Quichua language of Peru, _alalau!_ is an interjection of complaint at cold, whence the verb _alalauñini_, ‘to complain of the cold.’ At the end of each strophe of the Peruvian hymns to the Sun was sung the triumphant exclamation _haylli!_ and with this sound are connected the verbs _hayllini_ ‘to sing,’ _hayllicuni_, ‘to celebrate a victory.’ The Zulu _halala!_ of exultation, which becomes also a verb ‘to shout for joy,’ has its analogues in the Tibetan _alala!_ of joy, and the Greek ἀλαλά, which is used as a noun meaning the battle-cry and even the onset itself, ἀλαλάζω, ‘to raise the war-cry,’ as well as Hebrew _hillel_, ‘to sing praise,’ whence _hallelujah!_ a word which the believers in the theory that the Red Indians were the Lost Tribes naturally recognized in the native medicine-man’s chant of _hi-le-li-lah!_ The Zulu makes his panting _ha!_ do duty as an expression of heat, when he says that the hot weather ‘says _ha ha_’; his way of pitching a song by a _ha! ha!_ is apparently represented in the verb _haya_, ‘to lead a song,’ _hayo_ ‘a starting song, a fee given to the singing-leader for the _haya_’; and his interjectional expression _bà bà!_ ‘as when one smacks his lips from a bitter taste,’ becomes a verb-root meaning ‘to be bitter or sharp to the taste, to prick, to smart.’ The Galla language gives some good examples of interjections passing into words, as where the verbs _birr-djeda_ (to say _brr!_) and _birēfada_ (to make _brr!_) have the meaning ‘to be afraid.’ Thus _o!_ being the usual answer to a call, and also a cry to drive cattle, there are formed from it by the addition of verbal terminations, the verbs _oada_, ‘to answer,’ and _ofa_, ‘to drive.’

If the magnific and honorific _o_ of Japanese grammar can be assigned to an interjectional origin, its capabilities in modifying signification become instructive.[271] It is used before substantives as a prefix of honour; _couni_, ‘country,’ thus becoming _ocouni_. When a man is talking to his superiors, he puts _o_ before the names of all objects belonging to them, while these superiors drop the _o_ in speaking of anything of their own, or an inferior’s; among the higher classes, persons of equal rank put _o_ before the names of each other’s things, but not before their own; it is polite to say _o_ before the names of all women, and well-bred children are distinguished from little peasants by the way in which they are careful to put it even before the nursery names of father and mother, _o toto_, _o caca_, which correspond to the _papa_ and _mama_ of Europe. A distinction is made in written language between _o_, which is put to anything royal, and _oo_ which means great, as may be instanced in the use of the word _mets’ké_ or ‘spy’ (literally ‘eye-fixer’); _o mets’ké_ is a princely or imperial spy, while _oo mets’ké_ is the spy in chief. This interjectional adjective _oo_, great, is usually prefixed to the name of the capital city, which it is customary to call _oo Yedo_ in speaking to one of its inhabitants, or when officials talk of it among themselves. And lastly, the _o_ of honour is prefixed to verbs in all their forms of conjugation, and it is polite to say _ominahai matse_, ‘please to see,’ instead of the mere plebeian _minahai matse_. Now an English child of six years old would at once understand these formations if taken as interjectional; and if we do not incorporate in our grammar the _o!_ of admiration and reverential embarrassment, it is because we have not chosen to take advantage of this rudimentary means of expression. Another exclamation, the cry of _io!_ has taken a place in etymology. When added by the German to his cry of ‘Fire!’ ‘Murder!’ _Feuerio!_ _Mordio!_ it remains indeed as mere an interjection as the _o!_ in our street cries of ‘Pease-_o!_’ ‘Dust-_o!_’ or the _â!_ in old German _wafenâ!_ ‘to arms!’ ‘_hilfâ!_ ‘help!’ But the Iroquois of North America makes a fuller use of his materials, and carries his _io!_ of admiration into the very formation of compound words, adding it to a noun to say that it is beautiful or good; thus, in Mohawk, _garonta_ means a tree, _garontio_ a beautiful tree; in like manner, _Ohio_ means ‘river-beautiful;’ and _Ontario_, ‘hill-rock-beautiful,’ is derived in the same way. When, in the old times of the French occupation of Canada, there was sent over a Governor-General of New France, Monsieur de Montmagny, the Iroquois rendered his name from their word _ononte_, ‘mountain,’ translating him into _Onontio_, or ‘Great Mountain,’ and thus it came to pass that the name of Onontio was handed down long after, like that of Cæsar, as the title of each succeeding governor, while for the King of France was reserved the yet higher style of ‘the great Onontio.’[272]

The quest of interjectional derivations for sense-words is apt to lead the etymologist into very rash speculations. One of his best safeguards is to test forms supposed to be interjectional, by ascertaining whether anything similar has come into use in decidedly distinct languages. For instance, among the familiar sounds which fall on the traveller’s ear in Spain is the muleteer’s cry to his beasts, _arre! arre!_ From this interjection, a family of Spanish words are reasonably supposed to be derived; the verb _arrear_, ‘to drive mules,’ _arriero_, the name for the ‘muleteer’ himself, and so forth.[273] Now is this _arre!_ itself a genuine interjectional sound? It seems likely to be so, for Captain Wilson found it in use in the Pelew Islands, where the paddlers in the canoes were kept up to their work by crying to them _arree! arree!_ Similar interjections are noticed elsewhere with a sense of mere affirmation, as in an Australian dialect where _a-ree!_ is set down as meaning ‘indeed,’ and in the Quichua language where _ari!_ means ‘yes!’ whence the verb _ariñi_, ‘to affirm.’ Two other cautions are desirable in such enquiries. These are, not to travel too far from the absolute meaning expressed by the interjection, unless there is strong corroborative evidence, and not to override ordinary etymology by treating derivative words as though they were radical. Without these checks, even sound principle breaks down in application, as the following two examples may show. It is quite true that _h’m!_ is a common interjectional call, and that the Dutch have made a verb of it, _hemmen_, ‘to hem after a person.’ We may notice a similar call in West Africa, in the _mma!_ which is translated ‘hallo! stop!’ in the language of Fernando Po. But to apply this as a derivation for German _hemmen_, ‘to stop, check, restrain,’ to _hem_ in, and even to the _hem_ of a garment, as Mr. Wedgwood does without even a perhaps,[274] is travelling too far beyond the record. Again, it is quite true that sounds of clicking and smacking of the lips are common expressions of satisfaction all over the world, and words may be derived from these sounds, as where a vocabulary of the Chinook language of North-West America expresses ‘good’ as _t’k-tok-te_, or _e-tok-te_, sounds which we cannot doubt to be derived from such clicking noises, if the words are not in fact attempts to write down the very clicks themselves. But it does not follow that we may take such words as _deliciæ_, _delicatus_, out of a highly organized language like Latin, and refer them, as the same etymologist does, to an interjectional utterance of satisfaction, _dlick!_[275] To do this, is to ignore altogether the composition of words; we might as well explain Latin _dilectus_ or English _delight_ as direct formations from expressive sound. In concluding these remarks on interjections, two or three groups of words may be brought forward as examples of the application of collected evidence from a number of languages, mostly of the lower races.

The affirmative and negative particles, which bear in language such meanings as ‘yes!’ ‘indeed!’ and ‘no!’ ‘not,’ may have their derivations from many different sources. It is thought that the Australian dialects all belong to a single stock, but so unlike are the sounds they use for ‘no!’ and ‘yes!’ that tribes are actually named from these words as a convenient means of distinction. Thus the tribes known as _Gureang_, _Kamilaroi_, _Kogai_, _Wolaroi_, _Wailwun_, _Wiratheroi_, have their names from the words they use for ‘no,’ these being _gure_, _kamil_, _ko_, _wol_, _wail_, _wira_, respectively; and on the other hand the _Pikambul_ are said to be so called from their word _pika_, ‘yes.’ The device of naming tribes, thus invented by the savages of Australia, and which perhaps recurs in Brazil in the name of the _Cocatapuya_ tribe (_coca_ ‘no,’ _tapuya_ ‘man’) is very curious in its similarity to the mediæval division of _Langue d’oc_ and _Langue d’oïl_, according to the words for ‘yes!’ which prevailed in Southern and Northern France: _oc!_ is Latin _hoc_, as we might say ‘that’s it!’ while the longer form _hoc illud_ was reduced to _oïl!_ and thence to _oui!_ Many other of the words for ‘yes!’ and ‘no!’ may be sense-words, as, again, the French and Italian _si!_ is Latin _sic_. But on the other hand there is reason to think that many of these particles in use in various languages are not sense-words, but sound-words of a purely interjectional kind; or, what comes nearly to the same thing, a feeling of fitness of the sound to the meaning may have affected the choice and shaping of sense-words—a remark of large application in such enquiries as the present. It is an old suggestion that the primitive sound of such words as _non_ is a nasal interjection of doubt or dissent.[276] It corresponds in sound with the visible gesture of closing the lips, while a vowel-interjection, with or without aspiration, belongs rather to open-mouthed utterance. Whether from this or some other cause, there is a remarkable tendency among most distant and various languages of the world, on the one hand to use vowel-sounds, with soft or hard breathing, to express ‘yes!’ and on the other hand to use nasal consonants to express ‘no!’ The affirmative form is much the commoner. The guttural _i-i!_ of the West Australian, the _ēē!_ of the Darien, the _a-ah!_ of the Clallam, the _é!_ of the Yakama Indians, the _e!_ of the Basuto, and the _ai!_ of the Kanuri, are some examples of a wide group of forms, of which the following are only part of those noted down in Polynesian and South American districts—_ii!_ _é!_ _ia!_ _aio!_ _io!_ _ya!_ _ey!_ &c., _h’!_ _heh!_ _he-e!_ _hü!_ _hoehah!_ _ah-ha!_ &c. The idea has most weight where pairs of words for ‘yes!’ and ‘no!’ are found both conforming. Thus in the very suggestive description by Dobrizhoffer among the Abipones of South America, for ‘yes!’ the men and youths say _héé!_ the women say _háá!_ and the old men give a grunt; while for ‘no’ they all say _yna!_ and make the loudness of the sound indicate the strength of the negation. Dr. Martius’s collection of vocabularies of Brazilian tribes, philologically very distinct, contains several such pairs of affirmatives and negatives, the equivalents of ‘yes!’—‘no!’ being in Tupi _ayé_—_aan! aani!_; in Guato _ii!_—_mau!_; in Jumana, _aeae!_—_mäiu!_; in Miranha _ha ú!_—_nani!_ The Quichua of Peru affirms by _y!_ _hu!_ and expresses ‘no,’ ‘not,’ ‘not at all,’ by _ama!_ _manan!_ &c., making from the latter the verb _manamñi_, ‘to deny.’ The Quiché of Guatemala has _e_ or _ve_ for the affirmative, _ma_, _man_, _mana_, for the negative. In Africa, again, the Galla language has _ee!_ for ‘yes!’ and _hn_, _hin_, _hm_, for ‘not!’; the Fernandian _ee!_ for ‘yes!’ and _‘nt_ for ‘not;’ while the Coptic dictionary gives the affirmative (Latin ‘sane’) as _eie_, _ie_, and the negative by a long list of nasal sounds such as _an_, _emmen_, _en_, _mmn_, &c. The Sanskrit particles _hi!_ ‘indeed, certainly,’ _na_, ‘not,’ exemplify similar forms in Indo-European languages, down to our own _aye!_ and _no!_[277] There must be some meaning in all this, for otherwise I could hardly have noted down incidentally, without making any attempt at a general search, so many cases from such different languages, only finding a comparatively small number of contradictory cases.[278]

De Brosses maintained that the Latin _stare_, to _stand_, might be traced to an origin in expressive sound. He fancied he could hear in it an organic radical sign designating fixity, and could thus explain why _st!_ should be used as a call to make a man _stand still_. Its connexion with these sounds is often spoken of in more modern books, and one imaginative German philologer describes their origin among primæval men as vividly as though he had been there to see. A man stands beckoning in vain to a companion who does not see him, till at last his effort relieves itself by the help of the vocal nerves, and involuntarily there breaks from him the sound _st!_ Now the other hears the sound, turns toward it, sees the beckoning gesture, knows that he is called to stop; and when this has happened again and again, the action comes to be described in common talk by uttering the now familiar _st!_ and thus _sta_ becomes a root, the symbol of the abstract idea to stand![279] This is a most ingenious conjecture, but unfortunately nothing more. It would be at any rate strengthened, though not established, if its supporters could prove that the _st!_ used to call people in Germany, _pst!_ in Spain, is itself a pure interjectional sound. Even this, however, has never been made out. The call has not yet been shown to be in use outside our own Indo-European family of languages; and so long as it is only found in use within these limits, an opponent might even plausibly claim it as an abbreviation of the very _sta!_ (‘stay! stop!’) for which the theory proposes it as an origin.[280]

That it is not unfair to ask for fuller evidence of a sound being purely interjectional than its appearance in a single family of languages, may be shown by examining another group of interjections, which are found among the remotest tribes, and thus have really considerable claims to rank among the primary sounds of language. These are the simple sibilants, _s!_ _sh!_ _h’sh!_ used especially to scare birds, and among men to express aversion or call for silence. Catlin describes a party of Sioux Indians, when they came to the portrait of a dead chief, each putting his hand over his mouth with a _hush-sh_; and when he himself wished to approach the sacred ‘medicine’ in a Mandan lodge, he was called to refrain by the same _hush-sh!_ Among ourselves the sibilant interjection passes into two exactly opposite senses, according as it is meant to put the speaker himself to silence, or to command silence for him to be heard; and thus we find the sibilant used elsewhere, sometimes in the one way and sometimes in the other. Among the wild Veddas of Ceylon, _iss!_ is an exclamation of disapproval, as in ancient or modern Europe; and the verb _shârak_, to hiss, is used in Hebrew with a like sense, ‘they shall hiss him out of his place.’ But in Japan reverence is expressed by a hiss, commanding silence. Captain Cook remarked that the natives of the New Hebrides expressed their admiration by hissing like geese. Casalis says of the Basutos, ‘Hisses are the most unequivocal marks of applause, and are as much courted in the African parliaments as they are dreaded by our candidates for popular favour.’[281] Among other sibilant interjections, are Turkish _sûsâ!_ Ossetic _ss!_ _sos!_ ‘silence!’ Fernandian _sia!_ ‘listen!’ ‘tush!’ Yoruba _sió!_ ‘pshaw!’ Thus it appears that these sounds, far from being special to one linguistic family, are very widespread elements of human speech. Nor is there any question as to their passage into fully-formed words, as in our verb to _hush_, which has passed into the sense of ‘to quiet, put to sleep’ (adjectively, ‘as _hush_ as death’), metaphorically to _hush_ up a matter, or Greek σίζω ‘to hush, say hush! command silence.’ Even Latin _silere_ and Gothic _silan_, ‘to be silent,’ may with some plausibility be explained as derived from the interjectional _s!_ of silence.

Sanskrit dictionaries recognize several words which explicitly state their own interjectional derivation; such are _hûñkâra_ (_hûm_-making), ‘the utterance of the mystic religious exclamation _hûm!_’ and _çiççabda_ (_çiç_-sound), ‘a hiss.’ Besides these obvious formations, the interjectional element is present to some greater or less degree in the list of Sanskrit radicals, which represent probably better than those of any other language the verb-roots of the ancient Aryan stock. In _ru_, ‘to roar, cry, wail’ and in _kakh_, ‘to laugh,’ we have the simpler kind of interjectional derivation, that which merely describes a sound. As to the more difficult kind, which carry the sense into a new stage, Mr. Wedgwood makes out a strong case for the connexion of interjections of loathing and aversion, such as _pooh!_ _fie!_ &c., with that large group of words which are represented in English by _foul_ and _fiend_, in Sanskrit by the verbs _pûy_, ‘to become foul, to stink’ and _piy_, _pîy_, ‘to revile, to hate.’[282] Further evidence may be here adduced in support of this theory. The languages of the lower races use the sound _pu_ to express an evil smell; the Zulu remarks that ‘the meat says _pu_’ (inyama iti _pu_), meaning that it stinks; the Timorese has _poöp_ ‘putrid;’ the Quiché language has _puh_, _poh_ ‘corruption, pus,’ _pohir_ ‘to turn bad, rot,’ _puz_ ‘rottenness, what stinks;’ the Tupi word for nasty, _puxi_, may be compared with the Latin _putidus_, and the Columbia River name for the ‘skunk,’ _o-pun-pun_, with similar names of stinking animals, Sanskrit _pûtikâ_ ‘civet-cat,’ and French _putois_ ‘pole-cat.’ From the French interjection _fi!_ words have long been formed belonging to the language, if not authenticated by the Academy; in mediæval French ‘maistre _fi-fi_’ was a recognized term for a scavenger, and _fi-fi_ books are not yet extinct.

There has been as yet, unfortunately, too much separation between what may be called generative philology, which examines into the ultimate origins of words, and historical philology, which traces their transmission and change. It will be a great gain to the science of language to bring these two branches of enquiry into closer union, even as the processes they relate to have been going on together since the earliest days of speech. At present the historical philologists of the school of Grimm and Bopp, whose great work has been the tracing of our Indo-European dialects to an early Aryan form of language, have had much the advantage in fulness of evidence and strictness of treatment. At the same time it is evident that the views of the generative philologists, from De Brosses onward, embody a sound principle, and that much of the evidence collected as to emotional and other directly expressive words, is of the highest value in the argument. But in working out the details of such word-formation, it must be remembered that no department of philology lies more open to Augustine’s caustic remark on the etymologists of his time, that like the interpretation of dreams, the derivation of words is set down by each man according to his own fancy. (Ut somniorum interpretatio ita verborum origo pro cujusque ingenio prædicatur.)

Footnote 247:

C. de Brosses, ‘Traité de la Formation Mécanique des Langues,’ &c.
(1st ed. 1765); Wedgwood, ‘Origin of Language’ (1866); ‘Dic. of
English Etymology’ (1859, 2nd ed. 1872); Farrar, ‘Chapters on
Language’ (1865).

Footnote 248:

Among the principal savage and barbaric languages here used for
evidence, are as follows:—Africa: Galla (Tutschek, Gr. and Dic.),
Yoruba (Bowen, Gr. and Dic.), Zulu (Döhne, Dic.). Polynesia, &c.:
Maori (Kendall, Vocab., Williams, Dic.), Tonga (Mariner, Vocab.), Fiji
(Hazlewood, Dic.), Melanesia (Gabelentz, Melan. Spr.). Australia
(Grey, Moore, Schürmann, Oldfield, Vocabs.). N. America: Pima, Yakama,
Clallam, Lummi, Chinuk, Mohawk, Micmac (Smithson. Contr. vol. iii.),
Chinook Jargon (Gibbs, Dic.), Quiché (Brasseur, Gr. and Dic.). S.
America: Tupi (Diaz, Dic.), Carib (Rochefort, Vocab.), Quichua
(Markham, Gr. and Dic.), Chilian (Febres, Dic.), Brazilian tribes
(Martius, ‘Glossaria linguarum Brasiliensium’). Many details in Pott,
‘Doppelung,’ &c.

Footnote 249:

Bonwick, ‘Daily Life of Tasmanians,’ p. 140; Capt. Wilson, in ‘Tr.
Eth. Soc.,’ vol. iv. p. 322, &c.; J. L. Wilson, in ‘Journ. Amer.
Oriental Soc.,’ vol. i. 1849, No. 4; also Cranz., ‘Grönland,’ p. 279
(cited below, p. 186). For other accounts, see ‘Early Hist. of
Mankind,’ p. 77.

Footnote 250:

Forbes, ‘Aymara Indians,’ in Journ. Eth. Soc. 1870, vol. ii. p. 208.

Footnote 251:

See Helmholtz, ‘Tonempfindungen,’ 2nd ed. p. 163; McKendrick, Text
Book of Physiology, p. 681, &c., 720, &c.; Max Müller, ‘Lectures,’ 2nd
series, p. 95, &c.

Footnote 252:

See Pallegoix, ‘Gramm. Ling. Thai.’; Bastian, in ‘Monatsb. Berlin.
Akad.’ June 6, 1867, and ‘Roy. Asiatic Soc.,’ June, 1867.

Footnote 253:

Burton, in ‘Mem. Anthrop. Soc.,’ vol. i. p. 313; Bowen, ‘Yoruba Gr.
and Dic.’ p. 5; see J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.,’ p. 461.

Footnote 254:

C. W., in ‘London and Westminster Review,’ Oct. 1837.

Footnote 255:

‘Accentus est etiam in dicendo cantus obscurior.’—Cic. de Orat.

Footnote 256:

Helmholtz, p. 364.

Footnote 257:

Caswell, in Bastian, ‘Berlin. Akad.’ l.c.

Footnote 258:

Horne Tooke, ‘Diversions of Purley,’ 2nd ed. London, 1798, pt. i. pp.
60-3.

Footnote 259:

R. F. Burton, ‘Lake Regions of Central Africa,’ vol. ii. p. 333;
Livingstone, ‘Missionary Tr. in S. Africa,’ p. 298; ‘Gr. of Mpongwe
lang,’ A. B. C. F. Missions, Rev. J. L. Wilson, p. 27. See Callaway,
‘Zulu Tales,’ vol. i. p. 59.

Footnote 260:

Arroyo de la Cuesta, ‘Gr. of Mutsun Lang.’ p. 39, in Smithsonian
Contr., vol. iii.; Neapolitan _mamma mia!_ exclamation of wonder, &c.,
Liebrecht in Götting. Gel. Anz. 1872, p. 1287.

Footnote 261:

Shaw, ‘Travels in Barbary,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xv. p. 669.

Footnote 262:

Some of the examples here cited, will be found in Grimm, ‘Deutsche
Gr.’ vol. iii. p. 308; Pott, ‘Doppelung.’ p. 27; Wedgwood, ‘Origin of
Language.’

Footnote 263:

See Pictet, ‘Origines Indo-Europ.’ part i. p. 382; Caldwell, ‘Gr. of
Dravidian Langs.’ p. 465; Wedgwood, Dic. s.v. ‘puss,’ &c.; Mariner,
‘Tonga Is. (Vocab.)’; Gibbs, ‘Dic. of Chinook Jargon,’ Smithsonian
Coll. No. 161; Pandosy, ‘Gr. and Dic. of Yakama,’ Smithson. Contr.
vol. iii.; compare J. L. Wilson, ‘Mpongwe Gr.’ p. 57. The Hindu
child’s call to the cat _mun mun!_ may be from Hindust. _mâno_ = cat.
It. _micio_, Fr. _mite_, _minon_, Ger. _mieze_, &c. = ‘cat,’ and Sp.
_miz!_ Ger. _minz!_ &c. = ‘puss!’ are from imitations of a _mew_.

Footnote 264:

For lists of drivers’ words, see Grimm, l.c.; Pott, ‘Zählmethode,’ p.
261; Halliwell, ‘Dic. of Archaic and Provincial English,’ s.v. ‘ree;’
Brand, vol. ii. p. 15; Pictet, part ii. p. 489.

Footnote 265:

‘Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, &c.’ Recueil de
Planches, Paris, 1763, art. ‘Chasses.’ The traditional cries are still
more or less in use. See ‘A Week in a French Country-house.’

Footnote 266:

Aldrete, ‘Lengua Castellana,’ Madrid, 1673, s.vv. _harre_, _exe_.

Footnote 267:

‘There prevailed in those days an indecent custom; when the preacher
touched any favourite topick in a manner that delighted his audience,
their approbation was expressed by a loud hum, continued in proportion
to their zeal or pleasure. When Burnet preached, part of his
congregation hummed so loudly and so long, that he sat down to enjoy
it, and rubbed his face with his handkerchief. When Sprat preached, he
likewise was honoured with the like animating hum, but he stretched
out his hand to the congregation, and cried, “Peace, peace; I pray
you, peace.”’ Johnson, ‘Life of Sprat.’

Footnote 268:

Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 279.

Footnote 269:

D. Wilson, ‘Prehistoric Man,’ p. 65.

Footnote 270:

Compare, in the same district, Camé _ii_, Cotoxó _biebie_, _eubiähiä_,
multus, -a, -um.

Footnote 271:

J. H. Donker Curtius, ‘Essai de Grammaire Japonaise,’ p. 34, &c. 199.
In former editions of the present work, the directly interjectional
character of the _o_ is held in an unqualified manner. Reference to
the grammars of Prof. B. H. Chamberlain and others, where this
particle (_on_, _o_) is connected with other forms implying a common
root, leaves the argument to depend wholly or partly on the
supposition of an interjectional source for this root. [Note to 3rd
ed.]

Footnote 272:

Bruyas, ‘Mohawk Lang.,’ p. 16, in Smithson. Contr. vol. iii.
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ Part iii. p. 328, 502, 507. Charlevoix,
‘Nouv. France,’ vol. i. p. 350.

Footnote 273:

The _arre!_ may have been introduced into Europe by the Moors, as it
is used in Arabic, and its use in Europe corresponds nearly with the
limits of the Moorish conquest, in Spain _arre!_ in Provence _arri!_

Footnote 274:

Wedgwood, ‘Origin of Language,’ p. 92.

Footnote 275:

Ibid., p. 72.

Footnote 276:

De Brosses, vol. i. p. 203. See Wedgwood.

Footnote 277:

Also Oraon _hae_—_ambo_; Micmac _é_—_mw_.

Footnote 278:

A double contradiction in Carib _anhan!_ = ‘yes!’ _oua!_ = ‘no!’
Single contradictions in Catoquina _hang!_ Tupi _eém!_ Botocudo
_hemhem!_ Yoruba _eñ!_ for ‘yes!’ Culino _aiy!_ Australian _yo!_ for
‘no!’ &c. How much these sounds depend on peculiar intonation, we, who
habitually use _h’m!_ either for ‘yes!’ or ‘no!’ can well understand.

Footnote 279:

(Charles de Brosses) ‘Traité de la Formation Mécanique des Langues,
&c.’ Paris, An. ix., vol. i. p. 238; vol. ii. p. 313. Lazarus and
Steinthal, ‘Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie,’ &c., vol. i. p. 421.
Heyse, ‘System der Sprachwissenschaft,’ p. 73. Farrar, ‘Chapters on
Language,’ p. 202.

Footnote 280:

Similar sounds are used to command silence, to stop speaking as well
as to stop going. English _husht!_ _whist!_ _hist!_ Welsh _ust!_
French _chut!_ Italian _zitto!_ Swedish _tyst!_ Russian _st’!_ and the
Latin _st!_ so well described in the curious old line quoted by Mr.
Farrar, which compares it with the gesture of the finger on the lips:—

‘Isis, et Harpocrates digito qui significat _st!_’

This group of interjections, again, has not been proved to be in use
outside Aryan limits.

Footnote 281:

Catlin, ‘North American Indians,’ vol. i. pp. 221, 39, 151, 162.
Bailey in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.,’ vol. ii. p. 318. Job xxvii. 23. (The verb
_shârak_ also signifies to call by a hiss, ‘and he will hiss unto them
from the end of the earth, and behold, they shall come with speed,’
Is. v. 26; Jer. xix. 8.) Alcock, ‘The Capital of the Tycoon,’ vol. i.
p. 394. Cook, ‘2nd Voy.’ vol. ii. p. 36. Casalis, ‘Basutos,’ p. 234.

Footnote 282:

Wedgwood, ‘Origin of Language,’ p. 83, ‘Dictionary,’ Introd. p. xlix.
and s.v. ‘foul.’ Prof. Max Müller, ‘Lectures,’ 2nd series, p. 92,
protests against the indiscriminate derivation of words directly from
such cries and interjections, without the intervention of determinate
roots. As to the present topic, he points out that Latin _pus_,
_putridus_, Gothic _fuls_, English _foul_, follow Grimm’s law as if
words derived from a single root. Admitting this, however, the
question has to be raised, how far pure interjections and their direct
derivatives, being self-expressive and so to speak living sounds, are
affected by phonetic changes such as that of Grimm’s law, which act on
articulate sounds no longer fully expressive in themselves, but handed
down by mere tradition. Thus _p_ and _f_ occur in one and the same
dialect in interjections of disgust and aversion, _puh!_ _fi!_ being
used in Venice or Paris, just as similar sounds would be in London. In
tracing this group of words from early Aryan forms, it must also be
noticed that Sanskrit is a very imperfect guide, for its alphabet has
no _f_, and it can hardly give the rule in this matter to languages
possessing both _p_ and _f_, and thus capable of nicer appreciation of
this class of interjections.