The Scottish Celtic review

Tests of Etymological Affinity. 5suffice to show the importance of this remark. Few would thinkof tracing the English word count (to reckon) to the Lat. wordputare, which signifies literally to lop, to pirune, if we had not theFrench word compter (to reckon) and the Lat. word computare (tocount, reckon) to supplj' the connecting links. Gael, hheil (is)and Eng. will are but distantly connected in meaning, and theirresemblance in sound is only fitted to mislead ; but, nevertheless,they are derived from the same root. Bheil is for hh-feil, thesubstantive verb feil, fil, eclipsed by hh after words which terminatedoriginally in n.Feil = *fdi- = *velit or *velti (Windisch)is from the root *t'ar= Skr. var (choose), Zend var (choose), Gr.^ovXofxut, Lat. volo, Lith. vel-yja (I wish), Goth, val-jan (choose),A.S. villan (to will), Eng. ivill. We would not suppose, at firstsight, that the Gaelic word aobhar (cause) is derived from the prolificroot ber, which is cognate with Lat. /cro, and Gr. (pepoo ; but bymeans of older existing forms of the word, the connection may beeasily traced. In Gaelic books, published as late as the beginningof this century, aobhar was spelled adhbhar, and in ancient Gaelicit was written udbar, which shows the prefix ad (for aith) and theroot ber ( = Indo-Europ. bJiar). The Gaelic word cu7inart (danger)would not readily be referred to the same root, but when it isknown to be an abbreviated form of cimtabart, the connectionbecomes obvious. That the Gaelic word cmmhne (memory) isconnected with the Lat. word memini (to remember) becomesapparent, only when we know that cuinthne is the modern formof cunian (cf Stokes' Ir. GL, p. 127), which is formed by theprefix cu- (Lat. co-) from the root man, connected with theSkr. root man (to think) and with the Lat. root men, fromwhich memini is derived. Nor is the connection with thisroot (man) of such words as dearmad (neglect) and farmad(envy) obvious, until we become acquainted with their ancientforms. In Old Gaelic, dearmad was dermet or derrnat, formedby the prefix der- {=di-air-) and met or mat for men-t orman-t.Similarly, farmad or foi-mad was in Old Gaelic format,formed by the prefix for- from mat=ma'a-t. In Gaelic, n isdropped by rule before the tenues c, t. The Gaelic word aithne(knowledge) has no resemblance to the English word note, but bymeans of the Old Irish form aithgne, we can trace it to the rootgen (to know), with which note, from Lat. nota for gnota, is alsoconnected. These examples, which might be multiplied indefinitely,show how necessary it is for the etymologist to know the