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Linguistic science achieved a great discovery when it established the
fact that there was a continuous belt of languages from Iceland to
Ceylon which were the variant forms of one mother-tongue, the
Indo-European; but it must prepare itself for a still wider
generalization. There is abundant proof--proof with which pages might be
filled--that there was a still older mother-tongue, from which Aryan,
Semitic, and Hamitic were all derived--the language of Noah, the
language of Atlantis, the language of the great "aggressive empire" of
Plato, the language of the empire of the Titans.
The Arabic word bin, within, becomes, when it means interval, space,
binnon; this is the German and Dutch binnen and Saxon binnon, signifying
within. The Ethiopian word aorf, to fall asleep, is the root of the word
Morpheus, the god of sleep. The Hebrew word chanah, to dwell, is the
parent of the Anglo-Saxon inne and Icelandic inni, a house, and of our
word inn, a hotel. The Hebrew word naval or nafal signifies to fall;
from it is derived our word fall and fool (one who falls); the Chaldee
word is nabal, to make foul, and the Arabic word nabala means to die,
that is, to fall.
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