"When I perused the
Zend glossary," he writes, "I was inexpressibly surprised to find that
six or seven words in ten are pure Sanscrit, and even some of their
inflexions formed by the rules of the Vyacaran, as yushmacam, the
genitive plural of yushmad. Now M. Anquetil most certainly, and the
Persian compiler most probably, had no knowledge of Sanscrit, and could
not, therefore, have invented a list of Sanscrit words; it is,
therefore, an authentic list of Zend words, which has been preserved in
books or by tradition; it follows that the language of the Zend was at
least a dialect of the Sanscrit, approaching perhaps as nearly to it as
the Pracrit, or other popular idioms, which we know to have been spoken
in India two thousand years ago." This conclusion, that Zend is a
Sanscrit dialect, was incorrect, the connection assumed being too close;
but it was a great thing that the near relationship of the two languages
should have been brought to light.
In 1798 Father Paulo de St. Barthelemy further developed Jones's remark
in an essay on the antiquity of the Zend language. He showed its
affinity with the Sanscrit by a list of such Zend and Sanscrit words as
were least likely to have been borrowed, viz., those that designate the
degrees of relationship, the limbs of the body, and the most general and
essential ideas. Another list, intended to show, on a special topic, how
closely connected the two languages are, contains eighteen words taken
from the liturgic language used in India and Persia.
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