Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/19

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ESSAY I
7

going on to his comparison. Thus on p. 5 he correlates the Sanskrit priya with the Common IN pilih. The first word means “beloved, worthy”, the second “to choose, to select out of a number of things” , in Mkb. also “to lift up from the ground”. Now Bopp says, quite arbitrarily, that pilih is based upon an older form plih, an i having been inserted to facilitate pronunciation: and this plih he then identifies with the Sanskrit root prī. — By the side of this IN pilih, however, are found Karo kulih, " to appropriate to oneself ", Mal. olih, “to acquire”, and Old Jav. ulih, “to get” . Now, surely, pilih, when compared with ulih, olih, and kulih, points to a nucleus lih, between which and the Sanskrit prī there can of course be no further possibility of comparison.