affirmative particles which characterized their respective dia-
lects, and served as landmarks of the provinces in which
they prevailed — oil — and oc. From oil that belonging to
the North of France, came the modern French oui by drop,
ping the l; as at the present day they constantly pronounce
Neuilly, Neuiy, the l being hardly perceptible; and as in
Italian, it was after a consonant supplanted by the vowel i.
Le Duchat in his notes to Menage[1] has justly remarked
that this fact of its having been oil overthrows the Etymology of "hoc est" which his author maintains to be the
true one. At the same time he suggests one rather more
improbable, "hoc illud"! Home Tooke's adoption of the
derivation from oui^ the part participle of ouir, is a good
specimen of the practice of fitting etymologies on to words
as they exist at present, without taking the trouble of searching into their history. This becomes valueless the moment
one recurs to the earlier form oil. Grimm, whilst he does
not consider the conjecture satisfactory, suggests that oil may
be a modification of the particle ja joined with the pronoun
of the third person, like the German ja er, and oc the
same particle with the first person ic, equivalent to ja ich.
The analogy of nenil is strongly in favour of this derivation
and the objection that we find them applied to all persons
as well as the third and first is not conclusive, for words in
such frequent use might very soon cease to be changed ac-
cording to the sense, especially if formed in the intercourse
of two races, imperfectly acquainted with each other's language; a circumstance which may account for the adoption
of the Roman pronoun il in one case, and the German ich
in the other. The use of the negative of the third or first
person for all the others does not appear more irregular than
such phrases as the Greek (
Greek characters) where the grammatical
connection is completely gone; if indeed the question be
asked why the Provencal should have selected the first, and
the Northern dialect, the third person, I do not know that
we can assign a more satisfactory reason, than for the fact, that
the Italians took the termination of the ablative for their
nouns in the singular number, and the Spaniards that of the
accusative for their nouns in the plural.
- ↑ Etymologie Francaise, 1750, in v. ouy.
