halala! of exultation, which becomes also a verb 'to shout
for joy,' has its analogues in the Tibetan alala! of joy,
and the Greek (
Greek characters), which is used as a noun meaning the
battle-cry and even the onset itself, (Greek characters), 'to raise the
war-cry,' as well as Hebrew hillel, 'to sing praise,' whence
hallelujah! a word which the believers in the theory that
the Red Indians were the Lost Tribes naturally recognized
in the native medicine-man's chant of hi-le-li-lah! The Zulu
makes his panting ha! do duty as an expression of heat,
when he says that the hot weather 'says ha ha'; his way of
pitching a song by a ha! ha! is apparently represented in
the verb haya, 'to lead a song,' hayo, 'a starting song, a
fee given to the singing-leader for the haya'; and his
interjectional expression bà bà! 'as when one smacks his
lips from a bitter taste,' becomes a verb-root meaning 'to
be bitter or sharp to the taste, to prick, to smart.' The
Galla language gives some good examples of interjections
passing into words, as where the verbs birr-djeda (to say
brr!) and birēfada (to make brr!) have the meaning 'to be
afraid.' Thus o! being the usual answer to a call, and
also a cry to drive cattle, there are formed from it by
the addition of verbal terminations, the verbs oada, 'to
answer,' and ofa, 'to drive.'
If the magnific and honorific o of Japanese grammar can be assigned to an interjectional origin, its capabilities in modifying signification become instructive.[1] It is used before substantives as a prefix of honour; couni, 'country,' thus becoming ocouni. When a man is talking to his superiors, he puts o before the names of all objects belonging to them, while these superiors drop the o in speaking of anything of their own, or an inferior's; among the higher
- ↑ J. H. Donker Curtius, 'Essai de Grammaire Japonaise,' p. 34, &c. 199. In former editions of the present work, the directly interjectional character of the o is held in an unqualified manner. Reference to the grammars of Prof. B. H. Chamberlain and others, where this particle (on, o) is connected with other forms implying a common root, leaves the argument to depend wholly or partly on the supposition of an interjectional source for this root. [Note to 3rd ed.]
