furrows the soil as the ship furrows the surface of the sea (aratrum), to the juice of the grape (vinum), had not yet taken place when the earliest division of the stocks occurred, and it is not to be wondered at that their subsequent applications came to be in some instances very different, and that, for example, the corn intended to be ground, as well as the mill for grinding it (Gothic quairnus, Lithuanian girnôs[1]), received their names from the Sanscrit kûrnu. We may accordingly assume it as probable, that the primeval Indo-Germanic people were not yet acquainted with agriculture, and as certain, that if they were so, it played only a subordinate part in their economy; for had it at that time held the place which it afterwards held among the Greeks and Romans, it would have left a deeper impression upon the language.
On the other hand, the building of houses and huts by the Indo-Germans is attested by the Sanscrit dam (as), Latin domus, Greek δόμος; Sanscrit veças, Latin vicus, Greek οἶκος; Sanscrit dvaras, Latin fores, Greek θύρα; further, the building of boats by the names of the boat,—Sanscrit nâus, Latin navis, Greek ναῦς, and of the oar,—Sanscrit aritram, Greek ἐρετμός, Latin remus, tri-res-mus; and the use of waggons and the breaking in of animals for draught and transport by the Sanscrit akshas (axle and cart), Latin axis, Greek ἄξων, ἅμ-αξα; Sanscrit jugam, Latin jugum, Greek ζυγόν. The words signifying clothing,—Sanscrit vastra, Latin vestis, Greek ἐσθής; and sewing,—Sanscrit siv, Latin suo; Sanscrit nah, Latin neo, Greek νήθω, are alike in all Indo-Germanic languages. This cannot, however, be equally affirmed of the higher art of weaving.[2] The knowledge of the use of fire in preparing food, and of salt for seasoning it, is a primeval heritage of the Indo-Germanic nations; and the same may be affirmed regarding the knowledge of the earliest
- ↑ [Scotch quern. Mr. Robertson.]
- ↑ If the Latin vieo, vimen, belong to the same root as our weave (German weben), and kindred words, the word most still, when the Greeks and Italians separated, have had the general meaning "to plait," and it cannot have been until a later period, and probably in different regions independently of each other, that it assumed that of "weaving." Even the cultivation of flax, old as it is, does not reach hack to this period, for the Indians, though well acquainted with the flax-plant, up to the present day use it only for the preparation of linseed-oil. Hemp probably became known to the Italians at a still later period than flax; at least canabis looks quite like a borrowed word of later date.
