_ 31 Im-manis_, originally “not small,” came to mean enormous or
monstrous. See Preller, _Römische Mythologie_, p. 72 _seq._
_ 32 Unkulunkulu; or the Tradition of Creation as existing among the
Amazulu and other Tribes of South Africa_, by the Rev. J. Callaway,
M. D. Natal, 1868. Part I. p. 91.
33 See J. Samuelson, _Views of the Deity, Traditional and Scientific_,
p. 144. Williams & Norgate, 1871.
34 “It has already been implied that the Aborigines of Tasmania had
acquired very limited powers of abstraction or generalization. They
possessed no words representing abstract ideas; for each variety of
gum-tree and wattle-tree, etc., etc., they had a name, but they had
no equivalent for the expression, ‘a tree;’ neither could they
express abstract qualities, such as hard, soft, warm, cold, long,
short, round, etc.; for ‘hard’ they would say ‘like a stone;’ for
‘tall’ they would say ‘long legs,’ etc.; for ‘round’ they said ‘like
a ball,’ ‘like the moon,’ and so on, usually suiting the action to
the word, and confirming by some sign the meaning to be understood.”
Milligan, _Vocabulary of the Dialects of some of the Aboriginal
Tribes of Tasmania_, p. 34. Hobart Town, 1866.
35 If Signer Ascoli blames me for deriving _Niobe_ with other names for
snow from the root _snu_, instead of from the root _snigh_, this can
only be due to an oversight. I am responsible for the derivation of
Niobe, and for the admission of a secondary root _snyu_ or _nyu_,
and so far I may be either right or wrong. But Signer Ascoli ought
to have known that the derivation of Gothic _snáiv-s_, Old
High-German _snéo_, or _snê_, gen. _snêwê-s_, Lithuanian _snèga-s_,
Slav, _snjeg_, Hib. _sneachd_, from the root _snu_, rests on the
authority of Bopp (_Glossarium_, 1847, s. v. snu; see also Grimm,
_Deutsche Grammatik_, ii. p. 700). He ought likewise to have known
that in 1852 Professor Schweizer-Siedler, in his review of
Bötticher’s _Arica_ (Kuhn’s _Zeitschrift_, i. p. 479), had pointed
out that _snigh_ may be considered as a secondary root by the side
of _snu_ and _snâ_ (cf. σμάω, σμήχω; ψάω, ψήχω; νάω, νήχω). The real
relation of _snu_ to _snigh_ had been explained as early as 1842 by
Benfey, _Wurzellexicon_, ii. p. 54; and Signor Ascoli was no doubt
aware of what Professor Curtius had written on the relation of
_snigh_ to _snu_ (_Grundzüge der Greichischen Etymologie_, p. 297).
Signor Ascoli has certainly shown with greater minuteness than his
predecessors that not only Zend _snizh_ and Lithuanian _snêga-s_,
but likewise Gothic _snaiv-s_, Greek νίφει, Latin nix, nĭv-is, and
ninguis, may be derived from _snigh_; but if from _snigh_, a
secondary development of the root _snu_, we can arrive at νίφ-α and
at νίβα, the other steps that lead on to Niobe will remain just the
same.