Árbók Háskóla Íslands - 02.01.1954, Page 11

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1) In the roots of every language we see the fossils of human
speech in the state of creation.
2) The construed IE. roots consist mostly of vowel + conso-
nant (agh-, at-, an-, er-, el-, em-, od-, op-, ul-, eb- etc.) or
consonant + vowel + consonant (uel-, uer-, kel-, ger-, dhel-,
bol- (bul-), mat-, labh-, seik- etc) or consonant + vowel or
diphthong (kei-, gha-, dá(i)-, dö-, bhei-, bheu-, mé-, rei-,
lá-, séi- etc.).
3) In the development of human speech there are four stages
to be especially observed:
1) emotional sounds describing fear, anger, sorrow, joy,
hunger, thirst etc.
2) nature-sounds, imitations of sounds in nature such as
the song of birds, the whistling of the wind, the roa-
ring of the sea, the noise of wild beasts and the noise
of things falling etc.
3) gestural sounds as imitations of the shape or form of
things in the surrounding nature and of movement.
4) words with “abstracta” meaning which have developed
from concreta and are of later origin.
4) Most philologists agree on the origin of the emotional
sounds, the nature sounds and the words with “abstracta”-
meaning.
5) The greatest part of all words in every language belongs
to the 3rd and the 4th stage in the development of human
speech.
6) The emotional sounds make up only about 5% of the roots
in IE. languages and are in most cases not productive.
The nature sounds make up about 10% of the roots in
the IE. languages and are productive. It is to be expected
that the percentage in other languages is similar. No
sufficient researches have so far as I know been under-
taken concerning these sounds.
7) Words belonging to the 3rd and 4th stage thus make about
85%of the construed IE. roots and it is to be expected
that the percentage in other languages might be of similar
extent.
8) The gestural sounds seem to be spontaneous imitations by
the speaking organs of the shape or form of things in
nature and of movement. In roots which in this way have
come into existence, the most important fact in imitating
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