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Proof of the existence of contradictory primal meanings, which is easily established in Egyptian, extends, according to Abel, to the Semitic and Indo-European languages as well. ‘How far this may happen in other language-groups remains to be seen; for although antithesis must have been present originally to the thinking minds of every race, it need not necessarily have become recognizable or have been retained everywhere in the meanings of words.’

Abel further calls attention to the fact that the philosopher Bain, apparently without knowledge that the phenomenon actually existed, claimed this double meaning of words on purely theoretical grounds as a logical necessity. The passage in question¹ begins with these sentences:

‘The essential relativity of all knowledge, thought or consciousness cannot but show itself in language. If everything that we can know is viewed as a transition from something else, every experience must have two sides; and either every name must have a double meaning, or else for every meaning there must be two names.’

From the ‘Appendix of Examples of Egyptian, Indo-Germanic and Arabic Antithetical Meanings’ I select a few instances which may impress even those of us who are not experts in philology. In Latin ‘altus’ means ‘high’ and ‘deep’, ‘sacer’ ‘sacred’ and ‘accursed’; here accordingly we have the complete antithesis in meaning without any modification of the sound of the word. Phonetic alteration to distinguish contraries is illustrated by examples like ‘clamare’ (‘to cry’) - ‘clam’ (‘softly’, ‘secretly’); ‘siccus’ (‘dry’) - ‘succus’ (‘juice’). In German ‘Boden’ [‘garret’ or ‘ground’] still means the highest as well as the lowest thing in the house. Our ‘bös’ (‘bad’) is matched by a word ‘bass’ (‘good’); in Old Saxon ‘bat’ (‘good’) corresponds to the English ‘bad’, and the English ‘to lock’ to the German ‘Lücke’,’Loch’ [‘hole’]. We can compare the German ‘kleben’ [‘to stick’] with the English ‘to cleave’ (‘to split’); the German words ‘stumm’ [‘dumb’] and ‘Stimme’ [‘voice’], and so on. In this way perhaps even the much derided derivation lucus a non lucendo² would have some sense in it.

¹ Bain (1870, 1, 54).

² [‘Lucus’ (Latin for ‘a grove’) is said to be derived from ‘lucere’ (‘to shine’) because it does not shine there. (Attributed to Quintilian.)]