Mar.4] PROCEEDINGS. [1890.Thesoundyen affords otherimportantverificationsof Accadian
terms. Wesaw that the compound en-nun," watch," " to watch,"
"to guard," containedit. Besides yen, "a night-watch or guard "
= im, giant, ni", we have yen," doorkeepers in the harem —persons
who stand as guard, eunuchs" = im, yam, i". Bearingin mind that
y = g, we see that theseformscorroborate the suggestion already
madein regard to en, "charm,spell,"that it is worn down from
gan or gin (p. 71). Butthe word en, yen, "watch,"has since
suggestedto me an important identification. Whendealingwithi,
ni, "to glance at," and mu,"the eye,"I compared withthem igi,
"theeye"(= igin?). NowChinesehas not only the w/-form mu,
"eye,"but also the corresponding gutturalformsyen,"theeye " =
ngan,gan,nge* ; which threedialecticforms implyprimitivegan,
gin. Further,the 147th radicalis kien, "tosee"= kin, kian, ki" ;
a term which points to a primitive gin, withdialecticform kin,
as plainlyas kien, " a slip of bamboo for making noteson, an official
writing, documents,"pointsto gin, " a reed," and kin, " a letter,"
or kien, "stable, immovable, firm,"to gin, "fixed, firm,"or kien,
"to ravish, wild,horrid, ogre-like, villainous,wicked(of genii and
spirits),"to gi-gim (= gi + gi, sabdtu, ekimu,"totake,seize,carry
off"),"a demon." I was longpuzzledto identify thisyen(gan,
gin),"eye," "toeye,"or watch, and kien,"tosee,"in Accadian,
untilit occurred to me that it was contained in the compound
en-nun, " to watch." en = gen, gan," eye," andnun, whichwe
comparedwithnu, "to guard," is clearly an »-form synonymouswith
EN: cp. ni" (nin, nun),the Shanghai equivalent of yen, "a night
watch." In h'ien, " to watch narrowly" = han, k'e",we have identical
forms (gin, can, kin), en, " lord," nin, " lady," are parallel
Accadianforms.
More remains to be said. The ^-forms, £-forms, w-forms,
fl-forms,and forms whichhavelost their initialsound,are before us.
But we have usuallyfoundthata ^-form impliesa dialectic d-iotm,
witha variant /-formcorrespondingto the £-form ; and further pairs
of dialectic variants in b, p, sh, z, are also possible. Do these
phenomenaoccurin the present case? In Accadian we have ide,
"theeye,""tosee," represented by the character {J-, whichhas
the various sound-valuesigi, ide, lim,lib, mad, bad,shi.
Nowigi, ide, meannot only "the eye"(inu),but "the face"
{panu),and consequently"the front," "before" {niahru, mahar).
In just the same way,the Chinese mien,min,Man,mi",the 176th
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