The vocative of Dyaus, having the circumflex, is one of those linguistic gems which one finds now and then in the Rig-Veda, and which by right ought to have a place of honor in a Museum of Antiquities. It is a unique form. It occurs but once in the Rig-Veda, never again, as far as we know at present, in the whole of Vedic literature, and yet it is exactly that form which a student of language would expect who is familiar with the working of the laws of accent in Sanskrit and in Greek. Without a thorough knowledge of these laws, the circumflexed vocative in Sanskrit, Dyaûs, corresponding to Greek Ζεῦ, would seem a mere anomaly, possibly an accidental coincidence, whereas in reality it affords the most striking proof of the organic working of the laws of accent, and at the same time an unanswerable testimony in favor of the genuineness of the ancient text of the Rig-Veda.

It was Benfey who, as on so many other points, so on the accent of vocatives, was the first to point out (in 1845) that it was a fundamental law of the Aryan language to place the acute on the first syllable of all vocatives, both in the singular, and in the dual and plural.9 In Sanskrit this law admits of no exception; in Greek and Latin the rhythmic accent has prevailed to that extent that we only find a few traces left of the original Aryan accentuation. It is well known that in vocatives of nouns ending in ius, the ancient Romans preserved the accent on the first syllable, that they said Vírgili, Váleri, from Virgílius and Valérius. This statement of Nigidius Figulus, preserved by Gellius, though with the remark that in his time no one would say so, is the only evidence of the former existence of the Aryan law of accentuation in Latin. In Greek the evidence is more considerable, but the vocatives with the accent on the first syllable are, by the supreme law of the rhythmic accent in Greek, reduced to vocatives, drawing back their accent as far as they can, consistently with the law which restricts the accent to the last three syllables. Thus while in Sanskrit a word like Ἀγαμέμνων would in the vocative retract the accent on the first syllable Ἄγαμεμνον, the Greek could do no more than say Ἀγάμεμνον with the accent on the antepenultimate. In the same manner the vocative of Ἀριστοτέλης, can only be Ἀριστότελες, whereas in Sanskrit it would have been Ἄριστοτελες.

Here, however, the question arises, whether in words like Ἀγαμέμνων10 and Ἀριστοτέλης11 the accent was not originally on the antepenultimate, but drawn on the penultimate by the rhythmic law. This is certainly the case in ἥδιον, as the vocative of ἡδίων, for we know that both in Sanskrit and Greek, comparatives in ιων retract their accent as far as possible, and have it always on the first syllable in Sanskrit, always on the penultimate in Greek, if the last syllable is long. But, cessante causâ cessat effectus, and therefore the accent goes back on the antepenultimate, not only in the vocative, but likewise in the nom. neuter ἥδιον.

It is possible that the same process may explain the vocative δέσποτα from δεσπότης, if we compare Sanskrit compounds with pati, such as dâsápati, gấspati, dámpati, which leave the accent on the first member of the compound. In Δημήτηρ also all becomes regular, if we admit the original accentuation to have been Δήμητηρ, changed in Δημήτηρ, but preserved in the genitive Δήμητρος, and the vocative Δήμητερ.12

But there are other words in which this cannot be the case, for instance, ἄδελφε, πόνηρε, μόχθερε from ἀδελφός, πονηρός, μοχθηρός. Here the accent is the old Aryan vocatival accent. Again, in πατήρ, πατέρα, Sk. pitấ, pitáram, in μήτηρ, μητέρα, Sk. mâtấ, mâtáram, in θυγάτηρ, θυγατέρα, Sk. duhitấ, duhitáram, the radical accent was throughout on the suffix tár, nor would the rules of the rhythmic accent in Greek prevent it from being on the antepenultimate in the accusative. The fact therefore that it is retracted on the penultimate and antepenultimate in the vocative, shows clearly that we have here, too, the last working of the original Aryan accentuation. The irregular accent in the nom. sing. of μήτηρ, instead of μητήρ, is probably due to the frequent use of the vocative (an explanation which I had adopted before I had seen Benfey’s essay), and the same cause may explain the apparently irregular accentuation in θύγατρα, by the side of θυγατέρα, in θύγατρες, and θύγατρας. Similar vocatives with retracted accent are δᾶερ, nom. δαήρ, εἴνατερ, nom. εἰνάτηρ, γύναι, nom. γυνή, σῶτερ, nom. σωτήρ, ἄνερ, nom. ἀνήρ, Ἄπολλον, nom. Ἀπόλλων, Πόσειδον, nom. Ποσειδῶν, Ἥρακλες, nom. Ἡρακλῆς.

We have thus established the fact that one feature of the primitive Aryan accentuation, which consisted in the very natural process of placing the high accent on the first syllable of vocatives, was strictly preserved in Sanskrit, while in Greek and Latin it only left some scattered traces of its former existence. Without the light derived from Sanskrit, the changes in the accent of vocatives in Greek and Latin would be inexplicable, they would be, what they are in Greek grammar, mere anomalies; while, if placed by the side of Sanskrit, they are readily recognized as what they really are, remnants of a former age, preserved by frequent usage or by an agent whom we do not like to recognize, though we cannot altogether ignore him,—viz. chance.

The passage in the Rig-Veda (VI. 51, 5) to which I referred is unique, and I therefore give it here, though it has in the meantime been most ably discussed by Benfey in his “Essay on the Vocative” (1872).

This passage is clearly one of great antiquity, for it still recognizes Dyaús, the father, as the supreme god, Earth, the mother, by his side, and Agni, fire, as the brother, not of Heaven and Earth, but of man, because living with men on the hearth of their houses. Vasu, as a general name of the bright gods, like deva in other hymns, corresponds, I believe, to the Greek adjective ἐΰς. The genitive plural ἐάων is likewise derived from ἐΰς or vásus, by Benfey (l.c. p. 57), and dâtấ vásûnâm (Rv. VIII. 51, 5) comes certainly very near to δοτὴρ ἐάων. The only difficulty would be the ā instead of the η, as in ἐῆος, the gen. sing. of ἐΰς in Homer, a difficulty which might be removed by tracing the gen. plur. ἐάων back to a fem. ἐά, corresponding to a Sk. vasavî or vasavyâ. As to μέλδετε, it is phonetically the nearest approach to mṛlata, i.e., *mardata, though in Greek it means “make mild” rather than “be mild.” Mild and mollis come from the same root.

What gives to this passage its special value is, that in all other passages when dyaus occurs as a vocative and as bisyllabic, it appears simply with the udâtta, thus showing at how early a time even the Hindus forgot the meaning of the circumflex on dyaû́s, and its legitimate appearance in that place. Thus in Rv. VIII. 100, 12, we read,—

Here, I have little doubt, the ancient Rishis pronounced Dyaû́s, but the later poets, and the still later Âcâryas were satisfied with the acute, and with the acute the word is written here in all the MSS. I know.

It has been objected that the three instances which I had quoted of Zend words, not occurring in Sanskrit, but preserved in one or the other of the Indo-European languages, were not sufficient to establish the fact which I wished to establish, particularly as one of them, kehrp, existed in Sanskrit, or, at least, in Vedic Sanskrit, as kṛp. I admit that I ought to have mentioned the Vedic kṛp, rather than the later kalpa; but I doubt whether the conclusions which I wished to draw would have been at all affected by this. For what I remarked with regard to kalpa, applies with equal force to kṛp; it does not in Sanskrit mean body or flesh, like kehrp, and corpus, but simply form. But even if kehrp were not a case in point, nothing would have been easier than to replace it by other words, if at the time of printing my lecture I had had my collectanea at hand. I now subjoin a more complete list of words, present in Zend, absent in Sanskrit, but preserved in Greek, Latin, or German.

Grimm compares the Irish eirr, snow, and he remarks that the other Aryan languages have each framed their own words for ice, Lith. ledas, O.S. led, and distantly connected with these, through the Russian cholodnyi, the Latin glacies, for gelacies, Greek κρύος, κρυμός, κρύσταλλος.

The root from which these Greek words for ice are derived has left several derivatives in other languages, such as Lat. cru-s-ta, and O.N. hrî-m, rime, hoar-frost, and in Zend khrûta, used as an adjective of zim, winter, originally the hard winter. In Zend khrûma, and khrûra, Sk. krûra, as in Greek κρυόεις, the meaning has changed to crudus, crudelis. In the English raw, O.H.G. hrâo, a similar change of meaning may be observed.

Another name connected with ice and winter is the Zend zyâo, frost, from the root hi, which has given us χι-ών, Sk. hi-ma, Lat. hiem-s, O.S. zima, but which in the simplest form has been preserved in Zend only and in the O.N. gȩ. Fick quotes gȩ with the doubtful meanings of cold and snow, Curtius with that of storm, identifying it with Norw. gjö, nix autumni recens.

There is still another name for snow, absent in Sanskrit, but fully represented in Zend and the other Aryan languages, viz., Zend çnizh, to snow, Lat. nix, Goth. snaív-s, Lith. snig-ti, to snow, Ir. snechta, snow, Gr. νίφ-α (acc).14