Note 261 — Chapter X · ARE THERE ANY PROOFS OF A SINGLE PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE?
Reading edition
A very curious instance of this is the word שווין shoes, found in a Syro-Chaldaic Lectionarium in the Vatican. We may here remark that Dr. Young’s celebrated calculation—that, if eight words are identical in two languages, the chances of a direct relation between the languages are 100,000 to one—is very exceptionable. See Dr. Latham, in the Encycl. Brit. Art. Language. The greatest care is necessary to distinguish between words really cognate, and accidental isolated resemblances. See Pictet, Orig. Ind. p. 13, 17.