Note 511 — Fabre d’Olivet (continued 4)

The nearest root of this word, as well as its remote root, has disappeared from the modern German, where one finds only its derivatives. Its primitive root is in the Latin word opt, whence comes opto, I choose: and optime, best. This root is attached to the Phœnician עיף (whôph), anything which is raised above another thing. It becomes nasal in the German word and has changed the ph to ft. From it is derived the Saxon, English, Belgian, and Danish word up, which expresses the movement of everything which tends above. Also from it, the German word luft, air, and the English word aloft, that which is elevated. The preposition ver has taken the final n, placing it before unft, as it carries it constantly in its analogue fern, that which is distant. Likewise one says fernglass, a telescope with which one sees at a distance.