The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864, page 190 by Various Authors
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respectively; and in respect to the value and significance of the fact. He has, it would seem, confounded two separate and distinct questions. 1st. Is there such a relation between the sound and the sense? and 2d. Were these words introduced into speech because of that resemblance?
In respect to the latter of these questions, Professor Müller's answer, so far as the word thunder is concerned, is rather in favor of an affirmative answer than against it. So far from its being 'hard to establish the relationship betwixt tender, thin, and thunder,' on the hypothesis that 'the original conception of thunder had really been its rumbling noise; 'it is just as easy to establish this relationship as it is to show the connection between the root tan, to stretch, and its derivatives tonos, tone, tendre, tener, thin, and delicate;--an undertaking which Professor Müller finds no difficulty whatever in accomplishing.
The idea of stretching signified by the original root tan has no direct or immediate connection with any of the conceptions expressed by the derivative words. But by stretching an object it is diminished in breadth and depth, while it increases in length; hence it becomes thinner; so that the Mind readily makes the transition from the primitive conception of stretch to that of thinness, indicated by the English word, and by the Sanskrit tanu, and the Latin tener, tenuis. Thinness, again, is allied to slimness, slenderness, fineness, etc.; ideas which are involved in the conception of delicate, and furnish an easy transition to it.
But it is also from the notion of stretching, though in a still less direct manner, that we gain an idea of sound as conveyed by musical tones; 'tone,' as Professor Müller re