hear the imitation of noise; while in those derivatives
which _are_ expressive of it, we not only imagine that we _do_ hear it,
but, in the case of _tonos_ and _tone_ at least, have an instance in
which we _know_ that the word employed to convey the idea is a
proximately perfect representation of the sound out of which the idea
arose. Even in _tanyu_, _tanyatu_, _tanayitnu_, thundering, in which
Professor Mueller affirms that 'we perceive no trace of the rumbling
noise which we imagined we perceived in the Latin _tonitru_ and the
English _thunder_'--although he seems to admit that it is perceptible in
the Sanskrit word for thunder expressed by the same root _tan_--the
reason why we cannot trace it may be because of the terminations, which,
as it were, absorb the sound that is there, although less obviously, in
the _tan_, or shade it off so that it becomes diluted and hardly
traceable.

Vowel Sounds are so fluctuating and evanescent that they go for
comparatively little in questions of Etymology. _Tan_ is equivalent to
T--n; the place of the dash being filled by any vowel. _T_ is readily
replaced by _th_ or _d_, and _n_ by _ng_; as is known to every
Philological student. The object, which in English we call _tin_, and
its name, are peculiar and important in this connection, as combining
the two ideas in question: 1st, that of outstretched surface or
_thinness_; and, 2d, that of a persistent tendency to give forth just
that species of sound which we call, by a slight shade of difference in
the form of the word, a _din_. The Latin _tintinnabulum_, a little bell,
and the English _tinkle_, the sound made by a little bell, are among the
words which are readily recognized as having a natural relation to a
certain trivial variety of sound. The English _ding-dong_ and
_ding-dong-bell_ are well-known imitations of sound; and are, at the
same time, etymologically, mere modifications of the root under
consideration. As _tone_ and _strain_ or _stretch_ are related in idea,
as seen in the case of musical notes or tones, is it not as probable
that the original root-word of which _tan_, _ton_, _thun_, _tin_, _din_,
_ding_, _dong_, etc., are mere variations, took its rise from the
imitation of sound, as it is that the fact of _strain_ or _stretch_ was
the first to be observed and to obtain the name from which, afterward
and accidentally, so to speak, were derived words which confessedly
have a relation in their own sound to other and e