Between the Latin words novus, new, and novem, nine, there exists a resemblance so close that it may well be more than accidental.  Nine is, then, the new number; that is, the first number on a new count, of which 8 must originally have been the base.  Pursuing this thought by investigation into different languages, the same resemblance is found there.  Hence the theory is strengthened by corroborative evidence.  In language after language the same resemblance is found, until it seems impossible to doubt, that in prehistoric times, 9 was the new number—­the beginning of a second tale.  The following table will show how widely spread is this coincidence: 

Sanskrit,   navan = 9.          nava = new. 
Persian,    nuh = 9.            nau  = new. 
Greek,      [Greek:  ennea] = 9. [Greek:  neos] = new. 
Latin,      novem = 9.          novus = new. 
German,     neun = 9.           neu  = new. 
Swedish,    nio = 9.            ny   = new. 
Dutch,      negen = 9.          nieuw = new. 
Danish,     ni = 9.             ny   = new. 
Icelandic,  nyr = 9.            niu  = new. 
English,    nine = 9.           new  = new. 
French,     neuf = 9.           nouveau = new. 
Spanish,    nueve = 9.          neuvo = new. 
Italian,    nove = 9.           nuovo = new. 
Portuguese, nove = 9.           novo = new. 
Irish,      naoi = 9.           nus  = new. 
Welsh,      naw = 9.            newydd = new. 
Breton,     nevez = 9.          nuhue = new.[221]

This table might be extended still further, but the above examples show how widely diffused throughout the Aryan languages is this resemblance.  The list certainly is an impressive one, and the student is at first thought tempted to ask whether all these resemblances can possibly have been accidental.  But a single consideration sweeps away the entire argument as though it were a cobweb.  All the languages through which this verbal likeness runs are derived directly or indirectly from one common stock; and the common every-day words, “nine” and “new,” have been transmitted from that primitive tongue into all these linguistic offspring with but little change.  Not only are the two words in question akin in each individual language, but they are akin in all the languages.  Hence all these resemblances reduce to a single resemblance, or perhaps identity, that between the Aryan words for “nine” and “new.”  This was probably an accidental resemblance, no more significant than any one of the scores of other similar cases occurring in every language.  If there were any further evidence of the former existence of an Aryan octonary scale, the coincidence would possess a certain degree of significance; but not a shred has ever been produced which is worthy of consideration.  If our remote ancestors ever counted by eights, we are entirely ignorant of the fact, and must remain so until much more is known of their language than scholars now have at their command.  The word