233:a Sana is an old Aryan word, though its meanings differ. Hesychius and Eustathius mention κάννα as being synonymous with ψίαθος, reed. Pollux gives two forms, κάννα and κάνα, (Pollux X, 166 πτανάκα δέ ἐστι ψίαθος ἡ ἐν τοῖς ἀκατίοις ἣν καὶ κάναν καλοῦσιν. VII, 176 κάνναι δὲ τὸ ἐκ κανάβων πλέγμα) This is important, because the same difference of spelling occurs also in κάνναβις and κάναοβς or κάννβος, a model, a lay figure, which Lobeck derives from κάνναι. In Old Norse we have hanp-r, in A. S. hænep, hemp, Old High-Germ. hanaf.

The occurrence of the word sana is of importance as showing at how early a time the Aryans of India were acquainted with the uses and the name of hemp. Our word hemp, the A. S. hænep, the Old Norse hanp-r, are all borrowed from Latin cannabis, which, like other borrowed words, has undergone the regular changes required by Grimm's law in Low-German, and also in High-German. hanaf. The Slavonic nations seem to have borrowed their word for hemp (Lith. kanapẽ) from the Goths, the Celtic nations (Ir. canaib) from the Romans (cf. Kuhn, Beiträge, vol. ii, p. 382). The Latin cannabis is borrowed from Greek, and the Greeks, to judge from the account of Herodotus, most likely adopted the word from the Aryan Thracians and Scythians (Her. IV, 74; Pictet, Les Aryens, vol. i, p. 314). Κάννβις being a foreign word, it would be useless to attempt an explanation of the final element bis, which is added to sana, the Sanskrit word for hemp. It may be visa, fibre, or it may be anything else. Certain it is that the main element in the name of hemp was the same among the settlers in Northern India, and among the Thracians and Scythians through whom the Greeks first became acquainted with hemp.

The history of the word κάνναβις must be kept distinct from that of the Greek κάννα or κάνα, reed. Both spellings occur, for Pollux, X, 166, writes πτανάκα δέ ἐστι ψίαθος ἡ ἐν τοῖς ἀκατίοις ἣν καὶ κάναν καλοῦσιν, but VII, 176, κάνναι δὲ τὸ ἐκ κανάβων πλέγμα. This word κάννα may be the same as the Sanskrit sana, only with this difference, that it was retained as common property by Greeks and Indians before they separated, and was applied differently in later times by the one and the other.

235:a Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, vol. iii, pp. 400, 409. There is not yet sufficient evidence to show that Sanskrit sv, German sn, and Sanskrit n are interchangeable, but there is at least one case that may be analogous. Sanskrit svañg, to embrace, to twist round a person, German slango, Schlange, snake, and Sanskrit nâga, snake. Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, vol. iii, p. 364.

236:a See Benfey, Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. ii, p. 216.

242:a Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series, p. 499.