The substance employed to receive and preserve the marks thus made is now almost universally Paper. Parchment is still used in many legal documents and writings of form and ceremony. Cotton, linen and silk, when woven into fabrics for garments and like uses, are also subjected to marks of ink for the purpose of identifying property. So are wooden and leathern surfaces in similar conditions. It is also employed in writing on stone, in the quite modern art of lithography.
Though its great original and continual employment is in writing, it must be remembered that it is also largely used in the delineation of objects by artists. Ink and paint are mutually convertible to each other’s uses, but are yet so distinct in character and objects, that no one regards the words as synonymous, and no precise definition is needed to teach the distinction between them. As, for instance, in pen-and-ink drawings and sketches, the ink serves the purpose of paint. So likewise in the letters on sign-boards, &c. paint may be considered as a substitute for ink. The artist who traces his name on the canvas in a corner of his painting, employs paint in a similar manner. Printing-ink is used as black paint. In the best red inks, carmine (a paint in water-colors) is the essential ingredient. Indian Ink is used here only as paint,—in China, as ink.
The derivation of the English word “INK,” and of its representatives in various modern languages, has caused much perplexity to philologists, and has been the subject of many erroneous conjectures. We suffix the names by which it is known in those nations who have most employed it:
Low-Dutch, Neder-Duytsch, Hollandisch, Inkt.
Old German, Anker, Tincta, Tinta and Dinde.
Danish, Norwegian, } Blaek, (India Ink, Tusch.) Norse, Icelandic, }
Hindustani, } S’yaho, Rosh’na, kali, shira, mas, and Hindui, } murakkat, kalik, midad.
We might amuse ourselves by extending this tabular list indefinitely. Enough, however, has been already shown to illustrate a few remarkable facts which we wish to present that are connected with the etymology of our subject; but we present a page of Lithographic illustrations which will enable any “curious reader” to trace the word further.