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Show 32 INTBODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. relationship is designated by the kinship word. For example, in a case of two brothers and two sisters, the brothers would call each other by one tenia, the sisters each other by a second term, the brothers would call the sisters by a third term, and the sisters would call the brothers by a fourth term, so that the relationships between the four persons would require the use of four terms instead of two as in the English. 4. Relative age is introduced in many languages as a distinguishing characteristic. For example, there will be a term for elder brother, another for younger brother, one for elder sister, and another for younger sister, and sometimes through all the cousins, of whatever remote degree they may be, the terms will distinguish between the elder and the younger. 5. Assimilation in many languages is an important element in classification. If all the possible kinships arising from nine generations were thrown into classes upon the four characteristics mentioned above, the number of groups would still be very great, while, in fact, the number of groups recognized in any language is comparatively small. In the more civilized languages spoken by people who are organized as nations, the more remote relationships are ignored in the classification, and are left to be designated by the descriptive method; and there is a reason for this. In national society the remote relationships are of little importance; value may rarely attach to them, as in the case of inheritance, and the antiquarian may use them to trace ancestral lineage, but the people have no practical use for them in current society and every day life. But tribal society is organized on kinship, and government is established to maintain the rights and the reciprocal duties of kinship. It thus becomes necessary in every tribal society that all kinships should be not only determinate but well known. For this reason the fifth principle of classification is introduced- that is, a few primary groups are established on the first four characteristics, and into these groups all other relationships are assimilated. In discovering these systems of relationship as a linguistic phenomenon, we infer that there is something in the social constitution of the people demanding such an elaborate system with relationship fixed so as to include all of the remotest degree within the group of people constituting the society. On the other hand, in studying tribal society and discovering that |