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Show 06 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. With this understanding of the nature of Indian names, we see how tribes speaking dialects of the same language and not widely separated may come to have different names for the same object- as many names, possibly, as there can be framed definitions or descriptions sufficiently exact for its differentiation. One Algonkin tribe calls the beaver a " feller of trees"; another describes him as " putting his head out of the water," L e.} air- breathing water- animal. The Chippeways and some other tribes of the same family name the humming- bird by the cumbrous synthesis no no noyaus eS; the Shyennes, a western offshoot of the same Algonkin stock, call it ma Jed i tai tct his. The two names have no apparent affinity. Standing side by side in a comparative vocabulary, their testimony would go to show the unlikeness of the languages to which they respectively belong. Yet both names would, probably, be alike intelligible to a Chippeway and a Sheyenne. When we have learned that the one means " an exceedingly slight ( or delicate) little creature," and the other, " the iron bird," we shall be less likely to draw a wrong inference from their external non- resemblance. Where such latitude is allowed in name- giving, and where a name is necessarily discarded when the description it gives of an object is no longer sufficient to distinguish it from every other, we must not expect to find the same constancy in the vocabulary as in languages like our own, in which names hold their places not by virtue of their inherent significance but by prescription. And here we have the reason of some% of the changes which have been remarked in the languages of certain tribes, of which something was said in another place ( p. 65). Such changes are likely to be most considerable and most rapid soon after the opening of intercourse with a civilized race. The significance of old names is lost in the changed condition of the tribe. One synthesis displaces another which has no longer any distinguishing force; one object after another is divested of the characteristic quality which had given it a name. When Europeans first came to New England, the Algonkin name of a pot or kettle ( auJcuJc) • described it as " made of earth"; but this name- still in use among the western Algon-kins- could not long maintain its place in the language of Indians of the Atlantic coast after vessels of copper and iron were generally substituted for pots of clay or steatite. The introduction of fire- arms, of dogs and horses, of trading cloth and blankets, not only called for the invention of a dozen new names but made nearly as many old ones useless. 6. Characteristic particles found in composition with verbs, designating specific modifications of the action or special relations of the action to the subject or object of the verb. These are prefixed, added as terminations, or inserted between the root and the inflection proper. 7. Generic formatives which, in grammatical synthesis, discharge the office of appellatives or general names. These two classes- characteristic particles and generic formatives- present tlie most formidable obstacles which are to be encountered in acquiring thorough knowledge of nny American language. One or the other or both have place in nearly every synthesis. Both must be eliminated by analysis before the primary signification of the verbs with which they are associated can be ascertained. Biliteral or uniliteral- syllables or mere fragments of syllables- they probably all represent, as many of them are known to do, independent words, some of which still maintain their places in the vocabulary, while others have yielded to phonetic decay. The critical investigation of these |
