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Show 26 INDIAN LINGUISTIC FAMILIES. assistants and by collaborators in various parts of the country. The results of a study of all this material, and of much historical data, which necessarily enters largely into work of this character, appear in the accompanying map. The contributions to the subject during the last fifty years have been so important, and the additions to the material accessible to the student of Gallatin's time have been so large, that much of the reproach which deservedly attached to American scholars because of the neglect of American linguistics has been removed. The field is a vast one, however, and the workers are comparatively few. Moreover, opportunities for collecting linguistic material are growing fewer day by day, as tribes are consolidated upon reservations, as they become civilized, and as the older Indians, who alone are skilled in their language, die, leaving, it may be, only a few imperfect vocabularies as a basis for future study. History has bequeathed to us the names of many tribes, which became extinct in early colonial times, of whose language not a hint is left and whose linguistic relations must ever remain unknown. It is vain to grieve over neglected opportunities unless their contemplation stimulates us to utilize those at hand. There are yet many gaps to be filled, even in so elementary a part of the study as the classification of the tribes by language. As to the detailed study of the different linguistic families, the mastery and analysis of the languages composing them, and their comparison with one another and with the languages of other families, only a beginning has been made. After the above statement it is hardly necessary to add that the accompanying map does not purport to represent final results. On the contrary, it is to be regarded as tentative, setting forth in visible form the results of investigation up to the present time, as a guide and aid to future effort. Each of the colors or patterns upon the map represents a distinct linguistic family, the total number of families contained in the whole area being fifty- eight. It is believed that the families of languages represented upon the map can not have sprung from a common source; they are as distinct from one another in their vocabularies and apparently in their origin as from the Aryan or the Scythian families. Unquestionably, future and more critical study will result in the fusion of some of these families. As the means for analysis and comparison accumulate, resemblances now hidden will be brought to light, and relationships hitherto unsuspected will be shown to exist. Such a result may be anticipated with the more certainty inasmuch as the present classification has been made upon a conservative plan. Where relationships between families are suspected, but can not be demonstrated by convincing evidence, it has been deemed wiser not to unite them, but to keep |
