one it la day ittla hē.
two onk shay day nank hay.
three ta day ta he.
four dini day dunk he.
five tlat zoon e de ay sa soot la he.
six int zud ha l'goot ha hé.
seven ta e wayt zay tluz ud dunk he.
eight etzud een tay l'goot dung he.
nine kala gay ne ad ay itla ud ha.
ten kay nay day hona.
a man taz eu dinnay you.
a woman iay quay tzay quay.
a girl id az oo ed dinna gay.
a boy taz yuz é dinnay yoo azay.
interpreter nao day ay dinnay tee ghaltay.
trader meeoo tay ma kad ray.
moose-deer tlay tchin tay tunnehee hee.
rein-deer may tzee ed hun.
beaver tza tza.
dog tlee tlee.
rabbit kagh kagh.
bear zus zus.
wolf tshee o nay noo nee yay.
fox e yay thay nag hee dthay.
The difference is great: but the two forms of speech are mutually
intelligible. On the other hand, the Cayuse and Willamet are more alike
than the English and Latin.
Next to the details of our method, and the principles of our
classification, the more important of the special questions command
attention. Upon the relations of the Eskimo to the other languages of
America I have long ago expressed my opinion. I now add the following
remarks upon the prevalence of the doctrine which separated them.
Let us imagine an American or British ethnologist speculating on the
origin and unity of the European populations and arriving, in the
course of his investigations, at Finmark, or any of those northern
parts of Scandinavia where the Norwegian and Laplander come in
immediate geographical contact. What would be first? Even this--close
geographical contact accompanied by a remarkable contrast in the way
of the ethnology: difference in habits, difference in aptitudes,
difference in civilisation, difference of creed, difference of physical
form, difference of language.
But the different manner in which the southern tribes of Lapland
comport themselves in respect to their nearest neighbours, according as
they lie west or east, illustrates this view. On the side of Norway few
contrasts are more definite and striking than that between the nomad
Lap with his reindeer, and reindeer-skin habiliments and the industrial
and highly civilized Norwegian. No similarity of habits is here; no
affinity of language; little on intermixture, in the way of marriage.
Their physical frames are as different as their moral dispositions no
and social habits. Nor is this difficult to explain. The Norwegian is
not only a member of another stock, but his original home was in a
southern, or comparatively southern, climate. It was Germany rather
Scandinavia; for Scandinavia was, originally, exclusively Lap or Fin.
But the German family encroached northwards; and by displacement after
displacement obliterated those members of the Lap stock whose occupancy
was Southern and Central Scandinavia, until nothing was left but
its extreme northern representatives in the most northern and least
favored parts of the peninsula. By these means two strongly contrasted
populations were brought in close geographical contact--this being the
present condition all along the South Eastern, or Norwegian, boundary
of Lapland.
But it is by no means the present condition of those parts of Russian
Lapland where the Lap population touches that of Finland Proper.
Here, although the Lap and Fin differ, the difference lies within a
far narrower limit than that which divides the Lap from the Norwegian
or the Swede. The stature of the Lap is less than that of the Fin;
though the Fin is more short than tall, and the Lap is far from being
so stunted as books and pictures make him. The habits, too, differ. The
reindeer goes with the Lap; the cow with the Fin. Other points differ
also. On the whole, however, the Fin physiognomy is Lap, and the Lap
Fin; and the languages are allied.
Furthermore--the Fin graduates into the Wotiak, the Zirianean, the
Permian; the Permian into the Tsheremiss, the Mordvin &c. In other
words, if we follow the Lap eastwards we come into a whole fancy of
congeners. On the west, however, the further we went, the less Lap was
everything. Instead of being Lap it was Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, or
German. The last of those, however, would lead us into the Sarmatian
family, and this would bring us round to the Fins of South Finland. The
time, however, may come when Russia will have so encroached upon the
Fin populations to the south of the Arctic Circle as for the Lap and
Slave to come in immediate contact; and when this contact is effected
there will be contrast also--contrast less strong, perhaps, than that
between the Lap and Swede, but still contrast.
_Mutatis mutandis_--this seems to have been the case with the Eskimo
and the North American Indians as they are popularly called--popularly
but inaccurately; inasmuch as the present writer considers the
Eskimo to be as truly American as any other occupants of the soil of
America. On the East there has been encroachment, displacement, and,
as an effect thereof, two strongly contrasted populations in close
geographical contact--viz.: the Eskimos and the northern members of
the Algonkin family. On the west, where the change has been less,
the Athabaskans, the Kolutshes, and the Eskimos graduate to each
other, coming under the same category, and forming part of one and
the same class; that class being by no means a narrow, though not an
inordinately, wide one.
Another special question is that concerning the origin of the Nahuatl,
Astecs, or Mexicans. The maritime hypothesis I have abandoned. The
doctrine that their civilisation was Maya I retain. I doubt, however,
whether they originated anywhere. By this I mean that they are, though
not quite _in situ_, nearly so. In the northermost parts of their area
they may so entirely. When I refined on this--the common sense--view of
them I was, like many others, misled by the peculiar phonesis. What it
is may be better seen by an example than explained. Contrast the two
following columns. How smoothly the words on the right run, how harshly
sound (when they can be sounded) those of the left. Not, however, that
they give us the actual sounds of the combination _khl_ &c. All that
this means is that there is some extraordinary sound to be expressed
that no simple sign or no common combination will represent. In Mr.
Hale's vocabularies it is represented by a single special sign.