Pawnee and Aricaree seem also to be somewhat related.
In my father's opinion the Dakota dialects differ about as much as the
Greek dialects did in the time of Homer, and the Assinniboin is much
nearer to the Yankton dialect of which it is an offshoot than is the
Titon. Judging by the vocabularies to which I have access chiefly in
Hayden's "Indian tribes of the Missouri," I would suppose the first
group to differ from the Dakota about as much as the German from the
English, and to differ among themselves somewhat as Hollandish,
Friesian, and English. The Mandan appears to be separated much more
widely from them than they are from each other. The Minnetaree and Crow
constitute a distinct group diverging from each other more than the
Santee and Titon, the extreme dialects of the Dakota. They show more
resemblance to the Mandan than to any other one of the class, but
diverge very widely from it. But very few words approximate identity.
About one half of the words in Matthew's Hidatsa dictionary appear to me
to be in part at least composed of material related to the Dakota, and
about five per cent to fairly represent Dakota words. Many of these show
little similarity except as compared in the light of sound
representation.
When first discovered the Dakotas and Assinniboins were nomads, living
almost entirely by hunting and fishing. The Dakotas, then probably less
than ten thousand, are now more than thirty thousand in number. There
are probably about three thousand Assinniboins. The allied tribes,
except the Crows, when first found lived chiefly by agriculture. They
have during the last hundred years rapidly diminished in numbers, and do
not number over twelve thousand including the Crows.
All of the Dakotan tribes and some others formerly made and baked
pottery similar to that found in the mounds of the Ohio valley. The
Osages and some others lived in earth houses, whose ruins are similar to
those of the houses of the mound builders. The Minnetarees, Mandans and
Aricarees still live in houses of the same kind, and make and bake
pottery. Measurements indicate that the crania of the Dakotas in size of
brain and angle decidedly approach the European form. The cheek bones of
the Dakotas are much less prominent than those of the Chippewas, and
those one-fourth Chippewa and three-fourths white have on an average
darker complexions than those half white and half Dakota. Among the
Minnetarees and Mandans are many persons of light hair, blue eyes, and
tolerably fair complexion, not attributable to an infusion of Caucasian
blood since the time of Columbus.
No people take more pains to speak their language accurately than the
Dakotas. Their social condition is similar to that of the Arabs, whose
language has within historic observation changed more slowly than any
other. The Assinniboins have been separated from the Dakotas about three
centuries, perhaps a little less, possibly much more. During all this
time they have been entirely separated, associating wholly with tribes
speaking languages entirely different, and yet their dialect remains
almost identical with the Yankton. We are then encouraged to believe
that their language has not changed so rapidly as to obliterate traces
of its origin.
So far as I have been able to ascertain them the most important features
characteristic of the Dakotan languages generally are the following:
I. Three pronominal prefixes to verbs, i, o and wa. I, this, forms nouns
of instrument. O forms nomen actionis, etc. Some Crow and Minnetaree
words seem to indicate that its original form was a. Wa, meaning some or
something, prefixed to transitive verbs makes them intransitive or
general in their application. Wa is in Min. ma (ba, wa), in Crow, ba.
Scantiness of material prevents me from more than inferring the
existence of these and other prefixes in the other allied languages,
from a few words apparently containing them.
II. A system of verbal prefixes used to form verbs from certain stems,
regularly varied in signification, according to the prefix used. The
Dakota has seven of these prefixes. The Min. has three of these almost
identical in force. I should suppose that I would, with as much
material, find greater similarity in the other languages, but the only
one I have been able to trace at all generally is Dak yu. This merely
converts the stem into a verb without changing its meaning. Dak y is
nearly always represented in the allied languages so far as I have
observed by r, d, l or n; so that I find it in Min. du (ru, lu, nu),
Iowa, Mandan, and Crow ru, Omaha ra.
III. A reflexive pronoun tawa, Min. tama (tawa, taba), Iowa tawe, Osage
tabe, forming from possessive pronouns double possessives, related to
their primitives somewhat as mine to my. In some features of structure
the Dakotan languages present an amazing diversity.
According to Powell (Int. to stud. Am. Lang.) a Ponka in order to say "a
man killed a rabbit," would have to say "the man, he, one, animate,
standing, in the nominative case, purposely, killed, by shooting an
arrow, he, the one animate, sitting, in the objective case." "For the
form of the verb to kill would have to be selected, and the verb changes
its form by inflection, and by incorporated particles, to denote person,
number and gender, as animate or inanimate, as standing, sitting or
lying."
On the other hand the Dakota could not vary the form of the verb to
denote any of these things except number, with reference to either
subject or object. He would probably say: "Wichasta-wan mastincha-wan
kte,"--"man-a, rabbit-a, kill,"--in which each word is about synonymous
with its English equivalent, and case as in English denoted by position.
If he wished to show that the action was done by shooting, he would
probably not vary the form of the verb kill, but would use the verb
kute, meaning shoot whether with arrow or bullet. Except that the Dak.
order corresponds to the Icelandic the only difference in structure
between the Dak. and English expression is that the Dakota word kte may
mean any time, the particular time being indicated whenever desirable in
all cases in Dak. as mostly in English by auxiliary verbs and adverbs.
If the word man were represented by a pronoun the Dak. would be still
more analytic, since its pronoun would indicate any actor, male or
female, or inanimate, unless it were desirable to distinguish, in which
case the distinction would be made by compounding the pronoun with a
suitable auxiliary word. In this feature, often given as characteristic
of American languages, is a variation the greatest possible between two
languages closely related. It is also worthy of remark that the
Minnetaree, which I should suppose the most analytic of the group next
to the Dakota, is one of those that least resembles the Dakota in
vocabulary. Some of the features often assigned as peculiarities of
American languages were according to Bopp and Schleicher features of the
I. E. languages in their earlier stages. Of most other features said to
characterize American languages I find in Dak. but faint traces. The
Dak. _does have_ verbs nearly synonymous with _go_, _walk_, _eat_,
_drink_, _strike_, _etc._ _It is well supplied with purely copulative
verbs. It has differentiated_ the various parts of speech even to the
_definite_ and _indefinite article_. It is sufficiently supplied with
nouns denoting genera and classes. This is not a feature of recent
development. A much smaller proportion of general than of special names
have lost trace of origin.
The Dak _does not_ have inclusive and exclusive plurals, etc. It _does
not_ have a multiplicity of verb forms to denote mode and tense, but
when necessary does denote them with elegance and precision, by
auxiliary verbs and adverbs, very much as we do in English. The Dakota
is not made up chiefly of very long words. On the other hand it uses a
great many little particles and connectives to express fine shades of
meaning, wonderfully reminding one of the Greek. It fully agrees with
other American languages in its wonderful facility for forming
derivatives. The I. E. languages in their earlier stages possessed equal
facility.
As a matter of fact we know scarcely anything concerning the structure
of American languages aside from the Algonquin and Iroquois groups, and
a very few isolated languages. They have been classified, in fact,
almost entirely by examination of scanty and not very accurate
vocabularies. In investigating the relations of the Dakotan to other
American languages we are therefore compelled to base our conclusions
chiefly on vocabulary. I once resided a year among the Chippewas, and in
various ways have had much better opportunities of comparing the Dakota
with the Chippewa than with any other American language. I have not been
able to find a word alike in the two; and but very few words even
slightly similar in sound and sense. In pronouns few languages in any
part of the world are so strikingly contrasted. If I were to attempt an
argument for original affinity between Dakota and Chippewa my argument
would be that so great dissimilarity could not be the result of
accident. Aside from the Cheyenne, an Algonkin language which has
incorporated some Dakotan words, and the Pawnee group, the similarities
east of the Rocky mountains are surprisingly few, though the Huron,
Iroquois and Mobilian languages do not seem quite so strongly contrasted
as the Algonkin. Among the Eskimo, the tribes of the Pacific Slope,
Mexico, Central and South America, we occasionally find identical and
not infrequently similar words. In some the resemblances seem remarkable
considering the size of the vocabulary. Closer examination shows however
that they are not of a kind to indicate a special relationship. They are
almost exclusively confined to a few pronominal bases of very wide
diffusion, and the following: 1. ata, tata. 2. papa, each meaning
father; 1. ana, nana; 2. ma, mama, each meaning mother. As an example I
take the base ata, tata. Dakota, ate (dialect ata); Minnetaree, ate,
tata, tatish; Mandan, tata; Omaha, adi, dadi; Ponka, tade-ha; Aricaree,
ate-ah; Pawnee, ate-ish.
Tuscarora ata; Cherokee e-dauda; Eskimo--Greenland ahtata, Aleutian ata,
California, San Miguel tata; Mexico Aztec teta; Otomi, ta, te; Yucatan,
Cakchequil tata; Central Am. Tarasca tata; Darien tauta; Eastern Peru,
Mossa tata; Western Paraguay, Villela tata.
Congo Western Africa, tat, tata.
Japan dialect tete; Chinese dialect tia.
Turko Tartar, Turkish ata; Tatar ata, atha; Kunan atta; Kasanish,
Orenburg, Kirgis ata; Samoyedic dialects, Eastern Russia and Western
Siberia ata, atai, atja, tatai; Finno Hungarian, Lap attje; Hungarian
atja.
Caucasus, Kisti dada. Basque (Pyrenees Mountains) aita.
Indo European: Sanskrit ata, tata; Hindustanee dada; Latin, atta, tatta;
Greek atta, tatta; Albanian, Albania, at, atti; Calabria and Sicily
tata; Celtic, Welsh tad; Cornish and Bret tat; Irish, daid; Gaelic
daidein; English (according to Skeats of Welsh) dad, daddy; Old Slav,
tata otici; Moldavian tata; Wallachian tate; Polish tatus; Bohemian,
Servian Croatian otsche; Lithuanian teta; Preuss thetis; Gothic ata; Old
Fries tate; O. H. G. tato; Old Swed atin; Swed island Runoe dadda.
In fifty-nine of the one hundred and forty-six versions of the Lord's
prayer given by Adelung in the Sclavonic, Lithuanian and Teutonic
families, the word for father is from this base. Atta is the form used
in Ulfillas Gothic version of the fourth century, the oldest Teutonic
relic.
Papa and mama in Dak., as in I. E. languages, occupy a subordinate
position, having about the same scope as in Latin and Greek. Words
apparently related to these are rare in N. A. languages, but frequent in
S. A., African, Malay Polynesian and Turanian languages. The Semitic
aba, etc., is perhaps related. The base ana, nana (Dak. ina), though not
very much used in I E languages appears to be more widely distributed
than any of the others.
All the Dakota pronouns which show much similarity to other American
forms are representative of Fick's I E bases, and appear to be widely
disseminated. Adelung and Latham do not however give pronominal forms in
as many languages as they give words for father and mother, and I cannot
so well determine their distribution.
Professor Roehrig, in his able paper on the Dakota, points out some very
interesting analogies to Turanian languages. Others might be added.
These similarities are chiefly in features common to I. E. and
Turanian. On the other hand the Dakota shows on the surface striking
contrasts to Turanian languages. The numerals are eminently dissimilar.
The Dakota, like I. E. languages, varies both root and suffix in forming
words, and uses both prefixes and suffixes. In Turanian languages the
suffix only is varied, and prefixes are scarcely at all used.
It seems to me therefor that it is not unscientific to inquire whether
the similarities of the various Dakotan languages to various European
languages, modern and ancient, so often remarked are or are not
accidental. It is very easy to see that the Dakota resembles the English
in vocabulary much more than it resembles the Chippewa. The similarities
of the Dakota suffixes, pronouns and prepositions to those given by
Bopp, and the general resemblance of Dakotan languages to Sanskrit,
Gothic, etc., in vocabulary, made me certain of relationship before I
ever saw Fick's dictionary. Yet as I turned over his pages I was amazed
at the similarity of the I. E. roots to the Dak roots. The Slav Teut
bases of Fick seem to me most similar to the Dak. I am certain that
neither the Teutonic or Graeco-Italic dictionaries resemble the Dakota
as much as do the European, Indo. European and Aryan dictionaries. The
I. E. consonants are represented in Dakota, Santee and Titon dialects,
and in Minnetaree in accordance with the following table. I omit
representatives concerning which I am doubtful. I have too little
material on the other languages to justify me in including them.
---+----------------+---------+------------+----+---------+---------+------
I E| k | g | gh | p | bh | m | w
| | | | | | |
S | k, h, kh, sh[A]| k, h[B] | gh, kh, zh | p | m, b, w | m | w, p
| | | | | | |
T |k, h, g[B], khsh| k, g[B] | gh, kh, zh | p | b, w | m, b[C] | w, p
| | | | |---------+---------+------
M |k, h, gh[D], sh | k | gh[D] | p | m[F] (b, w) p
+------+---------+---------+---+--------+----+--------------------------
I E| t | d | dh | n | r, l[E]|y[E]| s
| | | | | | |
S | t, n | t, d, n | d | n | n, d |y, z| s, sh, z, zh, t
| | | | | | |
T | t, n | t, l, n | l | n | n, l |y, z| s, sh, z, zh, t
| +---------+---------+---+--------+----+--------------------------
M | t, d | t d[F] (l, n, r) ts | ts, sh, t
---+------+-------------------------------------+--------------------------