Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/239

 SECT. VI.] INDIAN LANGUAGES. 203 visible amalgamation of the abbreviated pronouns with the verb, bear in fact the impress of primitive and unpolished languages. But even taking into consideration the most happy features of the Indian languages, the fact, that they were universally spoken by the American nations, whether uncivilized or semi- civilized, does not, so long as we remain unacquainted with their origin, justify either of the assertions, that men in the early stages of society necessarily must, or, on the contrary, that they could not have adopted such forms. The only natural and legitimate inference, since the fact is indubitable, is, that compounded and inflected words were one of the modes which naturally might be, and which in this instance was actually, resorted to by man, in order to communicate his ideas in an intelligible manner. There are strong reasons for believing, not only that this, though perhaps nowhere carried to the same extent as in America, was a process early adopted by other nations ; but that all that belongs to the grammar, to the character, and to the general structure of every ancient language must have had its origin in the earliest stages of the social state, and before man could have attained a high degree of knowledge, and made any great progress in all that constitutes civilization. It must indeed be admitted, that those reasons cannot, from the nature of the question, amount to absolute proof; and the following remarks are intended only as suggesting subjects of inquiry. There are in Africa, in Asia, in Polynesia, numerous nations, of whose languages we know little more than what may be inferred from meagre vocabularies. An investigation of their grammatical forms would throw great light on the subject. In the mean while, it deserves notice, that the great philologist Vater could point out but two languages that, on account of the multiplicity of their forms, had a character, if not similar, at least analogous to those of America. These were the Congo and the Basque. The first is spoken by a barbarous nation of Africa. The other is now universally admitted to be a remark- able relic of a most ancient and primitive language, formed in the most early ages of the world.* writers, it is at least obvious that the Basque was the ancient Iberian, the Aquitanian of Csesar, and that, before the progress of the Teutonic, Phoenician, and Latin nations, Western Europe was occupied in the north by the Celts, in the south by the Iberians. Their respective languages
 * Without admitting the antediluvian pretensions of Cantabrian