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350 generic distinction—many languages dividing animate from inanimate beings (somewhat as we do by the use of who and what), with arbitrary and fanciful details of classification, like those exhibited by the Indo-European languages in their separation of masculine and feminine; the possession of a very peculiar scheme for denoting the degrees of family relationship; and so on.

As regards their material constitution, their assignment of certain sounds to represent certain ideas, our Indian dialects show, as already remarked, a very great discordance. It has been claimed that there are not less than a hundred languages or groups upon the continent, between whose words are discoverable no correspondences which might not be sufficiently explained as the result of accident. Doubtless a more thorough and sharpsighted investigation, a more penetrating linguistic analysis and comparison—though, under existing circumstances, any even distant approximation to the actual beginning may be hopeless—would considerably reduce this number; yet there might still remain as many unconnected groups as are to be found in all Europe and Asia. It is needless to undertake here an enumeration of the divisions of Indian speech: we will but notice a few of the most important groups occupying our own portion of the continent.

In the extreme north, along the whole shore of the Arctic ocean, are the Eskimo dialects, with which is nearly allied the Greenlandish. Below them is spread out, on the west, the great Athapaskan group. On the east, and as far south as the line of Tennessee and North Carolina, stretches the immense region occupied by the numerous dialects of the Algonquin or Delaware stock; within it, however, is enclosed the distinct branch of Iroquois languages. Our south-eastern states were in possession of the Florida group, comprising the Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee. The great nation of the Sioux or Dakotas gives its name to the branch which occupied the Missouri valley and parts of the lower Mississippi. Another wide-spread sub-family, including the Shoshonee and Comanche, ranged from the shores of Texas north-westward to the borders of California and the territory of the