Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/439

 AMERICAN INDIANS (LANGUAGES) 407 period lost about one third, the Seminoles one half, the Sacs and Foxes seven eighths. In the eye of the law the Indian originally held an anomalous position, neither citizen nor alien, and incapable of becoming a citizen. In some parts marriage between Indians and whites was severely punished. The disabilities have re- cently been removed, and Indians are enabled to leave their tribes or renounce the tribal system as a body and become citizens. Col. Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, has even held the office of Indian commissioner. This step enables the more intelligent and industrious Indians to identity themselves with the white population, and induce others by their example to follow the same course. The Indian popu- lation of the British colonies is estimated at 150,000. That in Mexico and Central America is not easily ascertained, but forms the major part of the people. South America, with some civilized and many wild tribes, has about 7,000,000 Indians. AMERICAN INDIANS, Languages of the. The languages spoken by the natives received lit- tle attention in the English colonies; but in French, Spanish, and Portuguese America a more or less extended Indian literature grew up, with grammars and dictionaries of many of the languages. Charlevoix was perhaps the first to call attention to the languages as the surest mode of tracing the origin and affiliation of tribes. Hervas, availing himself of the la- bors of many members of the society of Jesus who had been driven from Spanish America, first in his catalogue of languages made a step toward a collection and comparison of the whole. Smith Barton made the first attempt in the United States to reduce the languages to system. Duponceau and Schoolcraft followed him. The Humboldts gave an impulse toward a philosophical treatment of the study, and Balbi in his Atlas ethnographique popular- ized the information acquired. At a later date Albert Gallatin performed an immense service by securing new, full, and harmonious vocabu- laries, and tracing many remote and overlook- ed affinities, so that his work has become the real basis for all subsequent labors as to the tribes of the United States. Turner devoted many years of philosophical and accurate in- vestigation to the subject. In Europe Adelung philosophically arranged the general study, and Buschmann and others contributed to the investigations of particular families of lan- guages. Orozco and Pimentel classified the languages of Mexico, Squier those of Central America and Peru, Brasseur de Bourbourg and the accurate Behrendt also elucidating those of Central America. Those who have labored on single dialects in Europe and America are too numerous to note. Ludewig became the bibliographer of the labors in this field in his " Literature of American Aboriginal Lan- guages" (London, 1848). The languages of America form a group apart, no one having been found that can take its place as a dialect of any in Any other quarter of the globe. They have features common to all, one being the predominance of the verb, by which the verb, subject, and object, direct and indirect, are often conjugated together as one word. In alphabetic power some, like the Iroquois, have no labials; the Mexican wants &, d, f, g, r,, and the aspirate ; the Choctaw has no d or g hard ; the Otomi, no , r y or , but it has an emphatic Ic and t; the Quichua has a guttural A, emphatic p,, and a, and aspirated jo, , and Ic. The Otomi, Athabascan, and many of the northwestern tribes have singularly confused, peculiar, or clucking sounds, often impossible to denote. Almost all known American lan- guages have comparatively limited vocabula- ries, and lack abstract or general terms. Many have, for instance, no word for brother in gen- eral, but separate words for elder and younger brother, differing again according as spoken by another brother or a sister. So there will be no general word for "to fish," but distinct words for fishing with a net, spearing, spearing through the ice, fire-fishing, &c. Some have two sets of numerals, one for man and a few objects deemed of highest importance, the other for everything else ; and some have even a third set of numerals for money. We can give only a general view of the American languages. I. NOETH AMERICAN. The general name of Es- quimaux (raw-fish-eaters) comprehends all the languages of Greenland and of the northern countries, from the coast of Labrador to Beh- ring strait and the peninsula of Alaska, includ- ing also that of the settled Tchuktchis of Sibe- ria. They consist of two groups : the eastern or Esquimaux proper, with three dialects in Greenland, Labrador, and on the N. and W. shores of Hudson bay ; the western, with the idioms of the Tchugatches, Aleutians, and both American and Asiatic Tchuktchis, which differ more one from another than those of the east- ern group. The dialect on "Winter or Melville island lacks the sounds f, g, r, z. As in almost all American languages, the pronunciation is, so to speak, pectoral, and the consonants are indistinct. The Esquimaux have words for all shades of meaning in which an object is taken, according to its age, sex, and other categories. Many suffixes and few postpositions denote the accidents of declension, comparison, and conjugation. Examples of words : kernertok, (who is) black ; aglegiartorasuarpok, he quick- ly goes away to write. Numeration proceeds by 20. For the Hudson bay dialect, see the works of Dobbs, I. Long, and Parry; for that of Kotzebue sound, see Beechey ; for that .of the Tchuktchis, see Kosheloff and Khromensko. The language of the Karalits (Greenlanders) lacks d,y, A, 2, and, as initials, &, <7, Z, v ; abounds in, &, r; and accumulates hard syllables, al- though the people have a fine ear and musical taste. There are three dialects, viz. : the Ka- muk of Upernavik ; that of the isle of Disco, the purest ; and the southern, of Julianeshaab. Nu- merals beyond 5 are compounded; 20 is desig-