572 POVERTY OF SAVAGE LANGUAGES. 



stupidity recorded by different travellers. It may be perhaps 

 thought that these were rather instances of individual dulness, 

 than any indication of a national characteristic ; but in the 

 nature and capacity of a language we find a test and measure 

 of the higher minds in a nation. Unfortunately, however, 

 travellers have found it difficult enough to obtain vocabularies 

 of the words in use ; and it is far less easy to collect infor- 

 mation as to those which they do not possess. Yet there are 

 not a few cases in which this has been done. I have already 

 mentioned the deficiency of some North American languages 

 in terms of endearment ; this fact suggests a melancholy con- 

 dition of the domestic relations, but it may here be referred 

 to asrain as an evidence of a low mental, as well as moral, 



O *' ' 



i 



condition. What Spix and Martius tell us about the Brazilian 

 tribes * appears also to be true of many, if not of most, savage 

 races. Their vocabulary is rich, and they have separate names 

 for the different parts of the body, for all the different animals 

 and plants with which they are acquainted ; for everything, 

 in fact, which they can see and handle. Yet they are entirely 

 deficient in words for abstract ideas ; they have no expressions 

 for colour, tone, sex, genus, spirit, etc. 



The Abipones have no such words as man, body, place, 

 time, never, ever, everywhere, etc.; nor such a verb as "to 

 be." They cannot say, " I am an Abipon," but only, " I 

 Abipon." )- The Malay language, also, according to Crawfurd, 

 is very deficient in abstract terms. It contains a word for 

 each colour, but no term for colour itself. The St. Petersburg 

 Bible Society endeavoured some years ago to translate the 

 Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments into the language 

 of the Tschuktschi, but "partly from the language being 

 entirely deficient in words to express new and abstract ideas, 

 and partly for want of letters to convey the variety of strange 



* Eeise in Brasilien, vol. i. p. 385. 

 t Dobritzhoffer, vol. ii. p. 183. 



