X.] THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 363 



We see from such examples that polysynthesis is not a 

 primitive condition of speech, as is often asserted, but on the 

 contrary a highly developed system, in which the original aggluti- 

 native process has gone so far as to attract all the elements of 

 the sentence to the verb, round which they cluster like swarming 

 bees round their queen. In Eskimo the tendency is shown in 

 the construction of nouns and verbs, by which other classes of 

 words are made almost unnecessary, and one word, sometimes 

 of interminable length, is able to express a whole sentence with 

 its subordinate clauses. Dr H. Rink, one of the first Eskimo 

 scholars of modern times, gives the instance : " Sue'rukame- 

 autdlasassoq-tusaramiuk-tuningingmago-iluaringilat = they did not 

 approve that he (a) had omitted to give him ($) something, as he 

 (a) heard that he (b) was going to depart on account of being 

 destitute of everything 1 ." Such monstrosities "are so complicated 

 that in daily speech they could hardly ever occur ; but still they 

 are correct and can be understood by intelligent people 2 ." 



He gives another and much longer example, which the reader 

 may be spared, adding that there are altogether about 200 particles, 

 as many as ten of which may be piled up on any given stem. The 

 process also often involves great phonetic changes, by which the 

 original form of the elements becomes disguised, as, for instance, 

 in the English hafoth = half-pennyworth. The attempt to deter- 

 mine the number of words that might be formed in this way on a 

 single stem, such as igdlo, a house, had to be given up after getting 

 as far as the compound igdlorssualiortugssarsiumavoq = he wants 

 to find one who will build a large house. 



It is clear that such a linguistic evolution implies both the 

 postulated isolation from other influences, which must have dis- 

 turbed and broken up the cumbrous process, and also the 

 postulated long period of time to develop and consolidate the 



1 The Eskimo Tribes, their Distribution and Characteristics, Copenhagen, 

 1887, I. p. 62 sq. 



2 In fact this very word was first given "as an ordinary example" by Klein- 

 schmidt, Gram. d. Gronlandischen Sprache, Sect. 99, and is also quoted by 

 Byrne, who translates: "They disapproved of him, because he did not give to 

 him, when he heard that he would go off, because he had nothing" (Principles, 

 etc. i. p. 140). 



