232 michelson: American Indian languages 



speaking these dialects have been in long and intimate contact. 

 In the same way the Central Algonquian dialects are all so 

 closely related, that it is evident that the place of diffusion must 

 have been of limited area. The present geographical distri- 

 bution of the tribes is insignificant in comparison with the evi- 

 dence obtained by linguistic procedure. Nevertheless it has its 

 value. It can not be accident that the most divergent Algon- 

 quian languages are spoken at the extreme western boundary 

 of the stock. 



This last brings us to the question of whether the differentiation 

 of a stock into various dialects is due to evolution without ex- 

 ternal influence or whether it is due to linguistic shock. To 

 this we reply that every case must be judged on its own merits. 

 Peoria, though spoken today by only a handful of people, has 

 been and is, exposed to far greater linguistic shock than Ojibwa 

 which is spoken by several thousand persons ; and, notwithstand- 

 ing, is in many essential points a far more archaic language than 

 Ojibwa. At the same time its diverse affinities indicate a series 

 of shocks. Similarly, it can hardly be doubted that the diver- 

 gent character of Aleutian (Esquimauan stock) is due to such 

 shock. It should be candidly admitted that our studies in 

 American linguistics have not yet reached a point where these 

 problems can be answered in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. 



It will be remembered that we are not in the position of the Indo- 

 European philologist who can observe what has happened in the 

 differentiation of dialects in a space of several centuries, and 

 thereby draw legitimate inferences as to what happened in the 

 prehistoric period. We also lack good time-measures; so we 

 can not tell how long it has taken such and such a dialect to 

 differentiate itself from its kindred. In this connection it should 

 be stated that the Indian words cited by early travellers and 

 missionaries are so badly recorded, that if the language from which 

 the word is cited, is still extant, ordinarily we can do far better 

 with the words spoken today. The methodical error of using 

 the analogy of Indo-European languages in solving the points at 

 issue, has been shown above. Our guesses from such inferences 

 might be very happy, but they would remain guesses, not proved 



