of the Human Species. 313 



Idioms of this description are spoken by the Chinese, Tibetans, 

 Burmans, Cochin-Chinese, Siamese, and nearly all the nations 

 of the further Indian Peninsula. The particular languages I 

 have now mentioned are quite distinct from each other ; even 

 their numerals and their most familiar and common elements of 

 speech are different, i.u -iuoioi j<soil^# ,r u/utott iha* 



" Another class of languages are those termed Polysynthetic, 

 consisting in long-polysyllabic words, and abounding in modes 

 of inflection, refined and elaborate, admitting almost infinite 

 varieties of termination and changes of structure ; such varieties 

 of structure and termination expressing numerous modifications 

 in the original k eas which the words were intended to c^mv^fi 

 To this very remarkable class of languages belong all the idioms 

 bf America, from iluu of the Esquimaux at Behring's Straits, 

 to the dialects of Patagonia and Terra del Fuego. y^^iit^'>i^n 



** I shall now terminate what I have to say on this branch 

 of my subject, viz. on philological researches, by one remark, of 

 which the application will hereafter be very obvious. It is, that 

 although we may not \y. authorised in a positive conclusion, that 

 all nations whose languages belong to the same class^ are of one 

 race, as, for example, all the nations of the New World, the re- 

 semblance between their respective idioms being only analogy, 

 and not amounting to affinity, yet we may determine upon re- 

 garding such nations as more nearly connected than those whose 

 idioms belong to different classes; and we may assert, that afyy 

 pretence for incluJing in one race or lineage, nations whose 

 idioms belong to classes totally different, must be arbitrary, and 

 ia opposition to all probability. Such, for example, would be 

 an attempt to include some of the American nations whose idioms 

 are polysynthetic, in the same race,or«tock with tribes who speak 

 monosyllabic languages. »f« -i)! 



^t* From the survey I have now taken of the progress of phi- 

 lological information, and from the conception which this survey 

 is calculated to produce of the nature and extent of such infor- 

 mation, we are entitled to conclude that it is a department of 

 knowledge which ought by no means to be neglected by those 

 who wish to elucidate the history and affinity of nations, or of 

 different races of men ; and that any conclusions which may be 

 drawn by such writers from.other sources, as, for example, from 



