No. 2.J CAMPBELL — AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES. 69 



verbal root; so that in nin gi-sakiha I have loved, and nin-ga 

 saJciha I shall love, gi and gri are the indices of the perfect and 

 future respectively, saki'ha the verbal root, and 7un the personal 

 pronoun. A third peculiarity of Algonquin grammar is that the 

 accusative or direct regimen follows the verb. It is true that 

 the same order appears frequently in Iroquois, but the principle 

 of the latter group of languages, as exemplified in the case of 

 pronominal accusativ^es, is, like that of neighbouring and allied 

 American tongues, to place the verb after its regimen. As re- 

 gards phonology, the difference between the Algonquin dialects 

 and those of the Iroquois is well marked. The soft vocalic forms 

 of the Ojibbeway, the Nipissing. the Cree, the Delaware, present 

 a remarkable contrast to the more manly but harsh and guttural 

 utterances of all the members of the Iroquois family. The first 

 clause of the o5th verse, chap. 5. St. Matthew's Gospel, reads in 

 Ojibbeway : " Kagoohweeu kiya ewh ahkeh ; mesah ween ewh 

 ootahkookahjegun " ; but in Mohawk it is: '^ Nokhare ne ogh- 

 whentsyate, ne wahoene raouhha naah ne thoraghsidageaseragh- 

 kouh." It is true that within the Aryan area similar contrasts 

 appear, as in a comparison of the Italian with the German, but 

 in such cases the influence of climate is recognized, a factor 

 which cannot enter into any comparison of the Algonquin with 

 the Iroquois. Moreover the Algonquin dialects are in this re- 

 spect, large as is the area they cover, completely isolated ; for 

 all the surrounding languages, as well as those which interrupt 

 their continuity, bear a closer resemblance phonetically to the 

 Iroquois than to them. Such are the Tinneh or Athabascan 

 tongues that border upon the Algonquins in the north-west, the 

 Dacotah or Sioux west of the Mississippi, and the Choctaw- 

 Cherokee which originally formed their southern boundary. 

 This isolation of language extends beyond the region of phon- 

 ology into that of grammatical construction, for the three distin- 

 guishing peculiarities of Algonquin grammar, the use of prepo- 

 sitions, the preposition of the temporal index in the verb, and 

 the postposition of the accusative, are neither Tinneh, Dacotah 

 nor Choctaw. That these peculiarities are found west of the 

 Rocky Mountains I know, but the extent of my knowledge does 

 not at present justify me in dealing with the languages in which 

 they appear. 



In Central America there is an important family of languages 

 known as the Ma)a-Quiche. It embraces the Maya of Yucatan, 



