194 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. i 



of the two families confirms his opinion. A third great family 

 which has no representative in tlie Dominion is brought into 

 relation with the Iroquois and Dacotah classes by Dr. Latham, 

 who, for comprehensiveness of view and extent of knowledge, 

 has found no superior in the field of American ethnology. This 

 is the Cherokee-Choctaw family, whose tribes, among which Dr. 

 Latham counts the Catawbas, Woccoons and Caddos, originally 

 extended from Tennessee to Florida. I unhesitatingly state that 

 the Iroquois, Dacotahs and Cherokee- Choctaws are of Turanian 

 or Northern Asiatic origin. 



Commencing with grammatical forms, these families agree in 

 making use of postpositions exclusively, thus difi"ering from the 

 Algonquin and its parent Malay, and agreeing with all the va- 

 rieties of Turanian speech. In the order of the verb, a second 

 point of difierence from the former and of accordance with the 

 latter languages equally marks Iroquois, Dacotah and Choctaw ; 

 the temporal index follows the verbal root. The accusative pre- 

 cedes the governing verb in Dacotah and Choctaw, and, as I 

 have already stated, the same principle finds illustration in Iro- 

 quois. This is one of the radical distinctions which characterize 

 the Turanian as contrasted with the Malay grammatical system. 

 Once more, the Iroquois, Dacotah and Choctaw languages pro- 

 pose the genitive to its governing noun, which, as Dr. Edkins 

 says in China's Place in Philology, is essentially Turanian. In 

 the use of postpositions, the postposition of the temporal index 

 to the verbal root, the preposition of the accusative to its verb, 

 and of the genitive to its nominative, four important features in 

 a grammatical system, the Iroquois, Dacotah and Choctaw lan- 

 guages cut themselves ofi" from all Malay Polynesian relationship 

 and claim afl&nity with the great Turanian family. But the 

 great Turanian family is very large and very widely spread over 

 Europe and Asia. Its Finnic class includes the Finn, Lapp, 

 Esthonian, Vogul, Mordwin, Magyar, and other European and 

 Western Asiatic dialects. In its Turkic class we find the Turk, 

 Uigur, Kirghis, Bashkir, Yakut, and many more. The Mongol 

 •contains the Mongol, Khalkha, Kalmuk, Buriat, &c. ; and the 

 Tungusic, the Tungus, Lamute and Mantchu. Then in Thibet, 

 Hindostan, and the Indo-Chinese area, many classes are found, 

 the most important and best known of which is the Dravidian, 

 embracing the Tamil, Telugu, and other dialects of southern 

 India. Leaving the Siberian Samoyeds, Yukahiri and Yeniseans 



