IV. — Ox SOME ALLEGED SPECIMEN'S OF INDIAN OnOMATOPCEIA. 



By J. Hammond Trumbull. 



Professor D. Wilson, in ^'■Prehistoric Man'''' (2d ed,, p. 63), has 

 remarked, that " primitives originating directly from the observation 

 " of natural sounds are not uncommon among the native root-words 

 " of the New World." In proof of this, or as " specimens of Indian 

 onomatopoeia," he has given twenty-six names of animals, which he 

 had " noted down chiefly from the lips of Indians speaking the closely 

 allied Chippewa, Odahwa and Mississaga dialects of the Algonquin 

 tongue." 



Such evidence, introduced on so respectable authority, is of suffi- 

 cient importance to invite scrutiny. Its importance was evidently 

 not underrated by Prof. Wilson himself, for he tells us that, in " the 

 " names of animals clearly traceable to imitation," — " this nearest ap- 

 " proximation to verbal creation," — is to be found that which " car- 

 " ries us back to the very foundation of language, and helps to solve 

 " one of the profoundest problems in ])hilology." {lb., p. 55). 



The position that onomatopoeic primitives are not uncomonon in 

 North American languages, will be generally conceded, — even by 

 " those who share Prof Wilson's conviction that " the onomatopoeic 

 " theory will neither account for the origin of language, nor supply a 

 "complete series of roots /or any port'ion of the vocabulary T (p. 56). 

 So far, then, as these selected specimens serve to establish that posi- 

 tion, it matters little whether they are well or ill chosen. But so ser- 

 viceable a collection is not likely to escape the notice of those who 

 maintain, with more zeal and less discretion than the author of Pre- 

 historic Man, the universality of the imitative principle in languaofe. 

 Several of Prof Wilson's examples have already been appropriated 

 by a well-known writer (the Pev. F. W. Farrar, in his Chapters on 

 Language, pp. 24, 25,) to sustain the position, that, in the vocabulary 

 of almost every savage nation, '■^almost every name for an animal is 

 a striking and obvious onomatopana.'''"^ To this sweeping generali- 

 zation, I shall have a word or two to say, presently. First, however, 

 I propose to examine some of Prof. Wilson's specimens, for the pur- 



* Tliis assertion is quoted by Mr. Wedgwood in his volume "On the Origin of 

 Language," (p. 29). 

 Trans. Connecticut Acad., Vol. II. 12 July, 1870. 



