ON THE LANGUAGE OF THE DAKOTA OR SIOUX INDIANS. 439 



Again, we find in tbe Dakota or Sioux language taiyin, wliich means to 

 appear, to he visible, manifest, distinct, clear. Now, we have also in all 

 the Tartar dialects tai), tang, which means, 1st, light; hcjice, dawn of 

 the morning; 2Ci, understanding. From it is derived tojw, which is the 

 stem or radical part of verbs meaning to render manifest, tomalce known, 

 to Icnow ; it also appears in the old Tartar verb-stems tang-{la), meaning 

 to understand, and in its mutilated modern (and western) form, ang{la), 

 without the initial " f," which has the same signification. We may 

 mention still mama, which in Dakota denotes the female breast. We 

 might compare it with the Tartar meme, which has the same meaning, 

 if we had not also in almost all European languages the word mamma, 

 (==: mama,) with the very same fundamental signification, the children 

 of very many ditferent nations calling their mothers, instinctively, as it 

 were, by that name, {mamma = mama, &c.f 



We may also assert that even in theformation of words we find now and 

 then some slight analogy between certain characteristic endings in the lan- 

 guages of Upper Asia and the Dakota- tongue. Thus, for instance, the 

 termination for the '■'■nomen agens,^'' which in the Dakota language is sa, 

 is in Tartar tsi, si, and dchi ; Mongolian tclii, &c. We also find in Dakota 

 the postposition ta, (a constituent part of ekte, in, at,) which is a locative 

 particle, and corresponds in form to the postpositions ta and da, and 

 their several varieties and modifications, in the greater part of the Ural- 

 Altaic family of languages. The same remark applies in a measure to 

 the Dakota postposition e, which means to, toward, &e.'^ 



In pointing out these various resemblances of the Sioux langnage to 

 Asiatic tongues we in no wise mean to say that we are inclined to believe 

 in any aflinity or remote relationship among them. At this earl^- stage 

 of our researches it would be wholly preposterous to make any assertions 

 as to the question of affinity, &c. All tliat we intended to do was simply 

 to bring forward a few facts from which, if they should he further corrob- 

 orated by a more frequent recurrence of the phenomena here touched 

 upon, the reader might perhaps dra\v his own conclusions, at least so 

 far as a very remote Asiatic origin of the Dakota language is concerned. 

 Further investigations in the same direction might possibly lead to more 

 satistactory results. 



After having hitherto considered the Dakota or Sioux language 

 somewhat in connection with other tongues, we shall now say a word 

 more about that language viewed independently, in its own natural 

 growth and development. 



Voicel changes, although far less imi)ortant in themselves than conso- 

 nantal permutations, occur very abundantly in the Dakota language. 

 Changes of that kind bear to each other nearly the same relation that 

 the English "and" bears to the German " wnd," &c., only that those forms 

 exist, and are contemporaneously used, in one and the same language. 

 Thus, for instance, the Dakota Indians call the Iowa tribe "ayiiliba," as 

 well as " iyiiliba,'- (the sleepers) ; the verb Ho mimV^ is in Dakota "awacii} ^ 



