112 PRINCIPLES OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE. 



scholars to entertaifl the confident opinion that the two descend from a com- 

 mon ancestor; this, ho.wcver, is as yet by no means to be regarded as certain. 

 Many of the tongnes of Northern Africa, and the Uottentot and Bushman, in 

 South Africa, are also asserted to exhibit signs of an ultimate connexion with 

 Egyptian. Excepting those dialects which are cither clearly Semitic, or 

 claimed to be of kindred with Semitic or Egyptian, Africa is filled with a 

 great variety of tongues, forming a distinct family. They are, in a certain 

 way, rich in forms, and have some striking and peculiar traits. The use of 

 preformativcs characterizes them ; a root never appears without a prefix of 

 some kind, and the prefixes arc varied to accord with that of the dominant 

 word in the sentence, producing a kind of syntactical alliteration. 



There remains for consideration, of the great families of human speech, only 

 that one which occupies the American continent. It is too vast and varied to 

 be dealt with here in any detail. Isolation of communities and the consequent 

 indefinite separation into dialects have been carried in America to an extreme. 

 Moreover, there is a peculiar changeableness of material, hard to explain and 

 account for, which causes that two branches of a tribe which have been sep- 

 arated but a brief time speak languages which are mutually unintelligible, 

 and of Avhich it is even hard to trace the relationship. But it is believed that 

 a fundamental unity lies at the base of all the infinite variety of American 

 dialects, from the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn ; whatever their differences of 

 material, there is a single type or plan on which their forms are developed and 

 their constructions made. It is called the incorporative, or polysynthetic. It 

 tends to the aggregation of the parts of the sentence into one great Avord ; to 

 the substitution of an intricate compound for the johrase with its separated and 

 balanced numbers. 



Xo linguitttic evidence of any real value has yet been adduced going to show 

 the afiinity of American Avith Asiatic language, nor has the time yet come for 

 a fruitful discussion of the question. To make a bare and immediate compari- 

 son 01 the modern dialects of the two continents is altogether futile. When 

 the comparative philology of the separate families is fully worked out, from 

 the collation and analysis of all attainable mater^ in each, if we shall find 

 ourselves in a position to judge and decide the quRtion of Asiatic derivation, 

 we shall have reason to rejoice at it. What we have to do at present is sim- 

 ply to learn all that we possibly can about the aboriginal languages of this 

 continent ; our national honor and duty are peculiarly concerned in the Avork, 

 tOAvard Avliich, Avith too ranch reason, European scholars accuse us of indifier- 

 ence and inefiiciency. The Smithsonian Institution has recently taken up the 

 subject, under special advantages and Avith laudable zeal, and all Americans 

 should countenance and assist its efforts by every means in their power. 



Before closing this cursory and imperfect revicAv of the great families of hu- 

 man language, Ave should glance at one or tAvo isolated languages or groups, 

 hitherto unclassified. One of the most notCAvorthy is the Basque, spoken on 

 the borders of France and Spain by the representatives of the ancient Iberi- 

 ans, and perhaps the scanty relic of a race earlier than the irruptions of the 

 Scythian and Indo-European tribes. Another is the Etruscan, of Italy, saA'ed 

 in scanty inscriptions, Avhich off'er an unsolved and probably insoluble problem 

 to the linguistic student. In the Caucasian mountains, again, appears a little 

 knot of idioms Avhich have defied the efforts of scholars to connect them Avith 

 other knoAvn forms of speech. Each family has, as may be seen even from 

 our hasty sketch, its OAvn peculiar characteristics, Avhich distinguish it from 

 every other. By such sAveeping classifications of them as iuto monosyllabic 

 and polysyllabic, into isolating, agglutinative, and inflectional, or the like, little 

 or nothing is gained. True classification must be founded on a consideration 



