88 DANIEL WILSON ON THE IIUEON-IROQUOIS OF 



/, V, IV — no labials of any kind." ' The statement, so far as the Mohawk infants are con- 

 cerned, is open to further inquiry ; but Dr. Oronhyatekha, the Mohawk referred to, and 

 to whom I have l)een largely indebted in this and other researches in Indian philology, 

 not only rejects the six letters already named, but also c, g, I, z. The alphabet is thus 

 redixced to seventeen letters. Professor Max Miiller notes in passing, that the name 

 "Mohawk" would seem to prove the use of the labial. But it is of foreign origin, 

 though xiossibly derived from their own oegwehokough, people. The name employed by 

 themselves is " Canienga." The practice of speaking without ever closing the lips is 

 an acquired habit of later origin than the forms of the parent tongue. A comparison of 

 any of the Iroc^uois dialects with the Huron as still spoken by the Wyandots of Ontario, 

 shows the m in use by the latter in what is no doubt a surviving example of the oldest form 

 of the Huron-Iroquois language. This Huron m frecjuently becomes lu in the Irocj^uois 

 dialects, e. g., ska/aiiiendjaweli, "one hundred," becomes in Mohawk tintikiideive/ini/aireh ; rume, 

 " man," Mohawk, roiikwe, etc. These and other examples of this interchangeable charac- 

 teristic of Indian phonology, and the process of substitution in the absence of labials, are 

 illustrated in the table of Huron-Iroquois numerals on a subsequent page. The habit of 

 invariably speaking with the lips open is the source of very curious modifications in the 

 Iroquois vocabularies when compared with that of the Wyandots. The m gives place to 

 v:, nir, nh, or nhu ; also to kii and nkw, and so frequently changes the whole character of 

 the word by the modifications it gives rise to. 



A comj)arisou of the numerals of cognate languages and dialects is always instructive ; 

 and with the growing disposition of American jihilologists to turn to the Bascjues, as the 

 only prehistoric race of Europe that has per]3etuated the language of an allophylian 

 stock with possible analogies to the native languages of America, I have placed their 

 numerals along side of those of the Huron-Irocjuois. The permanency of the names for 

 numerals, and their freedom from displacement by synonyms, are seen in the universality 

 of one series of nam*!S throughout the whole ancient and modern Aryan languages of 

 Asia and Europe. But the Basque numerals bear no resemblance to them, unless such be 

 traced in the probably accidental resemblance of the bi, two, and the sei, " six," as in the 

 (issem, " ten," {decern), of the old Hochelaga, the «/t.sew of the later Wyandots. The ehim of 

 the Basque has also its remote, and probably accidental resemblance ; but the milkt, " one 

 thousand," is certainly borrowed, and serves to show that the higher numerals, with the 

 evidence they afford of advancing civilization, were the result of intrusive Aryan influ- 

 ences. With the growing tendency to turn to the prehistoric Iberians of Europe as one 

 possible key to the oi-igiu of the races and languages of America, it is well to keep this test 

 in view for comparison with the widely varying native numerals. But the correspondence 

 is slight, even with probable Turanian congeners. One Biscayan form of " three," hirun, 

 is not unlike the Magyar /)«fo?w ;• while the eyg, "one," of the latter, seems to find its 

 counterpart in the inseparable particle that transforms the Basque radical ham, " ten," into 

 the hamaika, " eleven." But such fragmentary traces are in striking contrast to the radical 

 agreement of Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic, and Teutonic numerals. Mr. 

 Hale has drawn my attention to the curious manner in which the names of the first 

 five Hochelaga numerals in Cartier's list are contracted and strengthened in the modern 



' Lectures on the Science of Language, 2nd Ser., p. 162. 



