36 EEADB ON BASQUES 



vague significance), fully incorporative and tending to polysynthetism, and the American 

 group, completely poly synthetic' 



On the other hand, the view espoused by Mr. Hale has found an enthusiastic advocate 

 in the Count de Chareucy. " We would be inclined to believe ", he says, " that America 

 was peopled from the side of the Atlantic at an epoch when western Europe was still 

 occupied by populations of the Iberian race." And one of the grounds on which he bases 

 that conclusion is that the American languages, while showing no signs of relationship 

 with Asiatic forms of speech, present features of remarkable resemblance to the Basque of 

 the present day, especially in grammatical structure. The Count de Charency thinks, 

 moreover, that it is in the dialects peculiar to Canada that the most marked affinities with 

 the Basque language have been discovered.^ 



Commenting on these alleged evidences of kinship between the languages of Canada 

 and the oldest tongue of Europe, Abbé Cuoq A^ery pertinently remarks that, since even a 

 comparatively meagre inquiry has elicited discoveries of such great interest and signifi- 

 cance, there is all the more reason why philologists on both sides of the Atlantic, but 

 especially those who have opportunities of intercourse with our Indians, should carefully 

 examine all the peculiarities of the aboriginal languages and dialects, so that their inves- 

 tigations, combined with those of the students of Basque, may bring fresh and still fresher 

 facts to light, until finally the question of Basque- American afiinity has received an au- 

 thoritative solution either in the affirmative or the negative. The advice is worthy of the 

 moderation and good sense of one of the most laborious and fruitful students of American 

 philology. 



mutation of all available materials before tbe native races of our own Dominion and those of the neighboring 

 States perish, and their languages pass beyond recall." The paper in which these words occur, the Huron- 

 Iroquois of Canada, a Typical Race of American .aborigines. Trans. Roy. Soc. Can. 1884, the closing chapter of 

 Prehistoric Man, 3rd edition, H. Hale's Iroquois Book of Rites, and essay on Indian Migrations as evidenced by 

 Language, M. Jules Vinson's translations of Ribary's Essay on the Basque Language, and his paper, Le Basque 

 et les Langues Américaines (Compte-Rendu du Congrès International des Américanistes, 1875), the Iroquois and 

 Algonquin Lexicons, the Etudes Pliilologiques and Jugement Erroné, of our colleague, Abbé Cuoq, may be pro- 

 fitably consulted oq the whole subject of Basque- American affinities. In concluding this long note, I would say 

 that, while in tlie main agreeing witli IMr. Haie ( " Race and Language," in Pojndar Scieyice Monthly, January, 1888) 

 as to the great importance of speecli as evidence of the stock to which those using it belong, I would also give 

 due weight to traditions, religious notions, folklore, cranial formation, complexion, stature and other physical and 

 moral characteristics. 



' Le Basque et les Langues Américaines in the Compte-Rendu of the Congrès des Américanistes, Nancy, 

 1875, ii. 79. 



^ See Appendix for illustrative specimens of Basque, Iroquois and Algonquin. 



