CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 31 
whom I have already quoted, reports that in March, 1860, he took an Indian boy on board the 
Japanese steam-corvette Kanrin-maru, where a comparison of Coast-Indian and pure Japanese was 
made at his request by Funkuzawa Ukitchy, then admiral’s secretary; the result of which he 
prepared for the press and published with a view to suggest further linguistic investigation. 
He says that quite an infusion of Japanese words is found among some of the Coast tribes of Oregon 
and California, either pure or clipped, along with some very peculiar Japanese ‘idioms, construe- 
tions, honorific, separative, and agglutinative particles;” that shipwrecked Japanese are invariably 
enabled to communicate understandingly with the Coast Indians, although speaking quite a different 
language, and that many shipwrecked Japanese have informed him that they were enabled to 
communicate with and understand the natives of Atka and Adakh Islands of the Aleutian group. 
With a view to finding out whether any linguistic affinity existed between Japanese and the 
Eskimo dialects in the vicinity of Bering Straits, I caused several Japanese boys, employed as 
servants on board the Corwin, to talk on numerous occasions to the natives, both of the American 
and Asiatic coasts; but in every instance they were unable to understand the Eskimo, and assured 
me that they could not detect a single word that bore any resemblance to words in their own 
lauguage. 
The study of the linguistic peculiarities which distinguish the population around Bering 
Straits offers an untrodden path in a new field; but it is doubtful whether the results, except to 
linguists like Cardinal Mezzofanti, or philologists of the Max Miiller type, would be at all commen- 
surate with the efforts expended in this direction; since it is asserted that the human voice is 
incapable of articulating more than twenty distinct sounds, therefore whatever resemblnaces there 
may bein the particular words of different languages are of no ethnic value. Although these may 
be the views of many persons not only in regard to the Eskimo tongue but in regard to philology 
in general, the matter has a wonderful fascination for more speculative minds. 
Much has been said about the affinity of language among the Eskimo—some asserting that it is 
such as to allow mutual intercourse everywhere—but instances warrant us in concluding that con- 
siderable deviations exist intheir vocabularies if not in the grammaticalconstruction. For instance, 
take two words that one hears oftener than any others: On the Alaskan coast they say ‘“na-koo- 
ruk,” a word meaning ‘‘ good,” “all right,” &ce.; on the Siberian coast “ ma-zink-ah,” while a vocab- 
ulary collected during Lieutenant Schwatka’s expedition gives the word ** mah-muk?-poo” for “good.” 
The first two of these words are so characteristic of the tribes on the respective shores above the 
straits that a better designation than any yet given to them by writers on the subject would be 
Nakoorooks for the people on the American side and Mazinkahs for those on the Siberian coast. 
These names, by which they know each other, are in general use among the whalemen and were 
adopted by every one on board the Corwin. 
Again, on the American coast ‘‘ Am-a-luk-tuk” signifies plenty, while on the Siberian coast it 
is “Num-kuck-ee.” “ Tee-tee-tah” means needles in Siberia, in Alaska it is “mitkin.” In the 
latter place when asking for tobacco they say “te-ba-muk,” while the Asiatics say “ salopa.” 
That a number of dialects exists around Bering Straits is apparent to the most superficial observer. 
The difference in the language becomes apparent after leaving Norton Sound. The interpreter we 
took from Saint Michael’s could only with difficulty understand the natives at Point Barrow, while 
at Saint Lawrence Island and on the Asiatic side he could understand nothing at all. At East 
Cape we saw natives who, though apparently alike, did not understand one another’s language. I 
saw the same thing at Cape Prince of Wales, the western extremity of the New World, whither a 
number of Eskimo from the Wankarem River, Siberia, had come to trade. Doubtless there is a 
community of origin in the Eskimo™tongue, and these verbal divergencies may be owing to the 
want of written records to give fixity to the language, since languages resemble living organisms 
by being in a state of continual change. Be that as it may, we know that this people has 
imported a number of words from coming in contact with another language, just as the French 
have incorporated into their speech “le steppeur,” “outsider,” “le high life,” “le steeple chase,” 
“le jockey club,” &c.—words that have no correlatives in French—so the Eskimo has appropriated 
. from the whalers words which, as verbal expressions of his ideation, are undoubtedly better than 
anything in his own tongue. One of these is “by and by,” which he uses with the same frequency 
that a Spaniard does his favorite manana por le manano. In this instance the words express the 
