204 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. V. 



THE LANGUAGE OF THE TUNGUS AND THE DEN^S. 



An instance of the strange over lookingof things that lies immediately 

 at one's hand is the conduct of Mr. Lucien Adam, of Nancy, who, 

 the author of a Mantchu grammar and the analyzer of that of the 

 Western Montagnais, failed to perceive the intimate relation of the two 

 grammatical systems. The Tungus and the Dene exhibit the chief 

 peculiarity of Northern Turanian languages, that is to say, they are 

 postpositional, and place the genitive and accusative before their 

 regimen. In these respects they agree with the Japo-Siberian tongues 

 of Asia, and the Dakotan, Iroquoian, Muskhogean, and the American 

 families of speech which i have classified as Khitan. But they are 

 differentiated from the Khitan languages by marked peculiarities. 

 Father Morice calls attention to the monosyllabic roots of Dene 

 substantives, as Adelung and Vater did long ago in the case of the 

 Mantchu. The former says : " A third process of a different nature^ 

 change of meaning by intonation or vocal inflection, obtains also among 

 some — not all — of the Dene tribes. Some of these intonations are even 

 proper to fractions of tribes only. Thus j/a, which means ' sky,' in 

 almost all the dialects, becomes ' louse ' to a Southern Carrier when 

 pronounced in a higher tone." Adelung has many illustrations of this 

 supposed Chinese peculiarity in Mantchu, as when he says, " Bz, for 

 instance, means I, to be, to have, to leave ; de, we, to take, birds' food, 

 uncle, axle, and handle." But he adds, " whether these different 

 meanings are distinguished by the tone, I do not know." The two 

 groups agree in the absence of the article in each, and in that of true 

 gender, and the substitution for it of a distinction between names 

 as intelligent or unintelligent, noble or ignoble, animate or inanimate ; 

 also, in the formation of the plural by affixing an adverb of quantity. 

 The genitive is expressed in each by adding to the name of the 

 possessor that of the thing possessed, preceded by the third personal 

 pronoun. The incorporation of pronouns and postpositions marks 

 equally the Asiatic and the American families compared. There is the 

 closest affinity between the Tungus and the Dene languages in regard 

 to the inumerable modifications of the verb and substantive to express 

 variety and quality of action and being found in each. Both groups 

 agree in prefixing the pronoun to the verb, thus differing from the 

 Ugrian and Turkish order of pronominal affixes. So far as grammatical 

 structure is concerned, it may safely be said that the Dene dialects are 

 not Japo-Siberian, Mongolic nor Turkic, but Tungusic. Even their 



