170 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. I. 



THE DENE LANGUAGES. 



Considered in TJieniselves and Incidentally in their Relations to Non- 



A nierican Idioms, 



By the Rev. Father A. G. Morice, O.M.I. 



(Read igtJi April, i8go.) 



INTRODUCTION. 



Among the allied sciences which concur in lending ancillary aid to 

 Ethnology none can be compared to Philology. Anthropology's services 

 are valuable, it is true ; yet its investigations tend to the solution more 

 of racial than of ethnic problems. Archieology can hardly be regarded as 

 an infallible criterion of ethnological certitude, since we find among peo- 

 ples confessedly heterogeneous implements and sometimes monuments 

 of striking similarity. Mythology or Dremonology can still less aspire to 

 the first place in the ethnologist's esteem ; for, not to speak of the uni- 

 versality of certain myths or beliefs, a people's legends and its very theo- 

 gomy itself are liable to yield to the latent pressure exercised by foreign 

 nations through migrations, captivity or commiscegenation. Sociology 

 can lay claim to great importance indeed ; still it cannot be assigned the 

 first rank among Ethnology's satellites, since we find among such ethni- 

 cally different peoples as the Jews and the Caffirs, observances the iden- 

 tity of which would lead to false conclusions were Sociology allowed su- 

 preme importance in the decision of ethnological questions.* 



Such is not the case with philology. " Nothing is more characteristic 

 of the intellectual existence of man than language," says Gallatin. f " It 

 is found to be a more enduring monument of ancient affinities than the 

 physical type, and there is no tribe, however situated, from which this 

 proof of affiliation should not be obtained." This opinion is corroborated 

 by a contemporaneous author, Horatio Hale, in a paper read some years 



*The most striking instance adducible in confirmation of these and the following remarks is 

 that of the Nabajoes of New Mexico and Arizona. Those aborigines who are geographically 

 surrounded by heterogeneous tribes, and inhabit a country some 1,500 miles south of the most sou- 

 thern Denes' hunting grounds differ in physical type, natural dispositions, manners and customs 

 from our Indians. Their legends, myths and religious observances have no equivalents here, and 

 yet their speech stamps them at once as an offshoot of the great Dene family. 



+Am. Ant. Coll., Vol. II. 



