1889-90.] THE Visi LANGUAGES. ISl 



their forms. What I have already said will, I trust, give a fair enough 

 idea of the differentiating superiority of the D^ne over the Arj^an 

 languages. I shall content myself with stating that the single paradigm 

 of the verb " to put " contains in my dictionary (which could be more 

 complete) over 3,000 verbs all of which differ in meaning as well as in 

 material structure. And this number is repeated in connection with 

 almost all the other objective verbs, which are quite numerous ! And to 

 say that a child four or five years old possesses these innumerable vocables 

 well nigh as perfectly as does his father and knows his extricate language 

 infinitely better than any French academician does his own plain and 

 easy mother tongue ! Who will now vaunt the so much extolled mental 

 superiority of the white race and despise the intellectual capacity of those 

 poor " savages " .-' 



But we must descend from the heights of admiration to the more pro- 

 saic task of rapidly analyzing the different parts which constitute this 

 wonderful speech. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE NOUNS ; THEIR VARIETIES AND INFLECTIONS. 



There are in Ddn^ but eight different paits of speech : the noun, the 

 adjective, the pronoun, the adverb, the verb, the postposition, the conjunc- 

 tion and the interjection. Besides the verbs, the immense majority of 

 the adjectives .as well as many nouns and a few adverbs are susceptible 

 of conjugation. 



Considered in their material structure and etymology, the D4n4 nouns 

 may be divided into four classes. There are the primary roots which are 

 all monosyllabic as in Chinese. Such are j/a, sky ; t/i?^i, water ; tse, stone ; 

 scrs, black bear, etc. They are essentially nominative : they neither 

 define nor describe the object they designate ; they merely differentiate 

 it from another. I consider them as the remnants of the primitive Ddn4 

 language, inasmuch as they are to be found with little or no alteration in 

 all the dialects of the family, whatever may be the distance intervening 

 between the Aborigines who speak them. 



The second category comprises roots of simple import which are genu- 

 ine unsynthetical substantives though polysyllabic, generally dissyllabic, 

 in form. To this category belong words as fa^ne, man ; tstkh^, woman ; 

 pcenrjrcen, lake, etc. They possess, to a limited extent, the properties of 

 the monosyllabic roots, being likewise merely determinative and often- 

 times varying but little with the change of dialect. 



