1889-90.] THE DEN^ LANGUAGES. 187 



In common with the ancient Egyptians and most American aborigines 

 the Dends use their fingers to count upon, and their system is decimal. 

 Holding his left hand with the palm turned toward his face, the Carrier 

 will bend with the index of his right his little finger and all the others in 

 succession. Then he repeats the same operation on the fingers of his 

 right hand whose palm is this time turned outside, the number six being 

 named on the thumb. That number is fkoi-tha, " on both it is three" 

 (things), and eight is in like manner fkce-tcennge, "on both it is four" 

 (things). The expression used for nine recalls to mind the €Vo9 Seovros of 

 the Greeks. The Ddn^s likewise say : one is wanting [i.e. to ten). Ten 

 is hwonizyai, " it is won," in Northern Carrier. For eleven all the tribes 

 say ttn phis one, etc.; for twenty, twice ten, etc., and before the advent 

 of the whites the Carriers said for lOO, pe nahultho, "with it one counts 

 again." 



Another analogy with the Greek language perhaps worth mentioning 

 is that existing between the Ddnd interrogative pronoun ti ? "what?" 

 and its Greek synonym n; all other Carrier interrogatives are similarly 

 characterized by the initial consonant T which corresponds to the 

 initial r noticeable in all the Greek pronouns of that class. But enough 

 of this. My intention in commencing this paper was to ignore mere 

 lexical analogies with alien languages. 



Of personal pronouns all the Ddnd dialects possess two kinds. The 

 first is subjective and independent from the verb. It is identical with 

 the Latin ego, tu, ilk, etc. The other is so incorporated into the body of 

 the verb as to lose its own individuality. It is the equivalent of the 

 pronominal crement we notice in the Latin and Greek verbs : ajn-o, 

 mii-as, ain-at, etc., Au-oj, Au-ets, Au-et, etc. Of this last more shall be said 

 when I come to treat of the verb. 



Possessive pronouns assume in Carrier five different forms, according 

 to the sugnification or the internal structure of the noun to which 

 they are prefixed. The most noticeable peculiarity in connection 

 therewith is the richness of the pronoun of the third person. While 

 four words (his, her,its, their), seem sufficient to the English mind to 

 express it, the Carrier idiom can boast of no less than 17 such terms 

 which, however, when divested of their five accidental forms can be 

 reduced to six : singular //, Jnvo, yce, tee, ; plural, pee, and Jie. The first of 

 these pronouns corresponds to our " his, her, its," — the pronouns admit of 

 no gender in Ddn^. The second (Jnvo) is prefixed to nouns in regimi- 

 nal connection with such words as " house, lake," and those which denote 



