94 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
Carrier the root of zaze, “man,” is the second syllable, while in 7séXeé 
y b ’ 
“woman,” it is the first*. 
Therefore, in trying to assimilate, for instance, the latter word to 
synonyms froma heterogeneous linguistic stock, its desinence would not 
be of any more value than the prefix of the former. 
It is, no doubt, to Dr. Campbell’s inability to discern those radicals in 
the Déné terms that we must ascribe some of his failures in word identi- 
fications. Thus, to reproduce but a few, he compares the Déné 
tatsi, wind, with the Tungusic /z¢ 
hongzil, summer, ‘‘ ss anganal 
kontlan, all, BG es gandzi 
tedhay, salt, os i tak 
klz7z, dog, Ss es ninakzz 
If those parts of the words I have italicized are not Dr. Campbell’s 
ground for his attempts at assimilation, I would ask, where is the resem- 
blance? But I must state with regret that those are precisely the un- 
important portions of the words in Déné, leaving as the real root the 
other half which lacks all points of similarity with the Tungusic equiva- 
lents. Thus the root for wind in a// the truly Déné dialects is 7?s¢ (not 
ts?, which means head). Examples: wé?@sz, wind; ‘¢hizé’sz, the wind 
commenced to blow ; Awe7?’sz?, taken away by the wind; hwosaj?'sz, 
brought in by the wind; "haz né7?’sz, cut by the wind; yaé?’sz, scattered 
by the wind ; z7anads?’sz, heaped up by the wind, etc., etc. In the word 
hongzil, which is not a noun meaning summer, but a verb-corresponding 
to the phrase: it is warm, the ultimate root is s2/, sa/, heat, inflected by the 
prefix ox into zz/. Hon is merely the sign of the impersonal verb am, 
as such it is common to a// the adjective verbs, instead of being the 
radical part of the word for “summer.” Equally disparaging remarks 
could be presented relatively to the other words. But enough of this. 
Had Dr. Campbell consulted with any degree of care my vocabulary of 
the Déné roots,t he would have been told in each particular case where 
the real, immutable part of the word lies. 
It were hardly necessary to add to the preceding rules of comparative 
philology that all lexical comparisons should be made directly between 
actual words of different languages, not mediately through a possible 
translation of one of the two words, especially if that translation be into 
a dialect of another family. In the French work already referred to as 
containing unwarranted linguistic identifications, the author thus assimi- 
* As is evident from the words 7/-t'sé, dog-female and ya-t’sé, progeniture-female (daughter), 
t Transactions Canadian Institute, vol. III, 
t Six Légendes Américaines, etc., p. 620. 
a a 
a. ee en Ver 
