AFFILIATION OF THE ALGONQUIN LANGUAGES. 19 
vocabularies, still more striking and definite results might have been 
obtained. To the thirty words above mentioned I have added the 
numerals of the Algonquin languages up to fen, similarly comparing 
them, but with results not quite so favourable. Still, even in this 
difficult field of comparison, important analogies appear. To exhibit 
the negative side of the argument, I have placed over against the 
Algonquin and Malay-Polynesian words the corresponding terms in 
the Asiatic and allied languages from which the American forms of 
speech might naturally be expected to take their derivation. Such 
are the Ugrian, Mongol, Tartar and Mantchu tongues, forming the 
Ural-Altaic class; the Samoied, Yenisei and Yukagir, conveniently 
termed <Asiatic-Hyperborean; and the Japanese, Aino, Tchuktchi 
and Kamtschatdale, which are grouped as Peninsular. While a few 
analogies appear among some of these, their dissimilarity from the 
families under consideration is well worthy of attention. Here also 
I must confess that the imperfection of my lists, which are not selec- 
tions, but contain all the material at present in my possession, hinders 
me from drawing too strict a line of demarcation. Lest it might be 
supposed that the analogy of the Algonquin with the Malay-Poly- 
nesian languages to which I have compared them is shared by other 
American families of speech, I have set forth the prevailing forms of 
the terms chosen for comparison in the Athabascan or Tinneh, the 
Wyandot-Iroquois, the Dacotah or Sioux, and the Choctaw classes, 
with all of which the Algonquin tongues are in geographical relation. 
As far as my knowledge of the Malay-Polynesian languages ex- 
tends, and it is very limited, I must admit that the striking lexical 
affinities are not borne out by equally close resemblances in the 
structure of language, as we compare for instance the grammar of the 
Algonquin with that of the Malays or of the Tonga islanders. There 
are, however, many widely differing grammatical forms among the 
large Oceanic class to which these belong. The Tagala spoken in the 
Philippine islands is, according to Dr, Latham, “essentially agglu- 
tinate in respect to its inflection ;’ and I must leave to those who 
are better versed in these tongues the task of comparing their agglu- 
tination with that of the Algonquin languages. While far from 
disparaging the value of grammatical forms in such connections as 
that under consideration, I am as far from believing in their perma- 
nence. Words are the bones of language, and we might as well take 
the whale and the bat out of the Mammalia as to separate tongues 
