20 AFFILIATION OF THE ALGONQUIN LANGUAGES. 
using identical common terms on account of minor differences in 
grammatical combination. The resemblances between the Algonquin 
and the Malay-Polynesian vocabularies are the rule, not the exception; 
and on this ground I believe that an exhaustive analysis of the 
grammatical forms of the latter will yet exhibit at least a near 
approach to Algonquin structure. 
In addition to the agglutination of the Tagala and kindred languages, 
a feature that.appears more or less in all the Polynesian tongues, there 
are many points of resemblance as well as of difference between the 
Malay-Polynesian and the Algonquin. They agree in the absence of 
anything like true gender, and in the substitution for it of a distinction 
of nouns into animate and inanimate. The Algonquin languages, 
however, have a termination for the plural, while, as far as I am 
aware, the Malay-Polynesian mark plurality by a prefixed article or 
particle, or by the suffix of a numeral adjective. The Algonquin 
nouns have properly speaking no declension, and this is true of the 
Malay-Polynesian. But when case is marked in the latter, it is by 
forms of the article or by prefixed prepositions which frequently 
coalesce, while in the former the locative is denoted by a suffix. The 
genitive also precedes the nominative in Algonquin, but follows it in 
the Malay-Polynesian, The Malay-Polynesian languages have pre- 
positions, and such are many of the Algonquin particles ; but others 
are postpositions. This would seem, with other points of a similar 
character, to indicate the position of the Algonquin languages as one 
midway between the postponing Turanians of Asia and the preposing 
Malay-Polynesians. The Athabascans, Iroquois, Dacotahs and Choe- 
taws, who surround the Algonquins on every side, all use postpositions, 
and their influence in this and other directions may have tended 
largely to render the Algonquin grammar somewhat Turanian. The 
substantive and the verb are but feebly distinguished in the two 
families under consideration, and in many cases not at all. In the 
formation of derivative nouns the Malay employs a prefix as well as 
an affix, and has been contrasted with the Algonquin, which makes 
use of the suffix only. Thus from Malay tidor, to sleep, comes per- 
tidor-an, a bed; while from Cree nipow, to sleep, is derived nipawin, 
a bed. The Polynesians do not follow the Malays in this respect, 
for the Tonga mohe, to sleep, gives us mohenga, a bed, in a form that 
is thoroughly Algonquin. In both families the adjective is invariable, 
but in the Malay-Polynesian its place is generally after the noun, 
