THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE. 119 



superiority of the Greek, to which we constantly resort for sucli agglu- 

 tinative forms as telegraph, photograph, spectroscope, pyrotechnics, 

 electrotype, and hundreds like them. The power of composition in 

 most of the American languages, instead of being, as some have ima- 

 gined, a mark of inferiority, is in reality, as Duponceau long since 

 pointed out, one of their chief claims to our admiration. 



Before giving a typical example of this power in the Sahaptin, I 

 may refer to the theory put foi-th by Professor Sayce in his "Principles 

 of Comparative Philology," and maintained by him with much force 

 of argument, — that all language begins witli the sentence, and that 

 the separate words which compose the primitive sentence are the 

 product of later analysis. Against this view it has been urged that, 

 in the nature of things, analysis, or, rather, the single elements, must 

 precede synthesis. We must have the elements before we can put them 

 together. The whole question, however, becomes clear if we bear in 

 mind that all languages must have begun on the lips of children, 

 and that no young child, when beginning to speak, ever yet uttered 

 a sentence. As has been already i-emarked, — and as eveiy pai'ent 

 knows, — the child begins with single words, and usually with mono- 

 syllables, or at the most dissyllables. As he grows older, he puts his 

 words together ; he compounds and inflects them. Finally, when full 

 grown, he utters his thoughts in sentences, in which, unless with a 

 conscious effort, he rarely thinks of the word, and never of their roots. 

 Thus, since all completed language is only known to us in this final 

 stage, or as it is spoken by grown people. Professor Sayce's theory, 

 perplexing as it seems at first thought, is fully justified by the facts. 



The word which Mr. Smith gave me as an example of the remark- 

 able power of composition in the Sahaptin is one which, since it was 

 nrst published, has been often quoted. Though long, it is anything 

 but harsh or hard. On the contrary, it is both euphonious and, to 

 one familiar with the language, evidently easy of comprehension. It 

 is a word of nine syllables, forming several distinct groups, — -hi-tau- 

 tucda-ioi]inan-kat(,-na ; and it means " he travelled by on foot in a 

 rainy night." This, ic will be seen, is a complete sentence, and it is 

 one which is very easily analyzed. The first syllable, hi., is the prefix 

 of the third person singular ; it bears a curious resemblance in sound 

 and meaning to the English pronoun " he," but is used only as a 



