148 H. P. STEENSBY. 
rial culture, which, so to speak, was similar in all respects, and to the racial 
characters, which also differed in no great degree. On the other hand, the lin- 
guistic difference is so great that Aleutian cannot be regarded as a branch of 
the Eskimo language, but must rather be regarded as collateral with Eskimo, 
perhaps even with such linguistic groups as the Tinne and Algonquin. It is 
divided into a western and an eastern dialect, Atkic and Unalaskic, which, 
however, do not differ greatly. 
J. H. E. BuscHMANN expresses the results of his investigations of the 
Aleutian and other North American languages as follows: “Ich kann das wich- 
tige Endresultat meiner Untersuchung verkündigen: dass, entgegen diesem 
gemeinsamen Stoffe, sich das aleutische Idiom (man kann so uber beide Dia- 
lecte absprechen) in seiner Masse, durch den Besitz ganz anderer, eigenthiim- 
licher Wörter, als ein eigner, von dem grossen eskimoischen ganzverschie- 
dener Sprachtypus erweist.” Ввтхтом! contests this view, he says regarding 
the Aleuts that it may be regarded as a positive fact that their ancestors “popu- 
lated the islands from the American and not the Asiatic side. Not only do their 
own traditions assert this, but it is confirmed by the oldest relics of their culture, 
which is Eskimo in character, and by their language, which is generally acknow- 
ledged to be a derivative of the Alaskan Eskimos.” In support of the phrase 
“a derivative of the Alaskan Eskimos’ Brinton cites H. WINKLER (р. 119) 
and W. H. Datu (III, р. 49), and writes regarding the latter, that DALL “states 
that their tongue is distinctly connected with the Innuits of Alaska.” But on 
looking up the passage in question in DALL, one finds that he expresses nothing 
definite regarding the relationship, nor does he state that Aleutian can be derived 
from Eskimo. Dart, after having shown that the Aleut-culture is a particularly 
specialized Eskimo-culture which owes to the natural conditions its — according 
to his opinion — higher and finer development, goes on to say that “this im- 
provement is evident, among other things, in the greater development of the 
possibilities of the language, in its more perfect grammatical construction and 
in a more perfect numerical system.” It must be these words to which Brinton 
alludes. But it is evident that the development Datu is thinking of here 
relates to the culture, and that nothing is said about the genetic relationship 
of the two languages. Then, on looking up WINKLER, it is impossible to under- 
stand the passage in question as BRINTON would have us to understand it. In 
his enumeration and treatment of the North Asiatic languages WINKLER men- 
tions also the Eskimo language, regarding which he writes, inter alia, that it 
is more closely related to the American languages than to the Ural-Altaic lan- 
guages. After that the Yukagiric language is inserted, and lastly comes the 
Aleutian, regarding the relationship of which he only writes: “Trotz des 
vielfach hervortretenden uralaltaischen Anstrichs ganz selbständiger Sprach- 
typus .... doch auch der Auffassung nach wesentlich vom uralaltaisch ab- 
weichend”. Nothing is said about relationship to the Eskimo language, which, 
for the rest, is not referred to when he mentions Aleutian. We may then safely 
1 Brinton I, p. 66. 
