THE HUMAN SPECIES. 241 



syllabic. In Europe, we know the existing eastern 

 tongues of the Mongolic stock so imperfectly, that the 

 work of Dr. Pfitzmayer on the Japanese, though not 

 directed towards the spoken dialects of the more remote 

 islands of the empire, yet shows that the learned had, 

 until lately, a very slight acquaintance with it, and 

 often mistook written Chinese for the Niphon language.* 

 Even the learned Chinese is more a lettered than a 

 nationally spoken vehicle of thought ; and in both the 

 empires, the written is partly different from the spoken 

 tongues, though the characters, being symbols instead 

 of alphabetical signs, can be interpreted by words in 

 several languages, differing in every other respect from 

 each other. Thus, there cannot be a reliance on argu- 

 ments drawn from the difference of the American lan- 

 guages from the Mongolic ; they vary among the dis- 

 tinct families of North America, as much as from any 

 Tahtar tongue ; and there exist sufficient coincidences 

 and similarities in the sounds of words, as well as in 

 the opinions, manners, and practices of the natives, 

 resembling those of Eastern Asia, when taken with the 

 other arguments already produced, as to overthrow the 

 whole fabric of an exclusively American aboriginal 

 species or form of Man, constituting the races of that 

 continent, always excepting the Flathead type, which, 

 it must be owned, constitutes an ingredient very gene- 



* A Dictionary, in the so-called Tirokana characters, con- 

 taining 40,000 words, is in preparation, by Dr. Pfitzmayer, 

 at Vienna. 



