534 PHILOLOGY. 



are unknown in the former. Difficult combinations of consonants rarely occur, and the 

 many vowels make the pronunciation clear and sonorous. There is, however, a good 

 deal of variety in this respect, some of the languages, as the Lutuami, Saste, and 

 Palaihnik, being smooth and agreeable to the ear, while the Shoshoni and Kalapuya, 

 though soft, are nasal and indistinct. 



In their grammatical characteristics, so far as these were determined, the languages of 

 Oregon belong to the same class as the other aboriginal idioms of America. An exu- 

 berance of inflections, and a great aptitude for composition, is every where apparent. 

 Many of the forms are precisely the same as those which occur in the languages of the 

 eastern and southern tribes of our continent. The system of " transitions," or, in other 

 words, the principle of expressing the pronouns, both of the subject and the object, by an 

 inflection of the verb, is followed by all. In like manner, those modifications of an idea 

 which in other languages are expressed by separate words, are in these denoted by 

 affixes and inflections. The facility with which any other part of speech may be trans- 

 formed to a verb is no less remarkable. 



The distinction made in some of the eastern tongues between the names of animate and 

 inanimate objects has not been found to exist in the Oregon languages. The missionaries 

 had not met with it in any instance. 



The dual of the pronoun is found in the Tshinuk and Waiilatpu, but not in the 

 Sahaptin, Selish, or Kalapuya. The double plural of the first person (including and ex- 

 cluding the person addressed), is also found in the Tshinuk. In the Sahaptin it occurs, 

 not in the pronoun itself, but in a very singular class of words, termed by the mission- 

 aries " declinable conjunctions," words which do the office of conjunctions, but only in 

 connexion with verbs, and are varied for number and person. 



A very simple, and what might, with some propriety, be termed a natural method of 

 forming the plural, prevails in many of these languages. It is by a repetition of the first 

 syllable, or a portion of it, sometimes with a slight change of the vowel ; as, Itidus, 

 father, in Selish, pi. Ittludus ; tana, ear, pi. tuntdna ; kelig, hand, pi. kilkclig ; skul- 

 tamiy.o, man, pi. skulkvltamtyo. So in the Sahaptin, pitin, girl, pi. pipitin ; and in 

 Netela, kUg, house, pi. kikitg. In most of these languages, the adjective has also its 

 plural, which is generally formed in the same way as that of the substantive, but is 

 sometimes very irregular. 



1. THE TAHKALI-UMKWA FAMILY. 

 (A. TayJculi. B. Tldtskanai [a. Tlalskanai ; b. Kwufyiokwa.] C. Omkwa.) 



The words of the Tahkali language were furnished by Mr. A. Anderson, of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, who had been for several years in charge of a trading post in 

 New Caledonia. Their general correctness may be relied upon, but the minor shades of 

 sound are probably not always distinguished. A few terms have been added (in paren- 

 theses), from the Appendix to Harmon's Journal of Travels in the Interior of North 

 America, a work of the best authority on this subject. The words of the Tlatskanai 

 and Umkwa were obtained from individuals of those tribes. 



The languages of this family belong to what we have called the northern division, and 

 are as remarkable as the rest for the harshness of their sounds. The Umkwa forms a 

 partial exception, being much softer than the others, with some peculiar elements, as the 



