568 PHILOLOGY. 



of the missionaries. The Tsihailish, Nsietshawus, Tshinulc, and Kalapuya may also, we 

 think, be depended upon. The others were mostly received from single individuals of the 

 several tribes, or from interpreters, and have not therefore had those advantages of com- 

 parison and revisal which alone insure perfect accuracy. But ihe great mass of words in 

 all has probably been rightly understood and written. . 



There are certain words, however, in all the vocabularies, which are not exact transla- 

 tions of the English words under which they stand. This is especially the case with all 

 generic denominations. The words given for tree, snake, bird, fish, signify in most cases 

 merely some species belonging to these classes, as, pine, rattlesnake, pigeon, salmon, 

 &c. In many instances, where the natives were made to understand the meaning of the 

 English word, they declared that there was no corresponding term in their own dialects. 

 The word given in the Selish vocabulary for fish, viz., suduicityl, comprehends all ani- 

 mals which inhabit the water, being derived from sdwitylwi), which means water. Waiu- 

 tUiken, the Sahaptin word for bird, means properly " the winged animal." The terms 

 town, warrior, friend, must also be reckoned among those whose vague or generic cha- 

 racter makes it difficult to obtain an exact translation into the Indian languages. 



If, as sometimes happens, there exist two terms for man (answering to vir and homo), 

 they will usually be found, the former under man or husband, and the latter under " In- 

 dian, native." In general, however, there was no means of ascertaining with precision 

 the existence of this distinction. 



For the -words father, mother, sister, brother, there will be observed a profusion of cor- 

 responding terms in the Indian languages. This arises from three circumstances well 

 known to philologists : firstly, the fact that the sexes use different terms to designate 

 these relations ; secondly, that the vocative, or the word used in addressing a relation, is 

 often entirely different from that employed on other occasions ; and, thirdly, that the 

 Indians are accustomed to designate the elder brother and sister by different terms from 

 those used for the younger. 



The words given for spring, summer, autumn, winter, do not often correspond exactly 

 with the English terms. They are sometimes properly the names of certain months 

 in those seasons ; in other cases, they signify merely warm and cold. Morning and 

 evening have in every language, as in English (morning, daybreak, dawn, sunrise), so 

 many corresponding expressions of slightly different meanings, that in general it was a 

 matter of chance if exactly the same translation was obtained in any two allied dialects. 

 The same may be said of valley, the Indian words for which signify river-bottom, ravine, 

 dell, and sometimes dry water-course. 



The distinction of old, as aged and as not new, is generally made in the Indian lan- 

 guages, and is sometimes pointed out in the vocabularies. But for young, in many cases, 

 no word was found but that signifying small. This was the case in the Sahaptin, where, 

 had any such word existed, it would unquestionably have been known to the mission- 

 aries. 



It is remarkable that, in several of the languages, the same word is employed to signify 

 both yesterday and to-morrow. The meaning is determined by the construction, usually 

 by the tense of the verb. 



The third personal pronoun was, in general, difficult to obtain, and the word by which 

 it is rendered in some of the vocabularies, probably means rather iliat or this. 



The numbers above five could not, in several instances, be obtained with certainty, 

 and in some not at all. This was the case in many of the southern dialects. 



