18 



of it, apparently in the same tribal district. The very exact 

 and careful investigations recently made of the dialect spoken 

 in East Greenland have revealed a custom held in high con- 

 sideration and having a remarkable influence on the familiar 

 language of the natives there. It is the custom of not ment- 

 ioning the names of persons recently deceased. If such names 

 have been taken from current words of the language, the latter 

 have to be altered. This custom, as we know, has been met 

 with among many nations, but the consistency with which it 

 is maintained in East Greenland is surprising. If the dialects 

 of the extreme west had been submitted to a similar influence, 

 the glossaries collected by the foreign travellers there, would 

 have been of by far less value than they are now. But it seems 

 not unlikely that nevertheless the same custom may have con- 

 tributed to the said duplicity of designations. 



Judging the weight of all the facts we here have stated 

 concerning the probable creation of a certain class of words 

 during a stay in the supposed culture home, we finally still 

 have to take into consideration not only, as already mentioned, 

 the question whether the objects thus designated have been 

 really new to the settlers on the arctic seaboard, but also 

 whether the words that have been adopted for this purpose are 

 formed out of new invented radical words, or, in the usual way, 

 by means of the existing stem words and affixes. As regards 

 this question, our tables in connection with the Greenland 

 dictionary have to be more closely consulted. But one con- 

 clusion may with safety be drawn from what we have already 

 asserted; and this is, that the above series of words can not 

 have been originated in two or more different places by Eskimo 

 tribes , without there was sufficient intercourse. Consequently 

 only one culture home can have existed and, within its frontiers, 

 an intercourse must have been maintained sufficient for co- 

 operation- in developing the new inventions and customs, as 

 well as adapting and completing the language for this change 



