Language. 913 



the different animals and plants with which they were acquainted, but 

 were entirely deficient in such terms as 'color, tone, sex, genus, spirit, ' 

 &c. The Choctaw language has names for the black oak, white oak and 

 red oak, but none for oak ; still less for tree. The Tasmanians, again, 

 had no general term for tree, though they had names for each peculiar 

 kind ; nor could they express qualities, such as hard, soft, warm, cold, 

 long, short, round," &c. (Lubbock.) 



There are tribes of Mongolian or Turanian origin which have no word 

 for river, though they have names for every river and rivulet they are 

 acquainted with ; they have no word for finger, but names for the 

 thumb, ring-finger, &c. No word for berry, but many names for cran- 

 berry, strawberry, blueberry ; no word for tree, but names for birch, fir, 

 ash, and other trees. In Finnish the name given to the thumb finally 

 became the general name for finger, and the name of a certain kind of 

 berry, the waterberry (empetrum nigrum), became the general name 

 for berry. ( M. Muller. ) 



The gesture language of our western Indians has no sign for the gen- 

 eral idea fruit, although there are signs for berries of different sorts, 

 apples, cherries, &c. There is no sign for "animal," nor for "game," 

 nor for "meat," though there are signs for specific kinds of them all. 

 There is no sign for rich, but to say that a person "has many ponies," 

 conveys the idea that he is rich. 



These facts go to prove, that, as observed above, there are at first no 

 abstract ideas, but that such ideas arise from the superposition upon one 

 another, and the final condensation of a large number of concrete or 

 specific ideas ; the quality common to them all not appearing till this 

 synthetic process is accomplished. It is certainly impossible that terms 

 conve3 T ing abstract ideas could have been the first to come into existence 

 or to sustain the relationship of primary roots. Inability to comprehend 

 abstract qualities includes inability to count or perform mathematical 

 operations. Man}' savage tribes cannot count more than two. Those 

 who are able to count a considerable number, do so at first by the help 

 of some objective bodies. Almost universally the fingers and toes stand 

 for numerals at first. Some of the Australian tribes have but two nu- 

 merals. On the Lower Murray, ryup is one ; politi, two ; murnangin, 

 hand ; ryup murnangin, one hand, is five ; politi murnangin, two hands, 

 means ten. In Labrador, tallek, a hand, means also five, and the term 

 for twenty means hands and feet together. 



' The Zamuca and Muysca Indians have a cumbrous but very inter- 

 esting system of numeration. For five they say 'hand finished ;' for six, 

 ' one of the other hand, ' that is to say, take a finger of the other hand ;. 

 for ten they say 'two hands finished,' or sometimes more simply 

 ' quicha, ' that is, ' foot. ' Eleven is foot-one ; twelve, foot-two ; thir- 



