COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY, 255 



whether these principles have obtained in one or in more 

 lines of development. There can be no reasonable doubt 

 that in some greater or less degree the three orders are 

 connected : in what precise degree this connection obtains is 

 doubtless a question of high importance to the science of 

 philology : it is of scarcely any importance to the problems 

 which we shall presently have to consider. 



But the issue touching the relation between the poly- 

 synthetic and other types of language is of more importance 

 for us, inasmuch as it involves the question whether or not 

 we have here to do with the most primitive type of language. 

 In the opinion of some philologists, "these polysynthetic 

 languages are an interesting survival of the early condition of 

 language everywhere, and are but a fresh proof that America 

 is in truth * the new world : ' primitive forms of speech that 

 have elsewhere perished long ago still survive there, like the 

 armadillo, to bear record of a bygone past." * On the other 

 hand, it is with equal certainty affirmed that "polysynthesis 

 is not a primitive feature, but an expansion, or, if you will, a 

 second phase of agglutination." f 



Of course in dealing with this issue I can only do so as 

 an amateur, quite destitute of authority in matters pertaining 

 to philology ; but the points on which I am about to speak 

 have reference to principles so general, that in trying them 

 the lay mind may not be without its uses in the jury-box. 

 Moreover, philologists themselves are at present so ill- 

 informed touching the facts of polysynthetic language, that 

 there is less presumption here than elsewhere in any outsider 

 offering his opinion upon the matters in dispute.f It is 



♦ Sayce, Introduction, (Sr'r., i., 125, 126. 



t Hovelacque, Science of Language^ p. 130. 



X ** What we most need to note is the very narrow limitation of our present 

 knowledge. Even among the neighbouring families like the Algonquin, Troquois, 

 and Dakota, whose agreement in style of structure (polysynthetic), taken in con- 

 nection with the accordant race-type of their speakers, forbids us to regard them 

 as ultimately different, no material correspondence, agreements in words and 

 meanings, is to be traced ; and there are in America all degrees of polysynthetism, 

 down to the lowest, and even to its entire absence. Such being the case, it ought 

 to be evident that all attempts to connect American languages as a body with 



