THE WITNESS OF PIIILOLOGY. 35 1 



dog's-tail, bird's-tail, shccp's-tail, &c., but no word for tail 

 itself — i.e. tail in general.* The Mohicans have words to 

 signify difTfcrcnt kinds of cutting, but no verb " to cut ;" and 

 forms for " I love him," " I love you," &c., but no verb " to 

 love ; " while the Choctanis have names for different species 

 of oak, but no wOrd for the genus oak.f Again, the Aus- 

 tralians have no word for tree, or even for bird, fish, &c. ;t 

 and the Eskimo, although he has verbs which signify to 

 fish-seal, to fish-whale, &c., has not any verb " to fish." " Ces 

 langues," Du Ponceau remarks, " generalisent raremcnt ; " and 

 he shows that they have not even any verb to imply *' I 

 will," or " I wish," although they have separate verbal forms 

 for " I wish to eat meat," " I wish to eat soup ;" neither have 

 they any general noun-substantive which means "a blow," 

 although they have a variety which severally mean blows 

 with as many different kinds of instruments. § Similarly, 

 Mr. Crawford tells us, " the Malay is very deficient in abstract 

 words ; and the usual train of ideas of the people who speak 

 it does not lead them to make a frequent use even of the 

 few they possess. With this poverty of the abstract is 

 united a redundancy of the concrete," — and he gives many 

 instances of the same kind as those above rendered from 

 other languages. || So, likewise, we are told, " the dialect 

 of the Zulus is rich in nouns denoting different objects of 

 the same genus, according to some variety of colour, or 

 deficiency of members, or some other peculiarity," such as 

 " white-cow," " red-cow," " brown-cow ; " ^ and the Sechuana 

 has no fewer than ten words all meaning " horned cattle." ** 

 Cheroki presents thirteen different verbs to signify different 



• Mithridatesy iii. 325, 397. See also Pott, Etym. Forsch.^ ii. 167; and Heyse, 

 System, 132. 



t Latham, Races of Man, p. 376. 



X Quatrefages, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Dec. 15, i860; Maury, La Terre et 

 VHomme, p. 433. 



§ Mem. siir le Syst. Gram., &^c., p. 120. 



II Malay Grammar ^ i,, p. 68, et scq. 



^ jfouriil. Ameri. Orient, Soc.y i. No. 4, p. 402. 



** Casalis, Grammar, p. 7. 



