222 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



more apparent correspondences than between those 

 of English, Hungarian, and Malay ; none namely 

 which may not be merely fortuitous." To account 

 for these dialects a suggestion, as interesting as 

 it is ingenious, has been advanced by Dr. Hale. 

 Imagine the case of a family of Red Indians, 

 father, mother, and half a dozen children, in the 

 vicissitudes of war, cut off from their tribe. Suppose 

 the father to be scalped and the mother soon to 

 die. The little ones left to themselves in some 

 lonely valley, living upon roots and herbs, would 

 converse for a time by using the few score words 

 they had heard from their parents. But as they 

 grew up they would require new words and would 

 therefore coin them. As they became a tribe they 

 would require more words, and so in time a Language 

 might arise, all the words expressive of the simpler 

 relations — father, mother, tent, fire — being common 

 to other Indian Languages, but all the later words 

 purely arbitrary and necessarily a standing puzzle 

 to philology. The curious thing is that this theory 

 is borne out by some most interesting geographical 

 facts. " If, under such circumstances, disease, or 

 the casualties of a hunter's life should carry off the 

 parents, the survival of the children would, it is 

 evident, depend mainly upon the nature of the 

 climate and the ease with which food could be 



