BOAS] HANDBOOK OF AMEEICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 25 



sufficient number of characteristic traits belong to them in common. 

 Thus the hmitation of the number of phonetic groups expressing 

 distinct ideas is an expression of the psychological fact that many 

 different individual experiences appear to us as representatives of 

 the same category of thought. 



This trait of human thought and speech may be compared in a 

 certain manner to the limitation of the whole series of possiVjle 

 articulating movements by selection of a limited number of habitual 

 movements. If the whole mass of concepts, with all their variants, 

 were expressed in language by entirely heterogeneous and unrelated 

 sound-complexes, a condition would arise in which closely related 

 ideas would not show their relationship by the corresponding rela- 

 tionship of their phonetic symbols, and an infinitely large number of 

 distinct phonetic groups would be required for expression. If this 

 were the case, the association between an idea and its representative 

 sound-complex would not become sufficiently stable to be reproduced 

 automatically without reflection at any given moment. As the 

 automatic and rapid use of articulations has brought it about that a 

 limited number of articulations only, each with limited variability, 

 and a limited number of sound-clusters, have been selected from the 

 infinitely large range of possible articulations and clusters of articu- 

 lations, so the infinitely large number of ideas have been reduced by 

 classification to a lesser number, which by constant use have estab- 

 lished firm associations, and which can be used automatically. 



It seems important at this point of our considerations to emphasize 

 the fact that the groups of ideas expressed by specific phonetic 

 groups show very material differences in different languages, and do 

 not conform by any means to the same principles of classification. 

 To take again the example of English, we find that the idea of water 

 is expressed in a great variety of forms: one term serves to express 

 water as a liquid ; another one, water in the form of a large expanse 

 (lake) ; others, water as runnmg in a large body or in a small body 

 (river and brook) ; still other terms express water in the form of rain, 

 DEW, WAVE, and foam. It is perfectly conceivable that this variety 

 of ideas, each of which is expressed by a single independent term in 

 English, might be expressed in other languages by derivations from 

 the same term. 



Another example of the same kind, the words for snow in Eskimo, 

 may be given. Here we find one word, afut, expressing snow on 



