BOAS] HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 49 



Cases of the introduction of new suffixes in European languages 

 are not by any means rare. Thus, the ending -able of French words 

 has been adopted so frequently into English that the ending itself 

 has attained a certain independence, and we can form words like 

 eatable, or even get-at-ahle, in which the ending, which was originally 

 French, is added to an English word. In a similar way the French 

 verbal ending -ir, combined with the German infmitive ending in 

 -en, is used in a large number of German words as though it were a 

 purely German ending. I do not know, however, of any observations 

 which would point to a radical modification of the morphological 

 traits of a language through the influence of another language. 



Lexicograph le Infiucuces 



While the phonetic influence of distinct languages upon one 

 another and the modification of morphological traits in dift'erent 

 languages are still obscure, the borrowing of words is very common, 

 and sometimes reaches to an enormous extent. The vocabulary 

 of English is an excellent example of such extensive amalgamation 

 of the vocabularies of quite distinct languages, and the manner 

 by wliich it has been attained is instructive. It is not only that 

 Anglo - Saxon adopted large parts of tlie vocabulary of the 

 Norman conquerors, that it took over a few terms of the older 

 Celtic language, and adopted some words from the Norse invaders; 

 but we find also, later, introductions from Latin and Greek, which 

 were introduced through the progress of the arts and sciences, and 

 ^^■hich filtered down from the educated to the uneducated classes. 

 Furthermore, numerous terms were adopted from the less civilized 

 peoples with whom the English-speaking people came into contact 

 in different parts of the world. Thus, the Australian and the 

 Indian-English have each adopted a great many native terms, 

 quite a number of which have found their way into colloquial and 

 written modern English. This })henomenon is so common, and 

 the processes by which new words enter into a language are so 

 obvious, that a full discussion is not required. Another example 

 that may be mentioned here is that of the Turkish language, which 

 has adopted a very large number of Arab words. 



In such a transfer of the vocabulary of one language into another, 

 words undergo, of course, far-reaching changes. These may be 

 44877— Bull. 40, pt 1—10 4 



