MCGEE] 



COMPARATIVE LEXICOLOGY 



339^ 



vi'MAX — -continued 



irater Die, dead Ifood, trer 



1. ah£k, ahiia 



2. aha 



3. niluwhet; hahaw'l 



4. hitche 



5. xii 



6. akha 

 rah^ 



'^- \;ikhha (Gibl)s) 



8. ahil 



9. aha 



10. ahiia 



11. ha 



12. ahri 



13. ha ( = ;ra) 



14. akha 



15. h'ha 



16. ah;Ui 



17. ha (=A;a) 



18. ahri, ha 



19. aha, h:i 



20. jii (jT'a) 



21. ahil 



22. aha 



23. aha (=a;i:a) 



24. ah'hii 



All the Serian words denoting " water" are monosyllabic and terminate with the 

 t-souud or aspirated guttural x, followed by the breath instant (to which the final 

 e of Mr Bartlett's orthography is pquivalent). On the other hand, the vocable-s of 

 the Yuman group of dialects invariably end in a vowel or a double vowel, and, in 

 24 out of 31 given forms, they are dissyllabic, several being trisyllabic. The Lay- 

 mon form of the term is evidently the least affected by use, and jointly with the 

 words numbered 5, 6, 7 (Gibbs), 13, 14, 17, and 23, shows the genetic character of the 

 terminal vowel in the given words. These ciinsideratipns render it probable that 

 the apparently radical resemblance of the collated words is fortuitous and not at all 

 genetic. 



In the Serian list of names lor "wood" two difterent words are given, and a third 

 occurs meaning "tree", perhaps "shrub". This third word, die, is very i)robably 

 an exotic in the list, and is seemingly of Yuman origin, through its substitution by 

 a Y'uman-speaking interpreter for the jiroper Seri word. The correct term is prob- 

 ably contained in the other word given, a/ii«'«/(irt, "firewood" (McGeeJ; n-ld-hoke, 

 "wood" (Bartlett); akaxx'''i^'"''i "wood", Spanish "letia" (Piuart). The base of 

 the word is evidently ahlia, a-la, or aka, signifying "wood", while iihJca, Itoke, or 

 Xx'iikiir, is the attributive, meaning "dead" (compare iloxx^i "fo die", x>"^XX'''t 

 "dead", kochhe, "dead"). Hence, the componud signifies "dead wood" or "dead 

 timber", and the correct Seri word for "wood" is very probably a/ita, or aka. In 



