32 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. 
relationship is designated by the kinship word. For example, in a case of 
two brothers and two sisters, the brothers would call each other by one 
term, the sisters each other by a second term, the brothers would call the 
sisters by a third term, and the sisters would call the brothers by a fourth 
term, so that the relationships between the four persons would require the 
use of four terms instead of two as in the English. 
4. Relative age is introduced in many languages as a distinguishing 
characteristic. For example, there will be a term for elder brother, another 
for younger brother, one for elder sister, and another for younger sister, 
and sometimes through all the cousins, of whatever remote degree they may 
be, the terms will distinguish between the elder and the younger. 
5. Assimilation in many languages is an important element in classifi- 
cation. If all the possible kinships arising from nine generations were 
thrown into classes upon the four characteristics mentioned above, the 
number of groups would still be very great, while, in fact, the number of 
groups recognized in any language is comparatively small. In the more 
civilized languages spoken by people who are organized as nations, the 
more remote relationships are ignored in the classification, and are left to 
be designated by the descriptive method; and there is a reason for this. In 
national society the remote relationships are of little importance; value 
may rarely attach to them, as in the case of inheritance, and the antiqua- 
rian may use them to trace ancestral lineage, but the people have no prac- 
tical use for them in current society and every day life. But tribal society 
is organized on kinship, and government is established to maintain the 
rights and the reciprocal duties of kinship. It thus becomes necessary in 
every tribal society that all kinships should be not only determinate but 
well known. For this reason the fifth principle of classification is intro- 
duced—that is, a few primary groups are established on the first four char- 
acteristics, and into these groups all other relationships are assimilated. 
In discovering these systems of relationship as a linguistic phenome- 
non, we infer that there is something in the social constitution of the people 
demanding such an elaborate system with relationship fixed so as to include 
all of the remotest degree within the group of people constituting the so- 
ciety. On the other hand, in studying tribal society and discovering that 
