62 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. 
J ean find no less objectionable form of expression, though this conveys only half the 
truth. Strictly regarded, the Indian noun is not separable, as a part of speech, from the 
verb. Every name is not merely descriptive but predicative—not as in Indo-European 
languages by implication or suggestion, or by reason of remote derivation from a 
predicative root, but it retains the verb form unchanged; is varied by conjugation, not 
by declension; has tenses, not cases; may become active, passive, reciprocal, frequenta- 
tive, like other verbs. In short, every Indian name is in fact a verb—is formed as a 
participial immediately from a verb, or contains within itself a verb. 
Without pursuing this branch of the subject further at present or multiplying 
examples, I repeat that, in view of the fundamental differences in grammatical struct- 
ure and in plan of thought between the American and the Indo-European languages, 
it is nearly impossible to find an Indian name or verb which admits of exact translation 
by an English name or verb. But the standard vocabularies which have been most 
largely used in the collection and exhibition of materials are framed on the hypothesis 
that such translation is generally possible. They assume that equivalents of English 
generic names may be found among Indian specific and individual names; that English 
analysis may be adequately represented, word for word, by Indian synthesis. Such 
vocabularies, as has been remarked, have their uses, but to linguistic science or to 
comparative philology they contribute nothing which is worth the cost of obtaining. 
When a collector or an editor has acquired a thorough knowledge of the grammatical 
structure of a language and has learned how to resolve synthesis by analysis, he may 
undertake the arrangement of his materials in the form of a vocabulary with some 
probability of imparting to the result real and permanent value. Without such prep- 
aration for his work—no matter how cautiously or with what ability he prosecutes it— 
he must not hope for great success. 
It is easier to discover the defects in the old method than to point out a new and 
a better one. The details of such a method could not be discussed without exceeding 
the limits of this paper, nor is such discussion called for. The way to a more thor- 
ough and exact knowledge of the Indian languages is not nnknown or untried. There 
are laborers already in the field who have not only proved that higher results than the 
compilation of brief vocabularies are attainable, but have shown how to attain them; 
and for the study of a considerable number of languages and dialects of the North, the 
South, the valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri, and the far West, scholars are no 
longer restricted in materials to quasi translations of lists of untranslatable English 
words. 
The suggestions I shall offer have to some extent been anticipated by the drift of 
the foregoing remarks. The first is— 
That a constant aim of the student of any of the American languages should be 
the resolution of synthesis by analysis. What the Indian has so skillfully put together— 
“agolutinated” or “incorporated”—must be carefully taken to pieces, and the materials 
ot the structure be examined separately. Every Indian cluster-word is a sentence—a 
description, definition, or affirmation. Mere translation will not exhibit its construction 
or afford a trustworthy basis of comparison with word-groups in other languages. 
Something is gained, it is true, by exact translation; but this cannot be had if the trans- 
lation must be shaped to the requirements of an English vocabulary. A single chap- 
ter of the Bible or a dozen sentences of familiar conversation accurately translated into 
