674 GKAMMAU OF THE KLAMATU LANGUAGE, 



erations, in f(;lkloro, in the comic drama, the newspaper, and the dialects, in 

 proverbs and proverbial locntions. Among the exclamations and interjec- 

 tions many are idiomatic, and several archaic terms have to be considered 

 as snch also. 



Among- idiomatic expressions there are some special classes, and one of 

 the more remarkable is that of the cant terms, though I have not fonnd it to 

 be much developed in this language. In the southern dialect we may class 

 here the use of wcwalilksh when it is denoting generically the females^ and 

 not the "old women" only. In Klamath Lake we can regard as cant terms 

 yaka (for yii'ka, yrka), shniksh(')kshuka, tchiunle7a,and Kii'katilsh, a term 

 invented for deriding white men who are wearing beards. 



The classifiers used with the nimierals above the number ten have also 

 to be considered idiomatic, although such are occurring in several other 

 languages on the Pacific slope. Verbification of certain particles, as at 

 ga'tak, hftak, lewak, k' wale ka-a, nen, etc., as enumerated in Morphology, 

 page 457 sq., also belongs to the idioms. Women use the same terms and 

 phonetic forms as men, and there are no reverential or ceremonial forms 

 found here as we find them frequently occurring further south and among 

 the tribes of the Mississippi plains. The use of certain ])fonouns in order to 

 avoid giving the proper names of deceased individuals is found to be the 

 custom all along the Pacific Coast, [)robably elsewhere too, and in this sense 

 may be considered idiomatic. Klaniaths use for this purpose hu'k, hu'nkt, 

 hu'ksht that one, those ones, etc. 



The manner by wliich the verb to lie has to be expressed in Klamath, 

 when connected with a, locative adjunct, appears to us idiomatic, though it 

 is found in many other Indian languages, and is much less artificial than 

 our use of the verb to l>e in this connection. Whenever an animate or inan- 

 imate subject or object is referred to as heing somewhere, either indoor or 

 outdoor, around, below, between, or above somebody or something, in the 

 water or on the ground, the verb gi to he is not employed, but the adverbial 

 idea becomes verbified in the form of some intransitive verb, so that belotv, 

 e. g., becomes i-utila to he or lie helotv, underneath. The mode of existence 

 has also to be distinctly qualified in that verbified term ; it has to be stated 

 whether the subject or object was standing, sitting or lying, staying, living. 



