SPECIMENS OF SYNONYMY. 697 



V. COMPLEX SYNONYMOUS TERMS. 



The great facility possessed by certain languages of forming complex 

 or polysyntlietic words by an exuberant power of derivational affixation is 

 also productive of certain complex synonymous terms, which the analytic 

 languages of modern Europe habitually express by separate words, mainly 

 of an attributive character, or transcribe by separate sentences. Some lan- 

 guages of the American aborigines are rich in terms of this sort, and we 

 are often wondering why the punctilious and seemingly unimportant dis- 

 tinctions embodied in them are expressed by a single word formed with this 

 purpose. It is curious to observe how much stress is laid upon using spe- 

 cific terms for certain things and acts which white people do not even notice 

 as being distinct from other things or acts of a similar nature ; and, on the 

 other side, objects which are totally different among themselves are called 

 by the same term in certain languages on account of some resemblance 

 observed upon them. Thus, green and yellotv, green and hhie, are expressed 

 by the same term in many languages. The Cherokee expresses butterfly 

 and elephant by the same term, kamama, both being provided with a pro- 

 boscis shaped alike. In Creek rabbit and sheep are both called tcluifi, in 

 Chicasa tchukfi, on account of their woolly covering, and the horse is to 

 the Creeks the great deer: {tcliu='lako, abbr. tchu'lako. 



Sometimes the reason for expressing the same act or condition by dif- 

 ferent verbs does not lie in the act itself, but in the difference of the verbal 

 subject or object, its shape, quality, or number ; of this we have conspicu- 

 ous examples in tliis language in the chapter on verbal "Inflection for 

 number," pages 433-441, to which may be added the instances, pages 460. 

 461, referring to the verb to give, and what is said about prefixes in general. 

 The English-Klamath part of the Dictionary mentions six terms for gray, 

 eight for to seize, twelve for to sever, fourteen for to ivash, about as many for 

 to walk, ivear, iveep, while the terms expressing the diff'erent modes of going, 

 running, standing, lying, sitting, looking, rolling, placing, and lifting consider- 

 ably exceed the above in number. The list of the adjectives expressing color 

 does not reach that of a Herero tribe in Southern Africa, which possesses 

 twenty-six terms for such cattle alone as is spotted in different ways,* 



* Cf. H. Mngiuis, (1. Farbeusinn bei d. N.atuivolktin, images 9. 10. 19-21 (Jeu.a, 1880). 



