220 LABRADOR 
a counterpart in the unwritten speech of the lodge and the 
open. 
Yet in the human relation the tongue falls little if any- 
thing short; its terms for a thousand features of earth and 
sky and the endless manifestations of the outdoor world 
are far beyond our own; our Bible, Old Testament and New, 
finds its way into the language without loss, and an inherit- 
ance of story and song, no ruder than that of our own race 
at a pitifully near period, is passed by clear minds from 
old to young as the generations go. 
In Lemoine’s French-Montagnais Dictionary are some 
twelve thousand title words, yet the commoner forms are 
not exhausted. In Watkins’ Cree Dictionary are thirteen 
thousand five hundred Indian title words, and it is probable 
that Indians of superior mind command a yet greater vo- 
cabulary. Without the support of writing, the Indian mind 
compares in this capacity evenly, or better than evenly, with 
that of the white races. When it is remembered that, 
according to Whitney, three thousand to five thousand 
words “‘cover the ordinary needs of cultivated intercourse”’ 
and that ‘“‘ three thousand is a very large estimate for the 
number ever used in writing and speaking by a well-educated 
man,’’ the dimensions of the Algic list of ideas may be some- 
what appreciated. 
Some peculiar advantages of structure in the Cree have 
been urged recently by Berloin in a remarkable analysis 
of more than two hundred pages, entitled La Parole Hu- 
maine. His conclusions are singularly complimentary to 
the language; their level may be perceived from a sen- 
tence of his last page, — ‘‘ Peut-il concevoir meilleur et plus 
noble langage ?”’ 
