ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 35 



Annual Address of the President, 



J. W. POWELL. 



ON THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE, 



As Exhibited in the Specialization of the Grammatic 

 Processes, the Differentiation of the Parts of 

 Speech, and the Integration of the 

 Sentence ; from a Study of In- 

 dian Languages. 



Possible ideas and thoughts are vast in number. A dis- 

 tinct word for every distinct idea and thought would require 

 a vast vocabulary. The problem in language is to express 

 many ideas and thoughts with comparatively few words. 



Again, in the evolution of any language, progress is from 

 a condition where few ideas are expressed by a few words to 

 a higher, where many ideas are expressed by the use of 

 many words ; but the number of all possible ideas or thoughts 

 expressed is increased greatly out of proportion with the in- 

 crease of the number of words. 



And still again, in all of those languages which have been 

 most thorough^ studied, and by inference in all languages, 

 it appears that the few original words used in any language 

 remain as the elements for the greater number finally used. 

 In the evolution of a language the introduction of absolutely 

 new material is a comparatively rare phenomenon. The old 

 material is combined and modified in many ways to form 

 the new. _ 



How has the small stock of words found as the basis of a 

 language been thus combined and modified ? 



