

THE "TIMEHRI" ARTICLES UPON INDIAN 

 LANGUAGES. 



By Rev. W. G. White, F.R.G.S. 



The War Volume of June, 1917, contained three articles dealing with 

 Indian languages, and Makuchi in particular. An article, in the nature of 

 explanations, may serve a useful purpose. 



'1 he remarks in the Guiana Diocesan Magazine, to wh ; ch Rev. Mr. 

 Williams refers in one of these articles were not meant to be " scornful," 

 nor were they, as some might think, aiimd at him. I wrote from a wider 

 experience than that of my work in Guiana. I have met such travellers 

 who collected words through an interpreter and wrote about the languages 

 and were regarded as authorities on that language. In my writings for 

 the Census Keport of Burma, and in my " Introduction to the Mawken 

 language " (taken up by the Government) I exposed such error. Guiana 

 has furnished similar instances, with which there is no call for me to deal 

 with now. 



While it is true that Brett had a working knowledge of Indian 

 languages, I know, from an examination of some of his work, that he was 

 not equipped, by previous training, for scientific language study. The 

 mere number of his publications is no guarantee of his accuracy. Idioms 

 are traps for the unwary, and Brett fell into some of these traps. Brett 

 gives himself away when he allows the spelling Acawoio to appear. He 

 did not get even the name of this tribe correctly. His Marriage Service 

 needs serious attention. His Lord's Prayer presents wrong ideas to the 

 Indians who learn it. The Diocesan authorities ought to take up this 

 matter, for the system of conducting the Bartica Mission has been, and 

 is, hopeless, for sound work amongst the Indians. The Indian work 

 should be separated from the English work ; and it should include *,he 

 upper reaches of the Masaruni, at least. 



I take the word "radical" to refer to root. Mr. Williams will, I 

 think, admit that the M kuchi 1 nguage contains words of which the 

 roots are distinct from the equivalents of those words in the other lan- 

 guages. I would not pin this statement upon such slender facts as the 

 curious inversion of Syllables in the name for cassava cake as is found in 

 Makuchi and Akawatho — one has eka and the ake. While one may be 

 justified in calliug Makuchi and Akawatho di dects of a common language 

 (I say may be justified), no one could reasonably call Arawak and 

 Wapiana dialects of a common language with Makuchi. 



That the Indian languages of The Americas are descended from a 

 prehistoric stock may yet be demonstrated. But language study is 

 difficult where the history of the peoples concerned is not recorded, nor 

 known even by tradition. 



