ON THE NORTH-WESTERN TRIBES OF CANADA. 

 Index of Nose {Males, 19-51 years). 



589 



IV. LINGUISTICS. 



The Kootenay, spoken in two slightly differing dialects, the Upper Kootenay and 

 the Lower Kootena,y, forms a linguistic stock by itself. The writer's examination of 

 the material he obtained does not lead him to expect any serious modification 

 of this position. No traces of connection with, or relation to, the Blackfoot 

 tongue were discovered, and except a seeming similarity in a few points of general 

 structure to the Shoshonian and to the Siouan tongues, no points of resemblance 

 except of the vaguest and pan-American kind have been found with the neighbour- 

 ing languages. 



The Kootenay is incorporative (both as regards the pronoun- and the noun- 

 object), abounds in prefixes and suflfixes, both in the verb and in the noun, has 

 certain inflections of adverbs, nouns, and pronouns by suflSxes, and possesses an 

 elaboration of structure which the writer hopes to be able to explain and illustrate 

 after a more thorough study of the linguistic material in his possession. The incor- 

 poration of the object-noun in the verb is characteristic of Shoshonian tongues, but 

 the Kootenay is remarkably free from forms by reduplication, and so marks itself 

 off from these languages in which that peculiarity is highly developed. 



The few details that the writer has been able to work out will be found in the 

 following pages. 



As examples of the exceedingly composite character of the Kootenay language, a 

 noun and a verb analysed into their component elements may be given here : — 



Crown of hea,d = dqki'nk'dnu'ktlii'mnam^dqki'iiJraii (top) -♦• «/,; (point) +iZ«wt 

 (head) + «aw ( = somebody's). Aqkinkd'n is iuither to be decomposed into dg[ + km 

 + kd)i, the last being probably the radical for 'top.' 



He is going to bite us = tsQdtli'tQandma' sine = ts + Qdtl (prefixes of future tense) 

 -1- itQa(_n.) [to bite = it, to do + ca(«), with the teeth] + -n- (verbal ?) + dwas ( = he , . . 

 Bs) + 1 (verbal) + ne (verbal). 



Phonetics. 

 The Kootenay language possesses the following vowel sounds : — 



a as in German Mann. 

 a as in English father. 



t as in English pique. 



a 

 d 

 e 

 e 

 is 



K 



i 



all. 



am. 



p/?n. 



they. 



fresh (exaggerated). 



flower. 



pin. 



o 

 o 



u 



a 



ai 

 an 



AI 



bond. 



bone. 



wood. 



boot. 



aisie. 



brown. 



boil. 



Ri as in French isLuteuil. 



There is a frequent interchange of vowels in Kootenay, the chief equivalents 

 being as follows : — 



E = a, a, a, e, e, u, o, 0, i. 

 I=-i = e = e. 



= ii (very common). 



1 = 0, u, o, u, a. 



