200 ASIATIC TRIBES OF NORTH AMERICA. 



tions to this, and some of the verbs will be found to tei-minate in 

 ang, ing, awng, ong and ung." The Japanese infinitive in mi, ta 

 which there are many exceptions, does not resemble this termination, 

 but connects with the Turkish infinitive in mek and the Magyar in 

 ni. Neither does the common LooChoo and Sioux form resemble 

 the Mantchu in re, or the Mongol in ku. "We are thus, I think, 

 justified in holding that the Dacotah verbs echong, make, dowang, 

 sing, and yazang, be sick, are the same words as the LooChoo 

 oochoong, ootayoong and yadong, having meanings identical. But a 

 confirmation of the Peninsular origin of the Dacotahs even more 

 interesting is afforded by a comparison of the Assiniboin infinitive, 

 or at least verbal termination, with that of the Kamschatdale. The 

 Assiniboin verbs in their simplest form end in aich, itch / thus we 

 have passnitch, tumiitch, to love, wunnaeatch, to go, eistimmatch, to 

 sleep, aatcJi, to speak, wctuhtaitch, to kill, waumnahgatch, to see, 

 aingatch, to sit, tnalinnitch, to walk, &c. Similai'ly in Kamtchatdale 

 we meet with kasichtshitch, to stand, koquasitch, to come, kashiatsh, 

 to run, ktsheemgutsh, to sing, kassoogatsh, to laugh, koogaatsch, to cry 

 &c. It is true that the Kamtchatdale kowisitch, to go, and kwatsk- 

 qiiikotsh, to see, are unlike the Assiniboin wunnaeatch and loaum- 

 nahgatch, except in their terminations ; but, as I have ali'eady indi- 

 cated the connection of the Dacotah and Kamtchatka vocabularies, 

 this is an objection that fuller knowledge of Kamchatdale would 

 probably remove. It was the verbal terminations of Sioux in ng and 

 of Assiniboin in tch that decided the question in my mind of the 

 Old World relations of the Dacotah family of language and tribes. 

 Those who are better acquainted with the Peninsular languages may 

 be able to account for diversities in the Dacotah dialects by corres- 

 ponding differences in them. That two such unusual forms as the 

 LooChoo and Kamchatdale should occur in one American family is 

 very strong presumptive evidence in favour of that family's Penin- 

 sular derivation. 



The grammatical construction of the Dacotah languages may be 

 said, at least, to interpose no obstacle in the way of a Peninsular 

 origin. The absence of tiiie gender, and a distinction between nouns 

 as animates and inanimates ; the formation of the genitive by simple 

 prefix to the nominative, with or without the third personal pro- 

 noun ; the use of pronominal prefixes, and of post positions ; the 

 place of the regimen before the governing verb, ai-e all in favour of 



