Febkuaey 21, 1008] 



SCIENCE 



283 



iu number— with two or three exceptions 

 never above six or eight— and they are 

 usually well marked. Over a certain area 

 the speech is identical or practically uni- 

 form. In leaving this area for an adjacent 

 one, an abrupt change to another form of 

 speech is encountered, which in turn is 

 uniform over its entire extent. In many 

 cases the changes met in passing from one 

 of two adjoining areas to the other are so 

 great that it would perhaps be more cor- 

 rect to designate their forms of speech as 

 related languages than as dialects. A 

 number of the smaller families are mono- 

 dialectic. The total number of distinct 

 languag:es or dialects in the state, excepting 

 those whose divergence is comparatively in- 

 consequential, was not over a hundred, and 

 more probably about seventy-five. The 

 total of distinguishable forms of speech 

 may have numbered twice this. 



Structurally the languages of California 

 are usually characterized by a certain sim- 

 plicity or transparency. As has been 

 pointed out, there are, however, two 

 regions, one in the northwest and one in the 

 southwest, where this morphological quality 

 is lost, and in which certain other qualities 

 seem to be common to the several languages 

 of the area. It has therefore been possible 

 for some years to distinguish a north- 

 western, a southwestern, and a large cen- 

 tral morphological group of languages. 

 The most recent investigations confirm this 

 elassifieation ; but it is necessary not to en- 

 dow the grouping with too much signifi- 

 cance. As each language is studied in- 

 idividually, and becomes more thoroughly 

 known, it is obvious that it must prove to 

 possess certain peculiarities that separate 

 it from all others, even of the same morpho- 

 logical type; and from the standpoint of 

 any given language such peculiarities are 

 of course of more importance, and of 

 greater value to the student, than the more 

 vague similarities to the type, which it is 



plain can be based only on a few character- 

 istics of either an essentially external na- 

 ture or of the most general kind. The 

 existence of the morphological groups is 

 evident, but it must also be clear that they 

 are only morphological groups of languages 

 that are unrelated, and that therefore the 

 bare circumstance that a certain langi;age 

 forms part of a particular group, furnishes 

 no understanding, of that language, that is 

 more than skin deep. 



As to the significance of the morpho- 

 logical groups, it is clear that the lesson to 

 be drawn from their determination is not a 

 belief in the ultimate relationship of the 

 languages constituting a group, but the 

 emphasizing, by fresh examples, of the 

 principle of territorial continuity of char- 

 acteristics. This is not the occasion to dis- 

 cuss the much debated question of whether 

 vocabulary or structure is the more reliable 

 criterion of linguistic relationship. How- 

 ever this question be answered, the similari- 

 ties as yet found between the languages 

 of the three California groups are not of 

 such a nature as to be of bearing on the 

 consideration of their genetic unity. The 

 importance of a proper conception of the 

 frequency and influence of territorial con- 

 tinuity of characteristics is still too little 

 recognized, especially among linguists, 

 though instances of its occurrence are num- 

 berless. No one impressed with the prev- 

 alence of this historic principle would, for 

 instance, dare to affirm, as eminent men 

 have done, the relationship of the lan- 

 guages of southeastern Asia because they 

 are isolating, or of Japanese with Ural- 

 Altaic merely because both use suffixes in 

 abundance. 



The probable cause of the multiplicity of 

 linguistic stocks in California may be said 

 to be becoming a little clearer. The di- 

 vision of many of the stocks into sharply 

 distinct dialects or languages indicates how 

 many of them may have originated by a 



