468 EXPLORATIONS ACEOSS the gkeat BASIN OF UTAH. 



of Texas." If we assign a place in this group to the Utes or Utahs, and the Pi-ides, it 

 will extend its area westwardly to the base of the Sierra Nevada.* 



Further ethnological investigations may result in ascribing to other unclassified 

 tribes a place in the same group. 



The language of the Washoes appears to bear no resemblance to any of those 

 given in Schoolcraft's collection of vocabularies, nor does it seem to be at all related 

 to the Shoshonee. 



There is a source of error and difficulty in instituting a comparison between 

 specimens of Indian languages, which arises from the method of obtaining them. The 

 vocabularies are frequently obtained from different individuals; who, of course, attempt 

 by the use of the English alphabet to represent the sounds of the words as pronounced 

 by the Indians from whom they are obtained; it is probable if several persons attempt, 

 in this way, to indicate the same Indian word, no two of them would represent it in the 

 same manner, or by the same letters; moreover, as the word is uttered in the Indian's 

 characteristic guttural manner, and there being in an unwritten language no authority 

 for correct pronunciation, the peculiarity of each individual's utterances is likely to 

 be perpetuated in vocabularies made from information obtained from them. 



There arc several words of different languages in the accompanying vocabularies, 

 which, though spelt differently, arc ondpubtedly meant for the same words, or at least 

 are derived from the same source; in such cases the sounds of the words, as they are 

 pronounced, generally bear more resemblance than their appearance as they are rep- 



Among the cases of similarity of words from the Ute, Pi-ute, and Shoshonee, we 

 find Pah, meaning water, to be common to all of them, and it may also be remarked 

 the same word means water in the language of the Pueblo Indians of Jemez and Old 

 Pecos, as given in vocabularies previously obtained.! 



The words for face, eye, mother, house, sun, ice, snake, with several others, are 

 common to all of the languages here given, except the Washoe, while there are others, 

 which so nearly resemble each other as to point to a common origin, if indeed they 

 are not intended tor the same word; these are found in the Indian for nose, beaver, 

 day, summer, winter, &c. 



There are frequent instances in these languages of compound words being formed 

 by the union of two or more elementary ones; in some of these cases we know the 

 meaning of all the syllables, or component words; in other cases, some of them may 

 be recognized, and the meaning of others inferred from the meaning of the entire com- 

 bination. Allowance must be made for the elision due to the junction of several in- 

 dependent words in a compound one. Pah, meaning water, occurs as a syllable in the 

 word Pah-emp, which means rain; the latter syllable being in all probability derived 

 from Too-oomp or sky, thus making Pali-oomp, Pah-emp or sky-water. 



Hail is Pah-oo-ump; ice, Pah-kup; the element Pah, also enters into the words 

 for otter, beaver, duck, and fish, in one or th e other of the dialects here given. 



Shoshonl^Zl^V^ f ° Ve ' h T 1 ° l r rVe(i tLat Pr ° f - W ' W ' TurUer ba3 aIso P laced the Utah * a °d Pi-Ute^^Te 

 ■up , .and has also connected the Kioivay tribe with the same family. (Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. iii.) 



i Fe, New Mexico, to t 





