Brinton.] 21 4 [Oct. 5, 
amples that in the present cerebral evolution of man, infants develop 
an articulate language with the same natural facility that any other 
species of animal does the vocal utterances peculiar to its kind.* 
But in this essay Iam contemplating man as he was before hun- 
dreds of generations of speaking ancestors had evolved such cere- 
bral powers. 
I begin with some observations on the phonetic elements. These 
are no other than what we call the alphabet, the simple sounds which 
combined together make up the words of a language. In all Euro- 
pean tongues, the mere letters of the alphabet, by themselves, have 
no meaning and conyey no idea; furthermore, their value in a word 
is fixed; and thirdly, arranged in a word, they are sufficient to 
convey its sound and sense to one acquainted with their values. 
Judged by certain American -examples, all three of these seem- 
ingly fundamental characteristics of the phonetic elements were 
absent in primitive speech, and have become stable only by a long 
process of growth. We find tongues in which the primary sounds 
are themselves significant, and yet at the same time are highly vari- 
able; and we find many examples in which they are inadequate to 
convey the sense of the articulate sound. 
As exemplifying these peculiarities I take the Tinné or Athapas- 
can, spoken widely in British America, and of which the Apache 
and Navaho in the United States are branches. You know that in 
English the vowels A, E, I, O, U, and the consonants, as. such, F, 
S, K, and the others, convey to your mind no. meaning, are not 
attached to any idea or train of ideas. ‘This is altogether different 
in the Tinné. We are informed by Bishop Faraud,} a thorough 
master of that tongue, that its significant radicals are the five primi- 
tive vowel sounds, A, E, 1, O, U. Of these A expresses matter, 
E existence, I force or energy, O existence doubtful, and U exist- 
ence absent, non-existence, negation or succession. ‘These vowels 
are ‘‘put in action,’’ as he phrases it, by single or double conso- 
nants, ‘¢ which have more or less value in proportion as the vowel is 
more or less strong.’’ ‘These consonantal sounds, as we learn at 
length from the works on this language by Father Petitot, are also 
materially significant. They are numerous, being sixty-three in 
* See his address on “The Origin of Languages and the Antiquity of Speaking Man,” 
in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Vol. xxxy, 
p. 279, 
+ Dix-huit Ans chez les Sawvages, p. 85. 
