1888. ] 215 : {Brinton. 
all, and-are divided into nine different classes, each of which con- 
veys a series of related or associated ideas in the native mind. 
Thus, the Jabials express the ideas of time and space, as age, 
length, distance, and also whiteness, the last mentioned, perhaps, 
through association with the white hair of age, or the endless snow- 
fields of their winter. The dentals express all that relates to force 
terminating, hence uselessness, inanity, privation, smallness, feeble- 
ness; and also greatness, elevation, the motor power. ‘The nasals 
convey the general notion of motion in repetition; hence, rotation, 
reduplication, gravitation, and, by a singularly logical association, 
organic life. The gutturals indicate motion in curves; hence, sinu- 
ousness, flexibility, ebullition, roundness, and by a linear figure 
different from that which underlies the Latin vectitudo, justness, cor- 
rectness. ‘The H, either as an aspirate or an hiatus, introduces the 
ideas of command and subjection, elevation and prostration, and 
the like.* 
You will observe that in some of these cases the signification of 
a sound includes both a notion and its opposite, as greatness and 
smallness. This is an interesting feature to which I shall refer later. 
Turn now to another language, the Cree. Geographically it is 
contiguous to the Tinné; but, says Bishop Faraud, who spoke them 
both fluently, they resemble each other no more than the French 
does the Chinese. Nevertheless, we discover this same peculiarity 
of materially significant phonetic elements. Howse, in his Cree 
Grammar, observes that the guttural K and the labial W, constitute 
the essential part of all intensive terms in that language, ‘‘ whether 
the same be attributive, formative, or personal accident.’’ Indeed, 
he maintains that the articulate sounds of the Cree all express rela- 
tive powers, feebleness or force, independent of their position with 
reference to other sounds. 
You may inquire whether in the different groups of American 
tongues the same or a similar signification is attached to any one 
sound, or to the sounds of any one organ. If it were so, it would 
give countenance to those theories which maintain that there is 
some fixed relation between sound and sense in the radicals of lan- 
guages. I must reply that I have found very little evidence for this 
theory ; and yet some. For example, the N sound expresses the 
notion of the ego, of myself-ness, in a great many tongues, far 
* Petitot, Dictionnaire dela Langue Dénée Dindjié, Introduction. 
PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXV. 128. 2B. PRINTED oct. 81, 1888. 
