THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE. 129 



— we find tliem abundant in both tongues. Each language, in fact, 

 has, like each Aryan tongue, a special termination to express these 

 abstractions. In the Iroquois this termination is sera or tsera ; in 

 the Ojibway brtinch of the Algonkin, it is loin. Thus, from the Iro- 

 quois katehens, to be ashamed, (root, ateli) we have atehensera, shame- 

 fulness, ignominy ; from kennontonnions, to meditate, (root, ennonte) 

 we have ennontonniontsera, meditation ; from katerlos, to fight, (root 

 erio), ateriosera, strife ; from kkwenies, to be able, (root, kweni) 

 kakweniatsera, ability. The Ojibway himadis, to live, yields hinia- 

 disiivin, life; sagia, to love, sagiitoewm, afiection ; jiga, widow, jiga- 

 loiioin, widowhood, bekadis, mild, bekadisitvin, mildness ; hinis, clear, 

 pure, hinisiwin, clearness, purity. Bisan, quiet, yields two verbal 

 forms, hisanab, to be still, and hisanis, to be peaceful, and two abstract 

 nouns, hisanabiivin, stillness, silence, and bisanisiwin, j^eacefulness — 

 and so on, interminably, through the dictionary. 



But it is, perhaps, in the abstract terms of the first degree, the most 

 primitive and in a certain sense the profoundest of all, that this 

 original mental capacity is most stiikingly shown. Professor Max 

 Mtiller, in his " Science of Thought," well observes that, when certain 

 ethnologists " tell us that there are savages who have not a single 

 abstract term in their language, they ought first of all to give us 

 the names of the savages to whose language they refer, and, 

 secondly, they ought to explain how these savages could possibly have 

 formed the simplest names, such as father, mother, brother, sister, 

 hand and foot, etc., without j^reviously possessing abstract concepts 

 from which such names could be derived." To illusti^ate this pregnant 

 suggestion, let us take some instances drawn from the Indian lan- 

 guages by writers of the best authority. The first word in Pi-ofessor 

 Max MuUer's list is " father." The Hon. J. H. Trumbull, than whom 

 no higher authority on the Algonkin tongues can be adduced, derives 

 this word, noosh, in the Massachusetts dialect, from the I'oot ooch, 

 which means " from," "out of." " JVoosh," he observes, "expresses, 

 primarily, not paternal but filial relation — ' I come from him ; ' 

 ooshoh (his father) ' he comes from him,' or with transposition of 

 subject and object, ' he frotns him.'" In the Iroquois, according to 

 the distinguished Canadian philologist, the Rev. J. A. Cuoq, the 

 word has its origin in a conception perhaps even more subtle. 

 9 



