290 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



tribes of their own nation. With the Allani-a-wok, as they term the 

 inland Indians, they have no intercoui-se whatever." - 



Wilhelm Herzog^ has endeavoured to establish a connection between 

 the various languages of the Yuma stock and the Aleut and Eskimo. 

 The I'esemblance of Old Californian skulls to those of the Eskimo 

 lends this theory probability from other than linguistic evidence. 



To Eskimo philology and phonology, the same attention has not 

 been paid, as has been given to many of the languages of more south- 

 ern tribes of American aborigines. Perhaps this is partly owing to 

 the Eskimo having been so long regarded as a mere offshoot of the 

 North Asiatic Turanians. There is considei-able material for reseaich 

 in Eskimo philology, but it does not exist in a form which renders it 

 easy of access to the student. I shall therefore endeavoiir to advance 

 our study of the Eskimo a .step, by presenting alphabetically 

 arranged vocabularies in English of a number of Eskimo dialects, 

 which have been recorded by travellers, explorers and missionaries. 

 A few words of preface with regard to the general character of 

 the Eskimo language may be fitly inserted here. Dr. Brinton- 

 has said that the language of the Eskimo " betrays its nearer kinship 

 to the races of the New World," and other writers have expi'essed a 

 similar opinion. Dr. Rink,"* obsei-ves, " with regard to their language 

 the Eskimo also ajjpear akin to the American nations with regard to 

 its decidedly polysynthetic structure. Here, however, on the other 

 hand we meet with some vei-y remai-kable resemblances between the 

 Eskimo idiom, and languages of Siberia belonging to the Altaic or 

 Finnic group, first as to the rule of joining the affixes to the end, 

 and not to the Vjeginning of the word, and second, the very chai'acter- 

 istic mode of forming the dual by k, and the ))lural by t. Peschel* 

 says, " Their (Eskimo) words are always formed by means of suflSxes, 

 and so far the method is the same as in the Ural-Altaic group, 

 though the important character, the harmony of the vowels, is want- 

 ing in the Innuit language. Although the Eskimo language is in no 

 sense incorporative, it will soon be shown that it is a transition 

 between the Ural-Altaic and the American types." Peschel gives 



1. Ueber die Verwdsch. des Yumasprst. mit der Sprache der Aleuten u. der Eskiiuostiimme, 

 Zeitschr. f. Ethnologie, Bd. x., S. 449, Berlin, 1878. 



2. Myths of the New World, p. 24. 



3. Tales and Traditions of Eskimo, p. 74. 



4. Races of Man, p. 395. 



