636 RELATION OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES TO ENVIRONMENT. 



hundred people speak the language, hut it is not a primordial tribe nor 

 has it a primordial language; at least two and probably several other 

 primordial languages have been united to constitute the Zmu language. 

 The English language is composed of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of 

 different languages ; we know not how many. The German language is 

 also composed of many primordial languages, but some of these lan- 

 guages are common to the English and to the German speaking people. 

 The primary difference between the English and the German depends 

 upon the elements of primordial languages of which they are composed 

 and of the proportion of these languages which they have absorbed. 

 All of the languages of the world that have been studied are found 

 thus composite and to differ from one another in kinds chiefly because 

 of the different elementary languages of which they are composed. If 

 a people divide and separate into two or more distinct regions their lan- 

 guages scarcely change, they may be preserved and remain intelligible 

 to all for hundreds or even thousands of years ; but if two people divide, 

 one going to one region and another to a different one, and in these 

 regions mix with other tribes having other languages, compound lan- 

 guages will develop and will soon become barbaric or nonintelligible to 

 each other. Now, the point which we wish to make is this, that by 

 the effect of social environment kinds of languages are integrated, the 

 total number gradually diminishing. The rate at which these languages 

 diminish in number steadily increases with the progress of culture. It 

 is probable that in America there were more than a thousand distinct 

 languages when Columbus discovered the land, and these languages 

 were so different that they could not be understood outside of the peo- 

 ple to whom they belonged. With the progress of culture, many of 

 these languages have been exterminated, and all are in rapid process 

 of extermination. In a century or two they will all be lost. The invad- 

 ing people greatly outnumber the original inhabitants, and because they 

 are dominating and controlling in culture the languages of these invad- 

 ing peoples will prevail, yet many words from the Indian tongues will 

 be absorbed into the English, the German, the French, and the Span- 

 ish by the invader. While these Indian languages are still spoken, they 

 are rapidly undergoing change, acquiring new terms and new gram- 

 ma tic forms by reason of the social environment to which the tribes are 

 subjected, that is, by acculturation. Thus it is that languages chiefly 

 develop by acculturation or social environment. The great fact never 

 to be forgotten in the study and grouping of languages may be expressed 

 as follows: Languages have not differentiated from one primordial lan- 

 guage, but have integrated from innumerable primordial languages. One 

 of the principal differences between these primordial languages seems 

 to havebeen in phonics ; warm climates tended to produce vocalic words, 

 cold climates consonantal words; but this distinction becomes obscured 

 with the progress of culture. Yet still the matter is but partly told. 



