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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



branched off at about the same time as the Arapaho, it is clear that they 

 have been distinct from them ever since. 



Conservatism of Indian Languages 



It has often been said that the languages of Indians and other un- 

 civilized peoples, in fact all languages that are not fixed by writing, 

 change very rapidly. It has been declared that in the course of a gen- 

 eration or two such idioms alter to an extent that men could not under- 

 stand the talk of their grandfathers, and that in consequence a very 

 few centuries would suffice to alter the features of a language so 

 thoroughly that its original relationship with kindred languages could 

 no longer be ascertained. All such statements are utterly wild, and 

 there is a mass of evidence to contradict them. 



Immediately after the Spanish conquest the Aztec language was 





