598 The American Naturalist. [July, 
to conceive of a hand or father except so far as they were 
related to himself or.to someone else.” 
In Prof. Duncan’s learned Analysis of the Cherokee Language 
he confirms the view that savage tribes cannot express such 
simple abstract terms as ‘ hand’ or ‘write.’ He says “ Human 
language is not always or necessarily expressive ; it is some- 
times merely suggestive. In the lower grades of social life the 
words are generally few in number and limited in meaning. 
Many of them can, indeed, hardly be called words; they are 
more like unintelligible exclamations whose office it is not to 
imprint an idea or a thought upon the apprehension of the 
person addressed as do the words of a cultured tongue, but 
rather to arrest the attention and direct it to the subject in 
hand, leaving the desired impressions to arise in his mind as 
the result of his observation and reflexion. In these rudimen- 
tary tongues sentences are to be found in an embryonic state. 
The Cherokee is not aware that his language contains any 
word for hand; it is always ‘ äquayānē’ (my hand); that is 
the idea of hand is always attended in expression with a con- 
ception of the person to whom it belongs. Now if we should 
resolve this word and assign to each idea its respective part it 
would stand thus: ‘ Aqui ayiné’ (my hand), yet if these words 
should pass under the eyes of a Cherokee he would doubtless 
fail to recognize them and be apt to repudiate them as some- 
thing foreign to his native vocabulary. 
“While what we have said here is largely true in reference to 
the nouns it is much more so as to the verbs. The Cherokee 
never expresses the idea of an action except in connection 
with that of the actor, and often of the person acted on. And 
the adjective in expressing a quality seldom loses sight of the 
object to which it belongs.” Speaking of the Cherokee word 
signifying write Prof. Duncan says: “It is to be doubted 
whether it was ever heard or written except in some such con- 
glomeration of vocables as ‘ Wétséyawétlénétéyé,’ of which the 
portion ‘ awal’ conveys the idea of writing or drawing.’” In 
its abstract state the word would, however, be quite unintelli- 
gible and requires combination with various pronouns, tense 
‘AMERICAN NATURALIST, p. 775, September, 1889. 
