OF LANGUAGES. 



59 



body, and other objects, which have a personal bearing are in 

 American languages always connected with pronouns. An 

 American will not attach any meaning to simple words like 

 father, or hat, but he knows what is meant by such phrases 

 as my father, my hat, his father, his hat. m 



On the other hand, where simple pronouns are generally 

 used in abstract languages, concrete tongues strengthen them 

 by a material substratum. Such sentences as " I am well," 

 " I am not well," &c, require in concrete tongues often the 

 introduction into the sentence of substances like body or 

 skin. In Telugu "lam well " is ndJcu ollu bdgd unnadi, 

 to me the body well is ; in Mande "lam not well " is en gboro 

 gbor e ma, in my body skin (health) not is. 



The employment of real abstract pronouns testifies to a 

 high development, and their existence must be considered as 

 marking an essential progress in the mental life of a language. 

 The personal pronouns are most probably at first nouns, 

 which, deputed to such representation, became in time a dis- 

 tinct class of words. The pronouns of the first and second 

 persons have as their starting-point a firm concrete basis; 

 it is either the / who speaks, or the Thou who is addressed. 

 The idea of self -consciousness in the abstract Ego is not here 

 implied. 



Words which express the respective position of the two 

 first pronouns are therefore used in preference to others. 

 Beverential terms towards superiors, equal terms towards 

 equals, and condescending terms towards inferiors are the 

 natural outcome of such a system. 



(69) See: Systems of Consanguinity. .. ."by Lewis H. Morgan, pages 

 137-138: " These pronominal inflections are carried much further in the 

 Ganowanian languages than philologists have generally supposed. Terms of 

 relationship almost universally involve the pronoun It would be impossi- 

 ble for an American Indian, in most of the nations, to use one of these 



terms (as father, son, nephew) in the abstract The pronoun also is usually 



found incorporated with the names of the different organs of the body, and 

 with the names of objects which are personal." 



