39*2 
LANGUAGE. 
times, as to lead to the impression that they are 
essentially different and distinct.* Upon close 
examination, however, a sufficient general resem- 
blance is usually found to indicate that all the tribes 
have originally sprung from the same race, that they 
have gradually spread themselves over the whole con- 
tinent from some one given point ; which appears, as 
far as we can infer from circumstantial evidence, to 
have been somewhere upon the northern coast. 
There are some points of resemblance which, as far 
as is yet known, appear to be common to most of 
the different dialects with which we are acquainted. 
Such are, there being no generic terms as tree, fish, 
bird, See., but only specific ones as applied to each 
particular variety of tree, fish, bird, See. The car- 
dinal numbers, being only carried up to three, there 
being no degrees of comparison except by a re- 
petition to indicate intensity, or by a combination of 
opposite adjectives, to point out the proportion in- 
tended, and no distinction of genders, if we except an 
attempt to mark one among those tribes who give nu- 
merical names to their children, according to the order 
of their birth, as before mentioned.! All parts of 
speech appear to be subject to inflections, if we except 
adverbs, post-fixes, and post-positions. Nouns, ad- 
jectives, pronouns and verbs have all three numbers, 
* Gatlin remarks the existence of a similar number and variety- 
in the dialects of the American Indians, but appears to think 
them radically different from one another. 
f Chap. IV. page 324. 
