21 
however, has full and convincing; proof been provided, and our present 
knowledge does not warrant us in asserting genetic relationship 
between any of the Canadian languages and any language outside 
North America. 
The question may pei'haps l)e asked whether the close physical 
resemblances between the aborigines, their apparent derivation from 
a single racial stock, does not also imply a common origin for all 
their languages. If we assume, with most authorities, a single origin 
for all the present varieties of the human race, we must also assume 
a single origin for its multiple varieties of speech. The term “ dis- 
tinct language,” or “ distinct linguistic stock,” is, therefore, a purely 
relative one, meaning no more than that a certain language or lin- 
guistic stock, while derived from the same ultimate source as other 
languages in the far-distant past, has yet diverged so widely from 
them that no kinship is now discernible. It is quite possible that if 
the languages of the Canadian aborigines had been recorded phonetic- 
ally three or four thousand years ago, we could discover resemblances 
among them that would reduce the number of separate stocks. Yet 
even this is doubtful, for the human race is certainly a hundred times 
older than four thousand years, and our Indians may have been 
descended from many different bands of immigrants that spoke differ- 
ent languages before they entered America. 
Here a word of caution is necessary concerning two errors that 
occur very frequently even in scientific books. It is often assumed 
that language and physical type are co-ordinate, that tribes or 
peoples who speak dialects of the same language are ipso facto of the 
same racial stock. A moment’s reflection will show how misleading 
this assumption can be. The United States is inhabited at the present 
time by people of widely different physical types, ranging from the 
fair, blond-haired descendants of Scandinavian immigrants to the 
blackest negroes; yet all alike employ the English language. Con- 
versely, there is often a close resemblance in physical appearance 
between peoples whose languages seem to have no connexion with one 
another, as for example, between the Pacific Coast tribes of Canada 
and some Mongolian peoples of northeastern Asia. So the numerous 
tribes that now speak Algonkian dialects may have diverse origins; 
whereas the multiplicity of languages on the Pacific coast, where the 
Indians differ so little in outward appearance, really obscures the 
presence of one fundamental racial stock. 
