The Indian Linguistic Families of the United States. John Wesley Powell

simply because this great naturalist established the binominal system and placed scientific classification upon a sound and enduring basis. As Linnæus is to be regarded as the founder of biologic classification, so Gallatin may be considered the founder of systematic philology relating to the North American Indians. Before his time much linguistic work had been accomplished, and scholars owe a lasting debt of gratitude to Barton, Adelung, Pickering, and others. But Gallatin’s work marks an era in American linguistic science from the fact that he so thoroughly introduced comparative methods, and because he circumscribed the boundaries of many families, so that a large part of his work remains and is still to be considered sound. There is no safe resting place anterior to Gallatin, because no scholar prior to his time had properly adopted comparative methods of research, and because no scholar was privileged to work with so large a body of material. It must further be said of Gallatin that he had a very clear conception of the task he was performing, and brought to it both learning and wisdom. Gallatin’s work has therefore been taken as the starting point, back of which we may not go in the historic consideration of the systematic philology of North America. The point of departure therefore is the year 1836, when Gallatin’s “Synopsis of Indian Tribes” appeared in vol. 2 of the Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society.

      It is believed that a name should be simply a denotive word, and that no advantage can accrue from a descriptive or connotive title. It is therefore desirable to have the names as simple as possible, consistent with other and more important considerations. For this reason it has been found impracticable to recognize as family names designations based on several distinct terms, such as descriptive phrases, and words compounded from two or more geographic names. Such phrases and compound words have been rejected.

      There are many linguistic families in North America, and in a number of them there are many tribes speaking diverse languages. It is important, therefore, that some form should be given to the family name by which it may be distinguished from the name of a single tribe or language. In many cases some one language within a stock has been taken as the type and its name given to the entire family; so that the name of a language and that of the stock to which it belongs are identical. This is inconvenient and leads to confusion. For such reasons it has been decided to give each family name the termination “an” or “ian.”

      Conforming to the principles thus enunciated, the following rules have been formulated:

      I. The law of priority relating to the nomenclature of the systematic philology of the North American tribes shall not extend to authors whose works are of date anterior to the year 1836.

      II. The name originally given by the founder of a linguistic group to designate it as a family or stock of languages shall be permanently retained to the exclusion of all others.

      III. No family name shall be recognized if composed of more than one word.

      IV. A family name once established shall not be canceled in any subsequent division of the group, but shall be retained in a restricted sense for one of its constituent portions.

      V. Family names shall be distinguished as such by the termination “an” or “ian.”

      VI. No name shall be accepted for a linguistic family unless used to designate a tribe or group of tribes as a linguistic stock.

      VII. No family name shall be accepted unless there is given the habitat of tribe or tribes to which it is applied.

      VIII. The original orthography of a name shall be rigidly preserved except as provided for in rule III, and unless a typographical error is evident.

      The terms “family” and “stock” are here applied interchangeably to a group of languages that are supposed to be cognate.

      A single language is called a stock or family when it is not found to be cognate with any other language. Languages are said to be cognate when such relations between them are found that they are supposed to have descended from a common ancestral speech. The evidence of cognation is derived exclusively from the vocabulary. Grammatic similarities are not supposed to furnish evidence of cognation, but to be phenomena, in part relating to stage of culture and in part adventitious. It must be remembered that extreme peculiarities of grammar, like the vocal mutations of the Hebrew or the monosyllabic separation of the Chinese, have not been discovered among Indian tongues. It therefore becomes necessary in the classification of Indian languages into families to neglect grammatic structure, and to consider lexical elements only. But this statement must be clearly understood. It is postulated that in the growth of languages new words are formed by combination, and that these new words change by attrition to secure economy of utterance, and also by assimilation (analogy) for economy of thought. In the comparison of languages for the purposes of systematic philology it often becomes necessary to dismember compounded words for the purpose of comparing the more primitive forms thus obtained. The paradigmatic words considered in grammatic treatises may often be the very words which should be dissected to discover in their elements primary affinities. But the comparison is still lexic, not grammatic.

      A lexic comparison is between vocal elements; a grammatic comparison is between grammatic methods, such, for example, as gender systems. The classes into which things are relegated by distinction of gender may be animate and inanimate, and the animate may subsequently be divided into male and female, and these two classes may ultimately absorb, in part at least, inanimate things. The growth of a system of genders may take another course. The animate and inanimate may be subdivided into the standing, the sitting, and the lying, or into the moving, the erect and the reclined; or, still further, the superposed classification may be based upon the supposed constitution of things, as the fleshy, the woody, the rocky, the earthy, the watery. Thus the number of genders may increase, while further on in the history of a language the genders may decrease so as almost to disappear. All of these characteristics are in part adventitious, but to a large extent the gender is a phenomenon of growth, indicating the stage to which the language has attained. A proper case system may not have been established in a language by the fixing of case particles, or, having been established, it may change by the increase or diminution of the number of cases. A tense system also has a beginning, a growth, and a decadence. A mode system is variable in the various stages of the history of a language. In like manner a pronominal system undergoes changes. Particles may be prefixed, infixed, or affixed in compounded words, and which one of these methods will finally prevail can be determined only in the later stage of growth. All of these things are held to belong to the grammar of a language and to be grammatic methods, distinct from lexical elements.

      With terms thus defined, languages are supposed to be cognate when fundamental similarities are discovered in their lexical elements. When the members of a family of languages are to be classed in subdivisions and the history of such languages investigated, grammatic characteristics become of primary importance. The words of a language change by the methods described, but the fundamental elements or roots are more enduring. Grammatic methods also change, perhaps even more rapidly than words, and the changes may go on to such an extent that primitive methods are entirely lost, there being no radical grammatic elements to be preserved. Grammatic structure is but a phase or accident of growth, and not a primordial element of language. The roots of a language are its most permanent characteristics, and while the words which are formed from them may change so as to obscure their elements or in some cases even to lose them, it seems that they are never lost from all, but can be recovered in large part. The grammatic structure or plan of a language is forever changing, and in this respect the language may become entirely transformed.

      Literature Relating to the Classification of Indian Languages

       Table of Contents

      While the literature relating to the languages of North America is very extensive, that which relates to their classification is much less extensive. For the benefit of future students in this line it is thought best to present a concise account of such literature, or at least so much as has been consulted in the preparation of this paper.

      1836. Gallatin (Albert).

      A synopsis of the Indian tribes within