Independent of causative, reflected, and reciprocal verbal forms, the following are found:

'He is used, continues, intends, is about, is finishing, is at liberty to do a certain act.' 'I see far off, near, one I know,' &c. 'It rains hard, by showers, steadily.' The action is, has been, or may be done, ill, better, in a different manner, quickly, attentively, rarely, probably, jointly, repeatedly,' &c., with various other modifications expressive of doubt, likeness, denial, various degrees of assertion, &c.*

Words compounded by the union of two verbs, or of a verb and a noun, are in general use. The manner of compounding words, by uniting in a single one the abbreviations, sometimes a single syllable, or even letter, of five, six or more words, belongs equally to the Eskimau and to the Algonkin, and extends, if not universally, probably to many other languages. Some examples will be found in the Grammatical Notices, and amongst these, one of seventeen syllables in the Cherokee: wi-ni-taw-ti-ge-gi-na-li-skaw-lung-ta-naw-ne-li-ti-se-sti ; which means, "They will by that time have nearly finished granting (favors) from a distance to thee and me." But this and similar words are not in common use, and only show to what extent words may be compounded in conformity with the analogies of the language, so as to be perfectly intelligible to an Indian.

That flexibility which has brought into common use the conversion of every part of speech into another, and which has produced that multiplicity of forms, of derivatives, and of compounded words, and that perpetual concentration of complex ideas in a single word, is not only the most striking common characteristic of the Indian languages, but must, it is believed, have in some respects imparted to them greater powers than seem to belong to those of Europe. Some most respectable philologists have indeed seen in those features the proof of an ancient civilization. Even the learned authors of

* Even in the Cheppeyan language (Athapasca), of which we have only the specimen of two pages in Mr. Du Ponceau's collection, we find the following forms: bainaysnie, 'I have some recollection'; bainasnie, 'I recollect'; subainasnie, 'I do remember.' When I asked Mr. Boudinot to give me, amongst other verbal forms, the Cherokee word for we two are tied, he immediately answered; there are two forms. We two are tied together,' agehnahlung; we are both tied, but each separately,' dagenahlung. (Note, that Mr. Boudinot uses d where Mr. Worcester writes t.)

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the Mithridates wonder "how such people can have performed such philological work, which can only have been the result of profound and abstract meditations." And it is remarkable that this assertion is in part founded on the multiplied inflections of the transitions of the verb. "What is most extraordinary is the prodigious number of forms expressing the accusative case of pronouns governed by the verb."*

May not our early impressions have associated in our minds a general, though vague notion of inflected languages, with an advanced state of civilization? The admiration felt for the great writers of Rome and Greece, the real superiority in many respects of their languages over those of Modern Europe, the origin of these in the invasions of barbarous nations and in the ages of darkness which followed, have given us the habit of associating inflected languages with knowledge and civilization, and those destitute of those forms with barbarism and ignorance. Yet the undeniable merits of the classical languages will be found, on reflection, to consist in their perfection, in the manner in which the principle has been applied, rather than the principle itself.

It is not certainly in the multiplied inflections used in the transitions of some of the Indian languages that we find proofs of profound meditations. All those inflections, however varied, never contain, independent of the root of the verb, any other ideas, but those of two pronouns, respectively agent and object of the action. In whatever manner the ideas contained in 'I love thee,'' you love me,' may be expressed, the accessaries embraced by the word or words are never any thing more or less than "I thee,' you me,' &c. The fact that, although the object in view was, in every known Indian language without exception, to concentrate in a single word those pronouns with the verb, yet the means used for that purpose are not the same in any two of them, shows that none of them was the result of philosophical researches and preconcerted design. And, in those which abound most in inflections of that description, nothing more has been done, in that respect, than to effect, by a most complex process and with a cumbersome and unnecessary machinery, that which, in almost every other language, has been as well if not better performed through the most simple Those transitions, in their complexness and in the still

means.

* Mithridates.- Esquimaux.

visible amalgamation of the abbreviated pronouns with the verb, bear in fact the impress of primitive and unpolished languages.

But even taking into consideration the most happy features of the Indian languages, the fact, that they were universally spoken by the American nations, whether uncivilized or semicivilized, does not, so long as we remain unacquainted with their origin, justify either of the assertions, that men in the early stages of society necessarily must, or, on the contrary, that they could not have adopted such forms. The only natural and legitimate inference, since the fact is indubitable, is, that compounded and inflected words were one of the modes which naturally might be, and which in this instance was actually, resorted to by man, in order to communicate his ideas in an intelligible manner.

There are strong reasons for believing, not only that this, though perhaps nowhere carried to the same extent as in America, was a process early adopted by other nations; but that all that belongs to the grammar, to the character, and to the general structure of every ancient language must have had its origin in the earliest stages of the social state, and before man could have attained a high degree of knowledge, and made any great progress in all that constitutes civilization. It must indeed be admitted, that those reasons cannot, from the nature of the question, amount to absolute proof; and the following remarks are intended only as suggesting subjects of inquiry.

There are in Africa, in Asia, in Polynesia, numerous nations, of whose languages we know little more than what may be inferred from meagre vocabularies. An investigation of their grammatical forms would throw great light on the subject. In the mean while, it deserves notice, that the great philologist Vater could point out but two languages that, on account of the multiplicity of their forms, had a character, if not similar, at least analogous to those of America. These were the Congo and the Basque. The first is spoken by a barbarous nation of Africa. The other is now universally admitted to be a remarkable relic of a most ancient and primitive language, formed in the most early ages of the world.*

* Without admitting the antediluvian pretensions of Cantabrian writers, it is at least obvious that the Basque was the ancient Iberian, the Aquitanian of Cæsar, and that, before the progress of the Teutonic, Phoenician, and Latin nations, Western Europe was occupied in the north by the Celts, in the south by the Iberians. Their respective languages

The modern languages of Western Europe were formed at a time when writing had long been in general use; and it is difficult, if not impossible, to discriminate between what might be considered as the natural progress of language, and the effect produced by the mixture of distinct idioms, and by the respective influence of each. It is obviously impossible to have any evidence of the oral languages of antiquity, before they had been reduced to writing. We cannot ascend higher than the most ancient works which have been preserved.

We cannot assert positively, that the Pentateuch and the Iliad were the first books ever written in Hebrew and in Greek. But there is the highest degree of probability that both of them were composed and written at an epoch so near the time when writing had been first introduced amongst the Jews and the Greeks respectively, that that invention could, as yet, have produced but little effect on the language of either. We may therefore justly consider those two works, as the nearest possible approximation to the oral language of those two people prior to the discovery of the alphabet. If we find in them the same grammatical forms, and substantially the same structure of language, as in the following ages of Hebraic and Greek literature, it affords a strong presumption, that those forms and all that essentially constitutes the character of a language had their origin prior to the invention of writing, and in a very early stage of society.

Those two languages belong to two distinct and dissimilar families. In one of them we find a system of compounded words and of inflections, much less extensive than that of the American nations, but, I suspect, much more perfect, and as superior, as the Greeks even of the Homeric times, were to our Indians. In the Hebrew, we discover, besides several other correspondences, transitions, or the combination in a single word of the two pronouns with the verb. Thus, although the application of the principles differs widely in the several languages, still the modes adopted were originally of a similar character. This may be adduced as an additional proof of the common origin of mankind. It proves, at all events, that the

*

prove the more ancient origin of the Iberians, or, to speak more correctly, that they had separated from the common stock and migrated westwardly at an earlier date.

* The use, for instance, of the present tense for the preterite, and the resort to the participle for designating the present time with precision.

same modes of communicating ideas were in use among very different nations, at the most early times of which we have any knowledge.

A further proof of the very early use of inflected forms is afforded by the fact, that we find them amongst all those nations, from the Ganges to the Atlantic ocean, which indubitably belong to the same stock. They must therefore have had their origin at an epoch prior to the separation of those nations, and which ascends much higher than the invention of writing, or historical times.

Though not belonging to our Indians, it may be observed, that the invention of the substantive verb, and its use as an auxiliary verb, are also of great antiquity, since they are common to all those nations. The infinitive to be, in the Latin and Slavonian, and, as I am informed, in the Sanscrit, means also to eat. In the Delaware language, the verb pommauchsin means 'to walk' and 'to live.'

Amongst those nations, there are two, which do not appear to have ever been subdued, since they occupied their present seats, and whose languages, apparently unmixed with any other, must have been the result of their own natural progress. The transient dominion of Charlemagne and of his successors was that of a Teutonic, over another kindred tribe; and the Latin did not penetrate beyond the Rhine. The variations along the eastern boundary of Germany, which divides it from the Slavonic nations, have only affected particular districts in its immediate vicinity. The heart of Germany and the adjacent kindred northern nations have been and remained Teutonic, without any foreign mixture, from the most remote antiquity to the present time. Although the Tartars had imposed a tribute on Russia, they made no permanent settlement in the country; and their language cannot have had any marked influence on the Slavonian.

The Gothic translation of the Gospels by Ulphilas was made in the fourth century, and is the oldest specimen we have of the Teutonic languages. I have seen no other specimen of it than "Our Lord's Prayer," in the "Mithridates"; but, if I am correctly informed, the language of that translation exhibits the same, and even a greater variety of inflections and of grammatical forms, than are found in the modern German, or in any of the other languages of the same family. The grammars of the ancient Anglo-Saxon corroborate the fact. All that relates to