Languages Of The American Indians. The languages spoken by the natives received little attention in the English colonies; but in French, Spanish, and Portuguese America a more or less extended Indian literature grew up, with grammars and dictionaries of many of the languages. Charlevoix was perhaps the first to call attention to the languages as the surest mode of tracing the origin and affiliation of tribes. Hervas, availing himself of the labors of many members of the society of Jesus who had been driven from Spanish America, first in his catalogue of languages made a step toward a collection and comparison of the whole. Smith Barton made the first attempt in the United States to reduce the languages to system. Duponceau and Schoolcraft followed him. The Humboldts gave an impulse toward a philosophical treatment of the study, and Balbi in his Atlas ethnographique popularized the information acquired. At a later date Albert Gallatin performed an immense service by securing new, full, and harmonious vocabularies, and tracing many remote and overlooked affinities, so that his work has become the real basis for all subsequent labors as to the tribes of the United States. Turner devoted many years of philosophical and accurate investigation to the subject.

In Europe Adelung philosophically arranged the general study, and Buschmann and others contributed to the investigations of particular families of languages. Orozco and Pimentel classified the languages of Mexico, Squier those of Central America and Peru, Brasseur de Bourbourg and the accurate Behrendt also elucidating those of Central America. Those who have labored on single dialects in Europe and America are too numerous to note. Ludewig became the bibliographer of the labors in this field in his ' Literature of American Aboriginal Languages" (London, 1848). - The languages of America form a group apart, no one having been found that can take its place as a dialect of any in any other quarter of the globe. They have features common to all, one being the predominance of the verb, by which the verb, subject, and object, direct and indirect, are often conjugated together as one word. In: alphabetic power some, like the Iroquois, have no labials; the Mexican wants b, d, f, g, r, s, and the aspirate; the Choctaw has no d or g hard; the Otomi, no l, r, or s, but it has an emphatic k and t; the Quichua has a guttural h, emphatic p, t, and s, and aspirated p, t, and k.

The Otomi, Athabascan, and many of the northwestern tribes have singularly confused, peculiar, or clucking sounds, often impossible to denote. Almost all known American languages have comparatively limited vocabularies, and lack abstract or general terms. Many i have, for instance, no word for brother in general, but separate words for elder and younger brother, differing again according as spoken by another brother or a sister. So there will be no general word for "to fish," but distinct words for fishing with a net, spearing, spearing through the ice, fire-fishing, etc. Some have two sets of numerals, one for man and a few objects deemed of highest importance, the other for everything else; and some have even a third set of numerals for money. - We can give only i a general view of the American languages. I. north american. The general name of Esquimaux (raw-fish-eaters) comprehends all the languages of Greenland and of the northern countries, from the coast of Labrador to Beh-! ring strait and the peninsula of Alaska, including also that of the settled Tchuktchis of Sibe-ria. They consist of two groups: the eastern or Esquimaux proper, with three dialects in Greenland, Labrador, and on the N. and W. shores of Hudson bay; the western, with the idioms of the Tchugatches, Aleutians, and both American and Asiatic Tchuktchis, which differ more one from another than those of the eastern group.

The dialect on Winter or Melville island lacks the sounds f, g, r, z. As in almost all American languages, the pronunciation is, so to speak, pectoral, and the consonants are indistinct. The Esquimaux have words for all shades of meaning in which an object is taken, according to its age, sex, and other categories. Many suffixes and few postpositions denote the accidents of declension, comparison, and conjugation. Examples of words: kernertok, (who is) black; aglegiartorasuarpok, he quickly goes away to write. Numeration proceeds by 20. For the Hudson bay dialect, see the works of Dobbs, I. Long, and Parry; for that of Kotzebue sound, see Beechey; for that of the Tchuktchis, see Kosheloff and Ehromensko.

- The language of the Karalits (Greenlanders) lacks d,f, h, z, and, as initials, ft, g, l, v; abounds in t, k, r; and accumulates hard syllables, al-though the people have a fine ear and musical taste. There are three dialects, viz.: the Ka-muk of Upernavik; that of the isle of Disco, the purest; and the southern, of Julianeshaab. Numerals beyond 5 are compounded; 20 is designated by the words "hands and feet," etc. For grammars of their tongue, see Thorhallesen (1776), and P. Egede (1760), who also made a dictionary, as well as O. Fabricins (1701-1804). - On the northwest of the American continent, south of the Esquimaux, is the family of the Ko-loshes, found about Alaska. South of the Esquimaux, on the east and south of Hudson bay, and running west in a narrow strip along the Saskatchewan to the Rocky mountains, and extending from the Red and Mississippi east to the Atlantic as far down as lat. 36°, was the extensive Algonquin family. It occupied the whole of this vast territory, to the exclusion of all other races except the Winnebagoes on Lake Michigan, who belonged to the Dakota family, and the Huron Iroquois family, who, surrounded by Algonquins, extended from Lake Huron to North Carolina. The Algonquin family, taking its name from tribes on the Ottawa river, Canada, comprised, above the St. Lawrence and the lakes, the Nasquapees, Mon-tagnais, Algonquins, Ottawas, and Kilistinons or Crees; on the Atlantic coast, the Mic-macs, Abenakis, Sokokis, Massachusetts, Nar-ragansetts, Mohegans, Delawares, and Virginian tribes; in the west, the Chippewas, Meno-monees, Pottawattamies, Miamis, Illinois, Sacs and Foxes, Blackfeet, etc.; at the south, the Shawnees. Many of these dialects have been studied thoroughly, and many books and even papers have been printed in them.