CONTENTS.

Nomenclature of linguistic families 7 Literature relating to the cla.s.sification of Indian languages 12 Linguistic map 25 Indian tribes sedentary 30 Population 33 Tribal land 40 Village sites 40 Agricultural land 41 Hunting claims 42 Summary of deductions 44 Linguistic families 45 Adaizan family 45 Algonquian family 47 Algonquian area 47 Princ.i.p.al Algonquian tribes 48 Population 48 Athapascan family 51 Boundaries 52 Northern group 53 Pacific group 53 Southern group 54 Princ.i.p.al tribes 55 Population 55 Attacapan family 56 Beothuakan family 57 Geographic distribution 58 Caddoan family 58 Northern group 60 Middle group 60 Southern group 60 Princ.i.p.al tribes 61 Population 62 Chimakuan family 62 Princ.i.p.al tribes 63 Chimarikan family 63 Princ.i.p.al tribes 63 Chimmesyan family 63 Princ.i.p.al tribes or villages 64 Population 64 Chinookan family 65 Princ.i.p.al tribes 66 Population 66 Chitimachan family 66 Chumashan family 67 Population 68 Coahuiltecan family 68 Princ.i.p.al tribes 69 Copehan family 69 Geographic distribution 69 Princ.i.p.al tribes 70 Costanoan family 70 Geographic distribution 71 Population 71 Eskimauan family 71 Geographic distribution 72 Princ.i.p.al tribes and villages 74 Population 74 Esselenian family 75 Iroquoian family 76 Geographic distribution 77 Princ.i.p.al tribes 79 Population 79 Kalapooian family 81 Princ.i.p.al tribes 82 Population 82 Karankawan family 82 Keresan family 83 Villages 83 Population 83 Kiowan family 84 Population 84 Kitunahan family 85 Tribes 85 Population 85 Koluschan family 85 Tribes 87 Population 87 Kulanapan family 87 Geographic distribution 88 Tribes 88 Kusan family 89 Tribes 89 Population 89 Lutuamian family 89 Tribes 90 Population 90 Mariposan family 90 Geographic distribution 91 Tribes 91 Population 91 Moquelumnan family 92 Geographic distribution 93 Princ.i.p.al tribes 93 Population 93 Muskhogean family 94 Geographic distribution 94 Princ.i.p.al tribes 95 Population 95 Natchesan family 95 Princ.i.p.al tribes 97 Population 97 Palaihnihan family 97 Geographic distribution 98 Princ.i.p.al tribes 98 Piman family 98 Princ.i.p.al tribes 99 Population 99 Pujunan family 99 Geographic distribution 100 Princ.i.p.al tribes 100 Quoratean family 100 Geographic distribution 101 Tribes 101 Population 101 Salinan family 101 Population 102 Salishan family 102 Geographic distribution 104 Princ.i.p.al tribes 104 Population 105 Sastean family 105 Geographic distribution 106 Shahaptian family 106 Geographic distribution 107 Princ.i.p.al tribes and population 107 Shoshonean family 108 Geographic distribution 109 Princ.i.p.al tribes and population 110 Siouan family 111 Geographic distribution 112 Princ.i.p.al tribes 114 Population 116 Skittagetan family 118 Geographic distribution 120 Princ.i.p.al tribes 120 Population 121 Takilman family 121 Geographic distribution 121 Taoan family 121 Geographic distribution 122 Population 123 Timuquanan family 123 Geographic distribution 123 Princ.i.p.al tribes 124 Tonikan family 125 Geographic distribution 125 Tonkawan family 125 Geographic distribution 125 Uchean family 126 Geographic distribution 126 Population 127 Waiilatpuan family 127 Geographic distribution 127 Princ.i.p.al tribes 127 Population 128 Wakashan family 128 Geographic distribution 130 Princ.i.p.al Aht tribes 130 Population 130 Princ.i.p.al Haeltzuk tribes 131 Population 131 Washoan family 131 Weitspekan family 131 Geographic distribution 132 Tribes 132 Wishoskan family 132 Geographic distribution 133 Tribes 133 Yakonan family 133 Geographic distribution 134 Tribes 134 Population 135 Yanan family 135 Geographic distribution 135 Yukian family 135 Geographic distribution 136 Yuman family 136 Geographic distribution 137 Princ.i.p.al tribes 138 Population 138 Zuian family 138 Geographic distribution 139 Population 139 Concluding remarks 139

ILl.u.s.tRATION

Plate I. Map. Linguistic stocks of North America north of Mexico.

In pocket at end of volume

[Transcribers Note:

The Map is available in the images directory accompanying the html version of this file. There are two sizes in addition to the thumbnail:

mapsmall.jpg: 615732 pixels (about 911 in / 2328 cm, 168K) maplarge.jpg: 15211818 pixels (about 2227 in / 5670 cm, 1MB)]

INDIAN LINGUISTIC FAMILIES.

By J. W. POWELL.

NOMENCLATURE OF LINGUISTIC FAMILIES.

The languages spoken by the pre-Columbian tribes of North America were many and diverse. Into the regions occupied by these tribes travelers, traders, and missionaries have penetrated in advance of civilization, and civilization itself has marched across the continent at a rapid rate. Under these conditions the languages of the various tribes have received much study. Many extensive works have been published, embracing grammars and dictionaries; but a far greater number of minor vocabularies have been collected and very many have been published. In addition to these, the Bible, in whole or in part, and various religious books and school books, have been translated into Indian tongues to be used for purposes of instruction; and newspapers have been published in the Indian languages. Altogether the literature of these languages and that relating to them are of vast extent.

While the materials seem thus to be abundant, the student of Indian languages finds the subject to be one requiring most thoughtful consideration, difficulties arising from the following conditions:

(1) A great number of linguistic stocks or families are discovered.

(2) The boundaries between the different stocks of languages are not immediately apparent, from the fact that many tribes of diverse stocks have had more or less a.s.sociation, and to some extent linguistic materials have been borrowed, and thus have pa.s.sed out of the exclusive possession of cognate peoples.

(3) Where many peoples, each few in number, are thrown together, an intertribal language is developed. To a large extent this is gesture speech; but to a limited extent useful and important words are adopted by various tribes, and out of this material an intertribal jargon is established. Travelers and all others who do not thoroughly study a language are far more likely to acquire this jargon speech than the real speech of the people; and the tendency to base relationship upon such jargons has led to confusion.

(4) This tendency to the establishment of intertribal jargons was greatly accelerated on the advent of the white man, for thereby many tribes were pushed from their ancestral homes and tribes were mixed with tribes. As a result, new relations and new industries, especially of trade, were established, and the new a.s.sociations of tribe with tribe and of the Indians with Europeans led very often to the development of quite elaborate jargon languages. All of these have a tendency to complicate the study of the Indian tongues by comparative methods.

The difficulties inherent in the study of languages, together with the imperfect material and the complicating conditions that have arisen by the spread of civilization over the country, combine to make the problem one not readily solved.

In view of the amount of material on hand, the comparative study of the languages of North America has been strangely neglected, though perhaps this is explained by reason of the difficulties which have been pointed out. And the attempts which have been made to cla.s.sify them has given rise to much confusion, for the following reasons: First, later authors have not properly recognized the work of earlier laborers in the field.

Second, the attempt has more frequently been made to establish an ethnic cla.s.sification than a linguistic cla.s.sification, and linguistic characteristics have been confused with biotic peculiarities, arts, habits, customs, and other human activities, so that radical differences of language have often been ignored and slight differences have been held to be of primary value.

The attempts at a cla.s.sification of these languages and a corresponding cla.s.sification of races have led to the development of a complex, mixed, and inconsistent synonymy, which must first be unraveled and a selection of standard names made therefrom according to fixed principles.

It is manifest that until proper rules are recognized by scholars the establishment of a determinate nomenclature is impossible. It will therefore be well to set forth the rules that have here been adopted, together with brief reasons for the same, with the hope that they will commend themselves to the judgment of other persons engaged in researches relating to the languages of North America.

A fixed nomenclature in biology has been found not only to be advantageous, but to be a prerequisite to progress in research, as the vast multiplicity of facts, still ever acc.u.mulating, would otherwise overwhelm the scholar. In philological cla.s.sification fixity of nomenclature is of corresponding importance; and while the a.n.a.logies between linguistic and biotic cla.s.sification are quite limited, many of the principles of nomenclature which biologists have adopted having no application in philology, still in some important particulars the requirements of all scientific cla.s.sifications are alike, and though many of the nomenclatural points met with in biology will not occur in philology, some of them do occur and may be governed by the same rules.

Perhaps an ideal nomenclature in biology may some time be established, as attempts have been made to establish such a system in chemistry; and possibly such an ideal system may eventually be established in philology. Be that as it may, the time has not yet come even for its suggestion. What is now needed is a rule of some kind leading scholars to use the same terms for the same things, and it would seem to matter little in the case of linguistic stocks what the nomenclature is, provided it becomes denotive and universal.

In treating of the languages of North America it has been suggested that the names adopted should be the names by which the people recognize themselves, but this is a rule of impossible application, for where the branches of a stock diverge very greatly no common name for the people can be found. Again, it has been suggested that names which are to go permanently into science should be simple and euphonic. This also is impossible of application, for simplicity and euphony are largely questions of personal taste, and he who has studied many languages loses speedily his idiosyncrasies of likes and dislikes and learns that words foreign to his vocabulary are not necessarily barbaric.

Biologists have decided that he who first distinctly characterizes and names a species or other group shall thereby cause the name thus used to become permanently affixed, but under certain conditions adapted to a growing science which is continually revising its cla.s.sifications. This law of priority may well be adopted by philologists.

By the application of the law of priority it will occasionally happen that a name must be taken which is not wholly un.o.bjectionable or which could be much improved. But if names may be modified for any reason, the extent of change that may be wrought in this manner is unlimited, and such modifications would ultimately become equivalent to the introduction of new names, and a fixed nomenclature would thereby be overthrown. The rule of priority has therefore been adopted.

Permanent biologic nomenclature dates from the time of Linnus simply because this great naturalist established the binominal system and placed scientific cla.s.sification upon a sound and enduring basis. As Linnus is to be regarded as the founder of biologic cla.s.sification, 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 grat.i.tude to Barton, Adelung, Pickering, and others. But Gallatins work marks an era in American linguistic science from the fact that he so thoroughly introduced comparative methods, and because he circ.u.mscribed 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. Gallatins 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 Gallatins 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 t.i.tle. 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 const.i.tuent 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 advent.i.tious. 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 cla.s.sification 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 a.s.similation (a.n.a.logy) 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.sification may be based upon the supposed const.i.tution 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 advent.i.tious, 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 p.r.o.nominal 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 cla.s.sed 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.