INDIAN LANGUAGES
I.
Observations on the Grammatical Structure and Flexibility of the Odjibwa Substantive.[ [270]
Inquiry 1.
Observations on the Ojibwai substantive. 1. The provision of the language for indicating gender—Its general and comprehensive character—The division of words into animate and inanimate classes. 2. Number—its recondite forms, arising from the terminal vowel in the word. 3. The grammatical forms which indicate possession, and enable the speaker to distinguish the objective person.
Most of the researches which have been directed to the Indian languages, have resulted in elucidating the principles governing the use of the verb, which has been proved to be full and varied in its inflections. Either less attention has been paid to the other parts of speech, or results less suited to create high expectations of their flexibility and powers have been attained. The Indian verb has thus been made to stand out, as it were in bold relief, as a shield to defects in the substantive and its accessories, and as, in fact, compensating, by its multiform appendages of prefix and suffix—by its tensal, its pronominal, its substantive, its adjective, and its adverbial terminations, for barrenness and rigidity in all other parts of speech. Influenced by this reflection, I shall defer, in the present inquiry, the remarks I intend offering on the verb, until I have considered the substantive, and its more important adjuncts.
Palpable objects, to which the idea of sense strongly attaches, and the actions or condition, which determine the relation of one object to another, are perhaps the first points to demand attention in the invention of languages. And they have certainly imprinted themselves very strongly, with all their materiality, and with all their local, and exclusive, and personal peculiarities upon the Indian. The noun and the verb not only thus constitute the principal elements of speech, as in all languages; but they continue to perform their first offices, with less direct aid from the auxiliary parts of speech, than would appear to be reconcilable with a clear expression of the circumstances of time and place, number and person, quality and quantity, action and repose, and the other accidents, on which their definite employment depends. But to enable the substantives and attributives to perform these complex offices, they are provided with inflections, and undergo changes and modifications, by which words and phrases become very concrete in their meaning, and are lengthened out to appear formidable to the eye. Hence the polysyllabic, and the descriptive character of the language, so composite in its aspect and in its forms.
To utter succinctly, and in as few words as possible, the prominent ideas resting upon the mind of the speaker, appear to have been the paramount object with the inventors of the language. Hence, concentration became a leading feature. And the pronoun, the adjective, the adverb, and the preposition, however they may be disjunctively employed in certain cases, are chiefly useful as furnishing materials to the speaker, to be worked up into the complicated texture of the verb and the substantive. Nothing, in fact, can be more unlike, than the language, viewed in its original, elementary state—in a vocabulary, for instance, of its primitive words, so far as such a vocabulary can now be formed, and the same language as heard under its oral, amalgamated form. Its transpositions may be likened to a picture, in which the copal, the carmine, and the white lead, are no longer recognized as distinct substances, but each of which has contributed its share towards the effect. It is the painter only who possesses the principle, by which one element has been curtailed, another augmented, and all, however seemingly discordant, made to coalesce.
Such a language may be expected to abound in derivatives and compounds; to afford rules for giving verbs substantive, and substantives verbal qualities; to concentrate the meaning of words upon a few syllables, or upon a single letter, or alphabetical sign; and to supply modes of contraction and augmentation, and, if I may so say, short cuts, and by-paths to meanings, which are equally novel and interesting. To arrive at its primitives, we must pursue an intricate thread, where analogy is often the only guide. We must divest words of those accumulated syllables, or particles, which, like the molecules of material matter, are clustered around the primitives. It is only after a process of this kind, that the principle of combination—that secret wire, which moves the whole machinery can be searched for, with a reasonable prospect of success. The labor of analysis is one of the most interesting and important, which the subject presents. And it is a labor which it will be expedient to keep constantly in view, until we have separately considered the several parts of speech, and the grammatical laws by which the language is held together; and thus established principles and provided materials wherewith we may the more successfully labor.
1. In a general survey of the language as it is spoken, and as it must be written, there is perhaps no feature which obtrudes itself so constantly to view, as the principle which separates all words, of whatever denomination, into animates and inanimates, as they are applied to objects in the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom. This principle has been grafted upon most words, and carries its distinctions throughout the syntax. It is the gender of the language; but a gender of so unbounded a scope, as to merge in it the common distinctions of a masculine and feminine, and to give a twofold character to the parts of speech. The concords which it requires, and the double inflections it provides, will be mentioned in their appropriate places. It will be sufficient here to observe, that animate nouns require animate verbs for their nominatives, animate adjectives to express their qualities, and animate demonstrative pronouns to mark the distinctions of person. Thus, if we say, "I see a man; I see a house," the termination of the verb must be changed. What was in the first instance wâb imâ, is altered to wâb indân. Wâb, is here the infinitive, but the root of this verb is still more remote. If the question occurs "Is it a good man, or a good house," the adjective, which, in the inanimate form is onishish-í, is, in the animate onishish-i[n']. If the question be put, "Is it this man, or this house," the pronoun this, which is mâ bum, in the animate, is changed to mâ ndun, in the inanimate.
Nouns animate embrace the tribes of quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, reptiles, crustacæ, the sun, and moon, and stars, thunder, and lightning, for these are personified; and whatever either possesses animal life, or is endowed, by the peculiar opinions and superstitions of the Indians, with it. In the vegetable kingdom, their number is comparatively limited, being chiefly confined to trees, and those only while they are referred to, as whole bodies, and to the various species of fruits, and seeds, and esculents. It is at the option of the speaker to employ nouns, either as animates or inanimates: but it is a choice seldom resorted to, except in conformity with stated exceptions. These conventional exceptions are not numerous, and the more prominent of them, may be recited. The cause of the exceptions it is not always easy to perceive. It may, however, generally be traced to a particular respect paid to certain inanimate bodies, either from their real or fancied properties—the uses to which they are applied, or the ceremonies to which they are dedicated. A stone, which is the altar of sacrifice to their Manitoes; a bow, formerly so necessary in the chase; a feather, the honored sign of martial prowess; a kettle, so valuable in the household; a pipe, by which friendships are sealed and treaties ratified; a drum, used in their sacred and festive dances; a medal, the mask of authority; vermilion, the appropriate paint of the warrior; wampum, by which messages are conveyed, and covenants remembered. These are among the objects, in themselves inanimates, which require the application of animate verbs, pronouns, and adjectives, and are thereby transferred to the animate class.