The present state of American Ethnography is the excuse for the miscellaneous character of the following notices. What remains just now to be done consists chiefly in the addition of details to an outline already made out. Such communications, however, are mainly intended to serve as isolated points of evidence towards the two following statements:—
1. That no American language has an isolated position when compared with the other tongues en masse, rather than with the languages of any particular class.
2. That the affinity between the languages of the New World, as determined by their vocabularies, is not less real than that inferred from the analogies of their grammatical structure.
Modifications of the current doctrines, as to the value of certain philological groups and classifications, are involved in the positions given above.
The Sitca and Kenay Languages.—That these languages are Esquimaux may be seen by reference to the comparative vocabularies in Lisiansky's Voyages and Baer's Statistische und Ethnographische Nachrichten, &c.
The Ugalyachmutsi.—In the work last quoted this language is shown to be akin to the Kenay. It is termed Ugalenz, and is spoken in Russian America, near Mount St. Elias. It has hitherto been too much disconnected from the Esquimaux group.
The Chipewyan and Nagail.—That these were Esquimaux was stated by the author in the Ethnological subsection of the British Association at York. The Taculli is also Esquimaux. The Sussee, in the present state of our knowledge, is best left without any absolute place. It has several miscellaneous affinities.
The bearing of these notices is to merge the groups called Athabascan and Kolooch in the Esquimaux.
It has been communicated to the Ethnological Society, that a majority of the languages of Oregon and New Caledonia are akin to each other and to the Esquimaux; a statement applying to about forty-five vocabularies, amongst which are the three following, hitherto considered as isolated:—
1. The Friendly Village vocabulary of Mackenzie. See Travels.—This is a dialect of the Billechoola.