is practiced, and is the name given by the Indians to any writing, from the fact that when they first learned of writing they supposed it to be a method of practicing sorcery; în-îñ-yî is the verb signifying to count, and the meaning of the word has been extended so as to signify to read; kän signifies wigwam, and is derived from the verb küri, to stay. Thus the name of the school-house literally signifies a staying place where sorcery is counted, or where papers are read. The Pavänt in naming a school-house describes the purpose for which it is used. These examples illustrate the general characteristics of Indian nouns; they are excessively connotive; a simply denotive name is rarely found. In general their name-words predicate some attribute of the object named, and thus noun, adjective, and predicant are undifferentiated.

In many Indian languages there is no separate word for eye, hand, arm, or other parts and organs of the body, but the word is found with an incorporated or attached pronoun signifying my hand, my eye; your hand, your eye; his hand, his eye, etc., as the case may be. If the Indian, in naming these parts, refers to his own body, he says my; if he refers to the body of the person to whom he is speaking, he says your, &c. If an Indian should find a detached foot thrown from the amputating-table of an army field hospital, he would say something like this: I have found somebody his foot. The linguistic characteristic is widely spread, though not universal.

Thus the Indian has no command of a fully differentiated noun expressive of eye, hand, arm, or other parts and organs of the body.

In the pronouns we often have the most difficult part of an Indian language. Pronouns are only to a limited extent independent words.

Among the free pronouns the student must early learn to distinguish between the personal and the demonstrative. The demonstrative pronouns are more commonly used. The Indian is more accustomed to say this person or thing, that person or thing, than he, she, or it. Among the free personal pronouns the student may find an equivalent of the pronoun I, another signifying I and you; perhaps another signifying I and he, and one signifying we, more than two, including the speaker and those present; and another including the speaker and persons absent. He will also find personal pronouns in the second and third person, perhaps with singular, dual, and plural forms.

To a large extent the pronouns are incorporated in the verbs as prefixes, infixes, or suffixes. In such cases we will call them article pronouns. These article pronouns point out with great particularity the person, number, and gender, both of subject and object, and sometimes of the indirect object. When the article pronouns are used the personal pronouns may or may not be used; but it is believed that the personal pronouns will always be found. Article pronouns may not always be found. In those languages which are characterized by them they are used alike when the subject and object nouns are expressed and when they are not. The student may at first find some difficulty with these article pronouns. Singular, dual, and plural forms will be found. Sometimes distinct incorporated particles will be used for subject and object, but often this will not be the case. If the subject only is expressed, one particle may be used; if the object only is expressed, another particle; but if subject and object are expressed an entirely different particle may stand for both.

But it is in the genders of these article pronouns that the greatest difficulty may be found. The student must entirely free his mind of the idea that gender is simply a distinction of sex. In Indian tongues, genders are usually methods of classification primarily into animate and inanimate. The animate may be again divided into male and female, but this is rarely the case. Often by these genders all objects are classified by characteristics found in their attitudes or supposed constitution. Thus we may have the animate and inanimate, one or both, divided into the standing, the sitting, and the lying; or they may be divided into the watery, the mushy, the earthy, the stony, the woody, and the fleshy. The gender of these article pronouns has rarely been worked out in any language. The extent to which these classifications enter into the article pronouns is not well known. The subject requires more thorough study. These incorporated particles are here called article pronouns. In the conjugation of the verb they take an important part, and have by some writers been called transitions. Besides pointing out with particularity the person, number, and gender or the subject and object, they perform the same offices that are usually performed by those inflections of the verb that occur to make them agree in gender, number, and person with the subject. In those Indian languages where the article pronouns are not found, and the personal pronouns only are used, the verb is usually inflected to agree with the subject or object, or both, in the same particulars.

The article pronouns as they point out person, number, gender, and case of the subject and object, are not simple particles, but are to a greater or lesser extent compound; their component elements may be broken apart and placed in different parts of the verb. Again, the article pronoun in some languages may have its elements combined into a distinct word in such a manner that it will not be incorporated in the verb, but will be placed immediately before it. For this reason the term article pronoun has been chosen rather than attached pronoun. The older term, transition, was given to them because of their analogy in function to verbal inflections.

Thus the verb of an Indian language contains within itself incorporated article pronouns which point out with great particularity the gender, number, and person of the subject and object. In this manner verb, pronoun, and adjective are combined, and to this extent these parts of speech are undifferentiated.

In some languages the article pronoun constitutes a distinct word, but whether free or incorporated it is a complex tissue of adjectives.

Again, nouns sometimes contain particles within themselves to predicate possession, and to this extent nouns and verbs are undifferentiated.

The verb is relatively of much greater importance in an Indian tongue than in a civilized language. To a large extent the pronoun is incorporated in the verb as explained above, and thus constitutes a part of its conjugation.

Again, adjectives are used as intransitive verbs, as in most Indian languages there is no verb to be used as a predicant or copula. Where in English we would say the man is good, the Indian would say that man good, using the adjective as an intransitive verb, i.e., as a predicant. If he desired to affirm it in the past tense, the intransitive verb good, would be inflected, or otherwise modified, to indicate the tense; and so, in like manner, all adjectives when used to predicate can be modified to indicate mode, tense, number, person, &c., as other intransitive verbs.

Adverbs are used as intransitive verbs. In English we may say he is there; the Indian would say that person there usually preferring the demonstrative to the personal pronoun. The adverb there would, therefore, be used as a predicant or intransitive verb, and might be conjugated to denote different modes, tenses, numbers, persons, etc.