A. W. Williamson

“ In some features of structure the Dakotan languages present an amazing diversity.
According to Powell (Int. to stud. Am. Lang.) a Ponka in order to say "a man killed a rabbit," would have to say "the man, he, one, animate, standing, in the nominative case, purposely, killed, by shooting an arrow, he, the one animate, sitting, in the objective case." "For the form of the verb to kill would have to be selected, and the verb changes its form by inflection, and by incorporated particles, to denote person, number and gender, as animate or inanimate, as standing, sitting or lying." ”

“ It does not have a multiplicity of verb forms to denote mode and tense, but when necessary does denote them with elegance and precision, by auxiliary verbs and adverbs, very much as we do in English. The Dakota is not made up chiefly of very long words. On the other hand it uses a great many little particles and connectives to express fine shades of meaning, wonderfully reminding one of the Greek. It fully agrees with other American languages in its wonderful facility for forming derivatives. ”

“ The cheek bones of the Dakotas are much less prominent than those of the Chippewas, and those one-fourth Chippewa and three-fourths white have on an average darker complexions than those half white and half Dakota. Among the Minnetarees and Mandans are many persons of light hair, blue eyes, and tolerably fair complexion, not attributable to an infusion of Caucasian blood since the time of Columbus.
No people take more pains to speak their language accurately than the Dakotas. ”

“ If the word man were represented by a pronoun the Dak. would be still more analytic, since its pronoun would indicate any actor, male or female, or inanimate, unless it were desirable to distinguish, in which case the distinction would be made by compounding the pronoun with a suitable auxiliary word. In this feature, often given as characteristic of American languages, is a variation the greatest possible between two languages closely related. ”

“ Professor Roehrig, in his able paper on the Dakota, points out some very interesting analogies to Turanian languages. Others might be added. These similarities are chiefly in features common to I. E. and Turanian. On the other hand the Dakota shows on the surface striking contrasts to Turanian languages. The numerals are eminently dissimilar. The Dakota, like I. E. languages, varies both root and suffix in forming words, and uses both prefixes and suffixes. In Turanian languages the suffix only is varied, and prefixes are scarcely at all used. ”

“ Besides the number of accidental resemblances of the Dakotan to the I E languages seems, to be much greater than the whole number of similarities between Dakotan and Algonkin languages. Dak anapta is identical with I E anapta in sound, closely similar in meaning. Dak a-na-pta is prep. a = Icel a on, na prefix converting root to verb, and pta separate; cf I E pat fall, also open (Lat pateo) . I E an-apta is an negative prefix, and apta participle of ap attain. My father compared Dak chepa fat with Lat adeps. I have since found Min idip fat almost identical with Lat stem adipi. ”

“ Papa and mama in Dak., as in I. E. languages, occupy a subordinate position, having about the same scope as in Latin and Greek. Words apparently related to these are rare in N. A. languages, but frequent in S. A., African, Malay Polynesian and Turanian languages. The Semitic aba, etc., is perhaps related. The base ana, nana (Dak. ina) , though not very much used in I E languages appears to be more widely distributed than any of the others.
All the Dakota pronouns which show much similarity to other American forms are representative of Fick's I E bases, and appear to be widely disseminated. ”

“ It is however in Omaha thi identical in sound with our thee, and da, di in most allied languages similar to German du. Dak ya pl yapi you, and our you are probably also of this base. The Iowa forms the possessive of personal pronouns like the Icelandic by -i; Icel min my; Iowa min my.
3d person, I, he, she, it, extremely frequent in I E languages, is the base used in all the Dakotan languages as least partaking of a demonstrative nature. ”

“ The allied tribes, except the Crows, when first found lived chiefly by agriculture. They have during the last hundred years rapidly diminished in numbers, and do not number over twelve thousand including the Crows. ”

“ Where the Dakotan forms are not used as separate words it is indicated by a hyphen, before, if used alone as a verb stem, after if it requires suffixes. Where the root is found primarily combined with only one suffix or prefix the derivative form is given. In some cases the Dak root has one of the meanings given in one combination, another in another.
Eu i go; Dak i go.
Aryan u mangle; Min u wound; Dak o. ”

“ It has differentiated the various parts of speech even to the definite and indefinite article. It is sufficiently supplied with nouns denoting genera and classes. This is not a feature of recent development. A much smaller proportion of general than of special names have lost trace of origin. ”

“ AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN, JANUARY, 1882.
THE DAKOTAN LANGUAGES, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO OTHER LANGUAGES. BY A. W. WILLIAMSON.
To the ethnologist and to the philologist the Dakotas and those speaking kindred languages are a very interesting people. There are four principal Dakota dialects, the Santee, Yankton, Assinniboin and Titon. The allied languages may be divided into three groups:
I. a, Winnebago; b, Osage, Kaw, and 2 Quapaw; c, Iowa, Otoe and Missouri; d, Omaha and Ponka.
II. Mandan. ”