Siouan languages

“ Nothing can show more clearly how fallacious are those deductions of comparative etymology, which are founded upon a few words carefully gleaned here and there from languages having no common origin, and which are used by people who have neither connection nor intercourse. The common descent of two nations can never be traced by the accidental consonance of a few syllables or words, and the attempt must lead us into the regions of fancy.
The Sioux language is probably one of the most barren which is spoken by any of our aboriginal tribes. ”

“ There is ground for believing that the true home of the whole Siouan stock is not in the west, or even in the central region, but along the south Atlantic slope. (See the author’s Siouan Tribes of the East.)
The Sioux language has three well-marked dialects—the eastern or Santee, the middle or Yankton (including the Asiniboin in the north) , and the western or Teton. The tribe consists of seven great divisions, each of which again has or had subdivisions. Dorsey enumerates over one hundred in all. ”

“ Social classes are undifferentiated. Any man can win a name and rank in the section, gens, phratry, tribe, or nation by bravery in war or by generosity in the bestowal of presents and the frequent giving of feasts. While there are no slaves among the Siouan tribes, there are several kinds of servants in civil, military, and religious affairs. ”

“ Many of the Siouan Indians were adepts in the sign language; indeed, this mode of conveying intelligence attained perhaps its highest development among some of the tribes of this stock, who, with other plains Indians, developed pantomime and gesture into a surprisingly perfect art of expression adapted to the needs of huntsmen and warriors. ”

“ They were typical American barbarians, headed by hunters and warriors and grouped in shifting tribes led by the chase or driven by battle from place to place over their vast and naturally rich domain, though a crude agriculture sprang up whenever a tribe tarried long in one spot. No native stock is more interesting than the great Siouan group, and none save the Algonquian and Iroquoian approach it in wealth of literary and historical records ”

“ Siam proper has a large Malay population, descendants mainly of captives taken in war, and the language is therefore in use there in places; it is found also here and there on the coasts and rivers of Anam and Cochin-China. No other language of the Eastern Archipelago is understood over such an extensive area, and it is the common means of communication between the numerous tribes and races of the Malay family whose languages and dialects differ. ”

“ Hardly any of the women can speak Arabic, and it is owing to their strange secretive lives that the Siwans have retained their language and are so unprogressive to-day. They resolutely oppose all innovations, refusing even the help and advice of the Egyptian Government doctor. ”

“ Originally Siamese was purely monosyllabic, that is, each true word consisted of a single vowel sound preceded by, or followed by, a consonant. Of such monosyllables there are less than two thousand, and therefore many syllables have to do duty for the expression of more than one idea, confusion being avoided by the tone in which they are spoken, whence the term "tonal," which is applied to all the languages of this family. The language now consists of about 15,000 words, of which compounds of two monosyllabic words and appropriations from foreign sources form a very large part. ”

“ In leaving the soil of Asia the language of Egypt took upon it an African dress.
Now though language can prove but little as regards race, it can prove a great deal as regards history. A mixed language means a mixed history, and indicates an intimate contact between the populations who spoke the languages which are represented in it. Egyptian grammar would not have been Semitic if those who imposed it upon the natives of the Nile had not been of Semitic descent, or at all events had not come from a region where the language was Semitic. ”

“ The ceremonial observances of the Siouan tribes were not different in kind from those of neighboring contemporaries, yet some of them were developed in remarkable degree—for example, the bloody rites by which youths were raised to the rank of warriors in some of the prairie tribes were without parallel in severity among the aborigines of America, or even among the known primitive peoples of the world. ”

“ While the early population of the Siouan stock, when first the huntsmen crossed the Appalachians, may not be known, the lines of migration indicate that the people increased and multiplied amain during their long journey, and that their numbers culminated, despite external conflict and internal strife, about the beginning of written history, when the Siouan population may have been 100,000 or more. ”

“ Although the accultural condition of the Siouan survivors ranges from the essentially primitive status of the Asiniboin to the practical civilization of the representatives of several tribes, it is fair to consider the stock in a [pg 186] state of transition from barbarism to civilization; and many of the tribesmen are losing the characteristics of activity and somatic development normal to primitive life, while they have not yet assimilated the activities and acquired the somatic characteristics normal to peaceful sedentary life. ”

“ We can not say whether each of the colors (including spotted and striped) has a mystic significance in the Siouan mind. Perhaps further study may show that red (śa) and scarlet (duta, luta) have the same symbolic meaning, and rusty-yellow (ġi) may be an equivalent of yellow (zi) .
[Pg 534]
THE EARTH POWERS.
§ 383. The Tunkan or bowlder, the Dakota name for the Earth powers, is also called the Lingam by Riggs ( § 132) , as if connected with a phallic cult (§§ 164, etc.) . ”

“ The Burmans are more enterprising, more sprightly, and braver than the Siamese. The Siamese surpass all the rest in vanity; and in point of humanity and moderation have some advantage over the Burmans. The Cochin-Chinese are more gay and social than any of their neighbours; and, indeed, in these points excel all Asiatic people. From the confines of Bengal to the borders of China there exist, besides rude dialects, seven languages which have received a considerable share of cultivation. These are the Aracanese, the Burman, the Peguan, the Siamese, the Lao, the Karnbojan, and the Anam. ”

“ The children sit cross-legged on the ground, tailor-fashion. There are no chairs or desks, and if there were the children would sit cross-legged upon them just the same. All learn to read. Now the Siamese language is what is called a tonic language—that is, the meaning of any word depends on the tone with which it is pronounced. ”

“ Missionaries now find it difficult to secure a young man sufficiently educated to make a good teacher. One reason of this is that since the country has been opened to foreign commerce, opportunities to make money are more common than previously, and young men do not now remain sufficiently long in the priesthood to become good scholars, but leave it to go into business.
The Siamese language proper is monosyllabic and rather poverty-stricken. It has however, been enriched from time to time from the Pali, and from the languages of the surrounding nations, and by a few words from the Chinese. ”

“ Bali, the ancient language of the kingdom of Magadha, in which the sacred writings of Buddhism were made, was largely instrumental in forming all the languages of Further India, including Siamese— a fact which accounts for the numerous connecting links between the Môn, Burmese and Siamese languages of the present time, though these are of quite separate origin. ”

“ Since the advent of white men the characteristics of the Siouan Indians, like those of other tribes, have been somewhat modified, partly through infusion of Caucasian blood but chiefly through acculturation. With the abandonment of hunting and war and the tardy adoption of a slothful, semidependent agriculture, the frame has lost something of its stalwart vigor; with the adaptation of the white man's costume and the incomplete assimilation of his hygiene, various weaknesses and disorders have been developed ”

“ Some persons, who have made the Indian languages their study, assert, that all the different languages spoken by those tribes, with which we have any connection, are but dialects of three primitive tongues, viz. the Huron, the Algonquin, and the Sioux; the two former of which, being well understood, will enable a person to converse, at least slightly, with the Indians of any tribe in Canada or the United States. All the nations that speak a language derived from the Sioux, have, it is said, a hissing pronunciation; those who speak one derived from the Huron, have a guttural pronunciation ”

“ The Chinese language can no longer be adduced in support of the hypothesis that our Aryan languages, or all human languages, started at first as a grammarless speech consisting of monosyllabic root-words. ”

“ Subsequently Gatschet discovered that the Biloxi Indians of the Gulf coast used many terms common to the Siouan tongues; and in 1891 Dorsey visited these Indians and procured a rich collection of words, phrases, and myths, whereby the Siouan affinity of these Indians was established. Meantime Mooney began researches among the Cherokee and cognate tribes of the southern Atlantic slope and found fresh evidence that their ancient neighbors were related in tongue and belief with the buffalo hunters of the plains ”

“ The existence of the Siamese schools greatly emphasizes the importance of our own work, and the necessity of maintaining a high standard and a strong teaching force in Siamese, English, mathematics, and the sciences. Their schools then will be tributary to ours.
The ultimate prevalence of the Siamese language in all the provinces under Siamese rule, has been inevitable from the start. All governments realize the importance of a uniform language in unifying a people, and have no interest whatever in perpetuating a provincial dialect. ”

“ And since we know of no Semitic languages in Africa which were not brought from Asia, we are justified in concluding that the Semitic element in the Egyptian language was of Asiatic origin.
But we can go yet a step further. Where two languages are brought into close contact, the general rule is that that of the stronger race prevails. The conqueror is less likely to learn the language of the conquered than the conquered are to learn the language of their masters. ”

“ When the monks, in their studies and teaching, adopt the Siamese, as it is now the intention of the government to have them do, Lāo books will soon be without readers throughout Siam. When for the young a choice is possible in the matter of such a transcendent instrument of thought and culture as language, all surely would wish their training to be in that one which has in it the promise of the future. ”

“ In addition to these languages, there is another spoken at the Oasis of Ammon, or Siwah, called in Arabic El Wah El Grarbie, which appears to be a mixture of Berebber and Shelluh, as will appear from the list of Siwahan words given by Mr. Horneman 210, [370] in his Journal, page 19, part of which I have here transcribed, to show the similitude between those two languages, whereby it will appear that the language of Siwah and that of the Shelluhs of South Atlas, are one and the same language.
South of the Desert we find other languages spoken by the blacks ”

“ Among the tribes of the Siouan family the primary unit is the clan or gens, which is composed of a number of consanguinei, claiming descent from a common ancestor and having common taboos; the term clan implying descent in the female line, while gens implies descent in the male line. Among the Dakota, as among the ¢egiha and other groups, the man is the head of the family.
Several of the Siouan tribes are divided into two, and one (the Osage) is divided into three subtribes. Other tribes are composed of phratries, and each subtribe or phratry comprises a number of gentes. ”

“ And in the [72] days when civilization first grew up there, there is no sign or trace of the languages we call inflectional. The speakers of Aryan dialects, whom we find in classical times in Media or Persia or North-Western India, belong to a later epoch; the old belief in the Asiatic cradle of the Aryan tongues has long since been given up by the anthropologist and comparative philologist, [67] and it is recognized that if we are to look for it anywhere it must be in Eastern Europe. The Semitic languages are equally absent ”

“ The development of affectation and self-control among the Siouan tribesmen was undoubtedly shaped by warlike disposition, and their stoicism was displayed largely in war—as when the captured warrior went exultingly to the torture, taunting and tempting his captors to multiply their atrocities even until his tongue was torn from its roots, in order that his fortitude might be proved ”

“ Of the twenty-one Thăi words accounted as not current now in Siamese speech, I have marked but six as known to me to exist in Lao. No doubt there are others as well, of whose use I am ignorant. To answer the question quantitatively, one would have to know also how many words out of this whole vocabulary are not—or rather were not—current in Lao. And even so, mere vocabulary does not by any means cover the whole ground of dialectal divergence, which consists quite as much in special applications of the same words, and in tone, accent, and phrasing—matters as yet wholly beyond our reach. ”