g., the Lenni
Len??pe of the Delawares, with its equivalent, the Anishin??pe of the
Saulteaux, and the Naheowuk of the Crees. It is also the meaning of
the word D?©n?©, the generic name of a race as widely sundered, if not
as widely spread, as the Algonquin itself.
The Chipewyan of Lake Athabasca speaks the same tongue as the Apach?©
of Arizona, the Navajo of Sonora, the Hoopa of Oregon, and the
Sarcee of Alberta. The word Apach?© has the same root-meaning as
the word D?©n?© though that fierce race was also called locally the
Shisi?„dins, namely, "The Forest People," doubtless from its original
habitat in this region.
Owing to the agglutinative character of the aboriginal languages,
numbering over four hundred, some philologists are inclined to
attribute them all to a common origin, the Basque tongue being
one of the two or three in Europe which have a like peculiarity.
In the languages of the American Indians one syllable is piled
upon another, each with a distinct root-significance, so that
a single word will often contain the meaning of an ordinary
English sentence. This polysynthetic character undoubtedly
does point to a common origin, just as the Indo-European tongues
trace back to Sanskrit. But whether this is indicative of the
ancient unity of the American races, whose languages differed
in so many other respects, and whose characteristics were so
divergent, is another question.
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