The First Landing on Wrangel Island | Page 8

and the Calaveras skull, admitting its authenticity, goes back to the Pliocene epoch, and is older than the relics or stone implements from the drift gravel and the European caves.
It is doubtful, though, whether these data enable us to make generalizations equal in value to those afforded by the study of vocabularies. It is alleged that linguistic affinities exist between some of the tribes of the American coast and our Oriental neighbors across the Pacific. Mr. Brooks, whom I have already quoted, reports that in March, 1860, he took an Indian boy on board the Japanese steam corvette Kanrin-maru, where a comparison of Coast-Indian and pure Japanese was made at his request by Funkuzawa Ukitchy, then Admiral's secretary; the result of which he prepared for the press and published with a view to suggesting further linguistic investigations. He says that quite an infusion of Japanese words is found among some of the Coast tribes of Oregon and California, either pure or clipped, along with some very peculiar Japanese "idioms, constructions, honorific, separative, and agglutinative particles"; that shipwrecked Japanese are invariably enabled to communicate understandingly with the Coast Indians, although speaking quite a different language, and that many shipwrecked Japanese have informed him that they were enabled to communicate with and understand the natives of Atka and Adakh islands of the Aleutian group.
With a view to finding out whether any linguistic affinity existed between Japanese and the Eskimo dialects in the vicinity of Bering straits, I caused several Japanese boys, employed as servants on board the Corwin, to talk on numerous occasions to the natives both of the American and Asiatic coasts; but in every instance they were unable to understand the Eskimo, and assured me that they could not detect a single word that bore any resemblance to words in their own language.
The study of the linguistic peculiarities which distinguish the population around Bering straits offers an untrodden path in a new field; but it is doubtful whether the results, except to linguists like Cardinal Mezzofanti, or philologists of the Max M��ller type, would be at all commensurate with the efforts expended in this direction, since it is asserted that the human voice is incapable of articulating more than twenty distinct sounds, therefore whatever resemblances there may be in the particular words of different languages are of no ethnic value. Although these may be the views of many persons not only in regard to the Eskimo tongue but in regard to philology in general, the matter has a wonderful fascination for more speculative minds.
Much has been said about the affinity of language among the Eskimo--some asserting that it is such as to allow mutual intercourse everywhere--but instances warrant us in concluding that considerable deviations exist in their vocabularies, if not in the grammatical construction. For instance, take two words that one hears oftener than any others: On the Alaska coast they say "na-koo-ruk," a word meaning "good," "all right," etc.; on the Siberian coast "mah-zink-ah," while a vocabulary collected during Lieutenant Schwatka's expedition gives the word "mah-muk'-poo" for "good." The first two of these words are so characteristic of the tribes on the respective shores above the straits that a better designation than any yet given to them by writers on the subject would be Nakoorooks for the people on the American side and Mazinkahs for those on the Siberian coast. These names, by which they know each other, are in general use among the whalemen and were adopted by every one on board the Corwin.
Again, on the American coast "Am-a-luk-tuk" signifies plenty, while on the Siberian coast it is "Num-kuck-ee." "Tee-tee-tah" means needles in Siberia, in Alaska it is "mitkin." In the latter place when asking for tobacco they say "te-ba-muk," while the Asiatics say "salopa." That a number of dialects exists around Bering straits is apparent to the most superficial observer. The difference in the language becomes apparent after leaving Norton sound. The interpreter we took from Saint Michael's could only with difficulty understand the natives at Point Barrow, while at Saint Lawrence island and on the Asiatic side he could understand nothing at all. At East cape we saw natives who, though apparently alike, did not understand each other's language. I saw the same thing at Cape Prince of Wales, the western extremity of the New World, whither a number of Eskimo from the Wankarem river, Siberia, had come to trade. Doubtless there is a community of origin in the Eskimo tongue, and these verbal divergencies may be owing to the want of written records to give fixity to the language, since languages resemble living organisms by being in a state of continual change. Be that as it may, we know that this people has imported a number of words from coming in contact with another language,