The First Landing on Wrangel Island | Page 8

early traces of the race are to be found, and the fact would
seem to warrant further study and investigation in connection with the
indigenous people of our continent, thereby awakening new sources of
inquiry among ethnologists.
LINGUISTIC PECULIARITIES.
The sienite plummet from San Joaquin Valley, California, goes back to
the distant age of the Drift; 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 Müller 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