Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/344

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

332 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920

according to a detailed investigation carried out by the present writer, shows no particular points of differentiation from the Quileute variety, and the word Hoh may be safely assumed to be a purely geographical term. On the other hand, the differences between Chimakum and Quileute are purely lexicographic in char- acter, as is shown clearly by a comparison between the Chimakum data collected by Boas and Gibbs and my own Quileute material. Slight phonetic divergencies have been found to exist between these two dialects, the most important being the entire absence, in Quileute, of the nasals m and n, resulting in a regular substitution of b and d for the Chimakum nasals. Boas has long ago called attention to the close structural, and to some morphological, correspondence existing between the Wakashan (Kawkiutl-Nootka) , Salishan, and Chimakuan languages. It will be remembered that his discoveries were based upon very meager data. Since then, extensive data have been collected and digested by Boas and Sapir in the field of Wakashan linguistics; by Boas, Teit, Haeberlin, and others in the field of Salish philology ; and by the present writer in the field of Quileute and Makah linguistics. While much of this material is not yet available for comparatory purposes, enough has been published to demonstrate the soundness of Boas ' original theory. The present writer has gathered sufficient data upon which to base the assumption, that these three groups of languages are genetically related and that they ultimately go back to a single common source. Tentatively, he proposes to call these linguistic stocks, the Mosan group of languages, from the fact that the numeral four, mos or bos, occurs in some form or other in one or more dialects composing each of the stocks treated hitherto as separate units.

The Chimakum Indians who, as has been said before, are totally extinct today, occupied a small portion of the northeastern part of Jefferson county in the state of Washington. Their Quileute cognates lived until 1854 on a small prairie in the central part of Clallam county in the same state. Since then, they have been moved farther west and occupy today a small strip of land around the mouth of the Quileute river, known as the Quileute Indian reservation. It is situated about 46 miles south of Cape Flattery

�� �