With terms thus defined, languages are supposed to be cognate when fundamental similarities are discovered in their lexical elements.  When the members of a family of languages are to be classed in subdivisions and the history of such languages investigated, grammatic characteristics become of primary importance.  The words of a language change by the methods described, but the fundamental elements or roots are more enduring.  Grammatic methods also change, perhaps even more rapidly than words, and the changes may go on to such an extent that primitive methods are entirely lost, there being no radical grammatic elements to be preserved.  Grammatic structure is but a phase or accident of growth, and not a primordial element of language.  The roots of a language are its most permanent characteristics, and while the words which are formed from them may change so as to obscure their elements or in some cases even to lose them, it seems that they are never lost from all, but can be recovered in large part.  The grammatic structure or plan of a language is forever changing, and in this respect the language may become entirely transformed.

* * * * *

Literature relating to the classification

Of Indian languages.

While the literature relating to the languages of North America is very extensive, that which relates to their classification is much less extensive.  For the benefit of future students in this line it is thought best to present a concise account of such literature, or at least so much as has been consulted in the preparation of this paper.

1836.  Gallatin (Albert).

  A synopsis of the Indian tribes within the United States east of the
    Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian possessions in North
    America.  In Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian
    Society (Archaeologia Americana) Cambridge, 1836, vol. 2.

The larger part of the volume consists of Gallatin’s paper.  A short chapter is devoted to general observations, including certain historical data, and the remainder to the discussion of linguistic material and the affinities of the various tribes mentioned.  Vocabularies of many of the families are appended.  Twenty-eight linguistic divisions are recognized in the general table of the tribes.  Some of these divisions are purely geographic, such as the tribes of Salmon River, Queen Charlotte’s Island, etc.  Vocabularies from these localities were at hand, but of their linguistic relations the author was not sufficiently assured.  Most of the linguistic families recognized by Gallatin were defined with much precision.  Not all of his conclusions are to be accepted in the presence of the data now at hand, but usually they were sound, as is attested by the fact that they have constituted the basis for much classificatory work since his time.