a more primitive condition, when a far greater number were
spoken. When there are two or more languages of the same stock, it
appears that this differentiation into diverse tongues is due mainly to
the absorption of other material, and that thus the multiplication of
dialects and languages of the same group furnishes evidence that at some
prior time there existed other languages which are now lost except as
they are partially preserved in the divergent elements of the group. The
conclusion which has been reached, therefore, does not accord with the
hypothesis upon which the investigation began, namely, that common
elements would be discovered in all these languages, for the longer the
study has proceeded the more clear it has been made to appear that the
grand process of linguistic development among the tribes of North
America has been toward unification rather than toward multiplication,
that is, that the multiplied languages of the same stock owe their
origin very largely to absorbed languages that are lost. The data upon
which this conclusion has been reached can not here be set forth, but
the hope is entertained that the facts already collected may ultimately
be marshaled in such a manner that philologists will be able to weigh
the evidence and estimate it for what it may be worth.

The opinion that the differentiation of languages within a single stock
is mainly due to the absorption of materials from other stocks, often to
the extinguishment of the latter, has grown from year to year as the
investigation has proceeded. Wherever the material has been sufficient
to warrant a conclusion on this subject, no language has been found to
be simple in its origin, but every language has been found to be
composed of diverse elements. The processes of borrowing known in
historic times are those which have been at work in prehistoric times,
and it is not probable that any simple language derived from some single
pristine group of roots can be discovered.

There is an opinion current that the lower languages change with great
rapidity, and that, by reason of this, dialects and languages of the
same stock are speedily differentiated. This widely spread opinion does
not find warrant in the facts discovered in the course of this research.
The author has everywhere been impressed with the fact that savage
tongues are singularly persistent, and that a language which is
dependent for its existence upon oral tradition is not easily m