The Project Gutenberg EBook of American Languages, and Why We Should Study
Them, by Daniel G. Brinton

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Title: American Languages, and Why We Should Study Them

Author: Daniel G. Brinton

Release Date: May 27, 2010 [EBook #32552]

Language: English

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AMERICAN LANGUAGES,
AND WHY WE SHOULD STUDY THEM.

AN ADDRESS

DELIVERED BEFORE THE PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
MARCH 9, 1885,

BY

DANIEL G. BRINTON, M.D.,
PROFESSOR OF ETHNOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES,
PHILADELPHIA.

REPRINTED FROM THE
PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

PRINTED BY
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
1885.

AMERICAN LANGUAGES, AND WHY WE SHOULD STUDY THEM.

MR. PRESIDENT, ETC.:

I appear before you to-night to enter a plea for one of the most
neglected branches of learning, for a study usually considered
hopelessly dry and unproductive,--that of American aboriginal languages.

It might be thought that such a topic, in America and among Americans,
would attract a reasonably large number of students. The interest which
attaches to our native soil and to the homes of our ancestors--an
interest which it is the praiseworthy purpose of this Society to
inculcate and cherish--this interest might be supposed to extend to the
languages of those nations who for uncounted generations possessed the
land which we have occupied relatively so short a time.

This supposition would seem the more reasonable in view of the fact that
in one sense these languages have not died out among us. True, they are
no longer media of intercourse, but they survive in thousan