of American languages aside from the Algonquin and Iroquois groups, and
a very few isolated languages. They have been classified, in fact,
almost entirely by examination of scanty and not very accurate
vocabularies. In investigating the relations of the Dakotan to other
American languages we are therefore compelled to base our conclusions
chiefly on vocabulary. I once resided a year among the Chippewas, and in
various ways have had much better opportunities of comparing the Dakota
with the Chippewa than with any other American language. I have not been
able to find a word alike in the two; and but very few words even
slightly similar in sound and sense. In pronouns few languages in any
part of the world are so strikingly contrasted. If I were to attempt an
argument for original affinity between Dakota and Chippewa my argument
would be that so great dissimilarity could not be the result of
accident. Aside from the Cheyenne, an Algonkin language which has
incorporated some Dakotan words, and the Pawnee group, the similarities
east of the Rocky mountains are surprisingly few, though the Huron,
Iroquois and Mobilian languages do not seem quite so strongly contrasted
as the Algonkin. Among the Eskimo, the tribes of the Pacific Slope,
Mexico, Central and South America, we occasionally find identical and
not infrequently similar words. In some the resemblances seem remarkable
considering the size of the vocabulary. Closer examination shows however
that they are not of a kind to indicate a special relationship. They are
almost exclusively confined to a few pronominal bases of very wide
diffusion, and the following: 1. ata, tata. 2. papa, each meaning
father; 1. ana, nana; 2. ma, mama, each meaning mother. As an example I
take the base ata, tata. Dakota, ate (dialect ata); Minnetaree, ate,
tata, tatish; Mandan, tata; Omaha, adi, dadi; Ponka, tade-ha; Aricaree,
ate-ah; Pawnee, ate-ish.

Tuscarora ata; Cherokee e-dauda; Eskimo--Greenland ahtata, Aleutian ata,
California, San Miguel tata; Mexico Aztec teta; Otomi, ta, te; Yucatan,
Cakchequil tata; Central Am. Tarasca tata; Darien tauta; Eastern Peru,
Mossa tata; Western Paraguay, Villela tata.

Congo Western Africa, tat, tata.

Japan dialect tete; Chinese dialect tia.

Turko Tartar, Turkish ata; Tatar ata, atha; Kunan atta; Kasanish,
Orenburg, Kirgis ata; Samoyedic dialects, Eastern Russia and Western
Siberia ata, atai, atja, tatai; Finno Hungarian, Lap attje; Hungarian
atja.