File:Ridpath's Universal history - an account of the origin, primitive condition and ethnic development of the great races of mankind, and of the principal events in the evolution and progress of the (14583713518).jpg

Identifier: ridpathsuniversa08ridp (find matches)
Title: Ridpath's Universal history : an account of the origin, primitive condition and ethnic development of the great races of mankind, and of the principal events in the evolution and progress of the civilized life among men and nations, from recent and authentic sources with a preliminary inquiry on the time, place and manner of the beginning
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: World history
Publisher: Cincinnati : Jones
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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. It would appear thatwriting and languageare necessarily associ- the intellectual products of the Indians,their speech was best developed. Thereis a sense, no doubt, in High develop-wllich the language of eV- ment of Indian languages. ery race of men is adapted to themselves—exactly balanced with ated; but this dependsupon the nature of thewriting. There is nonecessary connection be-tween hieroglyphics andspeech. This would beto say that words looklike the objects whichthey signify—a prepos-terous thing! In the caseof picture writing therelation is to the thingsexpressed, and in no re-spect to language; thatis, to spoken language.Some of the more ad-vanced Indian nations, such as the Creeksof Georgia, had systems of writingwhich had passed by evolution from thepictorial into the linguistic stage; butthe true barbarians of ourcontinent hadnot proceededso far. Their writing wassimply a representative art, and hadnothing to do with speech proper. But language these races had. Of all
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Philosophy ofthe system of■writing. TREE PICTURE-WRITING AND MISSIONARY. their mental habitudes, their desires,,and their range of thought. This gen-eral principle applies to the Indiantribes of North America. Their speechwas as their intellectual mood and com-pass. It was perhaps capable of ex-pressing all that the race could think inits native state. After contact with theWhites, the Indian mind to a certain ex-tent reacted and moved into another 478 GREAT RACES OE MANKIND. sphere. To this degree new intellectualdemands were felt, and the native lan-guage was put to strain in its resources.A survey of the Indian languages ofthe Americas brings us face to face witha fact as vast and complicated as theraces themselves. There are, however,threads of unity which we may follow—Threads of unity general likenesses whichbind an mdian be developed—until languages to- J L gether. We gain a fairly adequate notion of the whole. There is a sensein which we may speak of the Indian KALEVIMAG

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