With difficulties of this nature to encounter, a person accustomed to the definite phonology of European tongues is naturally at a loss. The Spanish scholar Uricoechea expresses this in relating his efforts to learn the Chibcha of New Granada, a tongue also characterized by these fluctuating phonetics. He visited the region where it is still spoken with a grammar and phrase-book in his hand, and found to his disappointment that they could not understand one word he said. He then employed a native who spoke Spanish, and with him practiced some phrases until he believed he had them perfect. Another disappointment—not one of them was understood. He returned to his teacher and again repeated them; but what was his dismay when not even his teacher recognized a single word! After that Uricoechea gave up the attempt.[345]
Leaving now the domain of phonology and turning to that of lexicography, I will point out to you a very curious phenomenon in primitive speech. I have already alluded to it in quoting M. Petitot’s remark that in Tinné a sound often means both a notion and its opposite; that, for instance, the same word may express good and bad, and another both high and low. To use M. Petitot’s own words, “a certain number of consonants have the power of expressing a given order of ideas or things, and also the contradictory of this order.” In Tinné, a great many words for opposite ideas are the same or nearly the same, derived from the same significant elements. Thus, _son_ good, _sona_ bad; _tezo_, sweet, _tezon_ bitter; _ya_ immense, _ya_ very small; _inla_ one time, _inlasin_ every time; and so on.
This union of opposite significations reappears in the ultimate radicals of the Cree language. These, says Mr. Howse,[346] whose _Grammar_ I again quote, express _Being_ in its positive and negative modes: “These opposite modes are expressed by modifications of the same element, furnishing two classes of terms widely different from each other in signification.” In Cree the leading substantive radical is _eth_, which originally meant both Being and Not-Being. In the present language _eth_ remains as the current positive, _ith_ as the current privative. _It_ means within, _ut_ without; and like parallelisms run through many expressions, indicating that numerous series of opposite ideas are developments from the same original sounds.