Quote#Speech
Possible ideas and thoughts are vast in number. A distinct word for…
Quote byJohn Wesley Powell · 1834–1902
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (1880), p. 55.
English (original)
Possible ideas and thoughts are vast in number. A distinct word for every distinct idea and thought would require a vast vocabulary. The problem in language is to express many ideas and thoughts with comparatively few words.
— John Wesley Powell
More from John Wesley Powell
In Seneca the north is "the sun never goes there," and this sentence may be used as adjective or noun; in such cases noun, adjective, verb, and adverb are found as one vocable or word, and the four parts of speech are undifferentiated.
Indian nouns are extremely connotive; that is, the name does more than simply denote the thing to which it belongs; in denoting the object, it also assigns to it some quality or characteristic.
The verb is relatively of much greater importance in an Indian tongue than in a civilized language.
Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate is not changed with dance, libation or prayer.
The integers of language are sentences, and their organs are the parts of speech. Linguistic organization, then, consists in the differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the sentence.
In Ute the name for bear is "he seizes," or "the hugger." In this case the verb is used for the noun, and in so doing the Indian names the bear by predicating one of his characteristics. Thus noun and verb are undifferentiated.