What parts of speech are first used? Interjections like _ah!_ and imitations of sounds like “crow” come very soon. Now, when children utter the word “crow” what is its nature? Is it a noun meaning the sound, or is it a verb in reference to the production of the sound, or is it too indefinite to be classed? When it does become definite, it is certainly more like a noun or a verb than anything else. The only other part of speech that might come into competition is the adjective; but if we look at what the adjective does in Grammar, we see that it already implies the noun. The noun and the verb are the parts of speech that are most readily obtained,—that lie nearest to hand in nature. But the nouns and verbs that we meet with generally go far beyond the individual. Such a word as house, though denoting a single object, could not have been formed without abstraction. This position is illustrated in any text-book on Logic under the Logical notion. The word “house,” while denoting a special object, implies that this object has certain characteristics. Yet the degree of abstraction is greater for other parts of speech. To take an illustration. We know that “John built houses,” and that “John did not enter these houses”. Now, we might state these two ideas without anything farther; but most languages bring in another idea, thus, “John built houses _but_ he never entered them”. The new idea marked by _but_ arises from contrasting the other two ideas, and could not exist till both of them existed. So we cannot speak of a good house till we know of a house, neither can we speak of “building well,” or “building for a friend” till we first know about “building”. Thus, the more concrete words are the nouns and verbs; adjectives and pronouns are less so, while adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions are very abstract, and are often so few in many languages as to be classed together as particles. The concrete words describe the easier thoughts, the primary modifications of thought, the abstract words describe secondary or more abstract modifications of thought. Hence, as we might anticipate, we find the Yao language well supplied with nouns, verbs, and even pronouns, but as we go beyond these to adjectives, the supply is less, and still less as we pass on to adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. The scarcity of prepositions and conjunctions often discourages the European who studies the language. It is a great shock to discover that the English words _to_ and _from_ are represented by one and the same native word! We shall now show how the Yao language deals (1) with the principal parts of speech, (2) with the subordinate. 1. The chief thing to note regarding the _principal parts of speech_ is their inflexion. The fewer the inflexions, the greater is the simplicity. (_a_) _Inflexion for Concord._—We have IN ENGLISH. IN LATIN. good hill bon_us_ mons good tree bon_a_ arbor good field bon_um_ arvum