incorporate the corresponding English terms into their own language.[136] For million they gave the vocabulary-hunter the phrase _mil yan chuffa_, and for billion, _bil yan chuffa_. The word _chuffa_ signifies 1, hence these expressions are seen at a glance to be coined solely for the purpose of gratifying a little harmless Choctaw vanity. But this is innocence itself compared with the fraud perpetrated on Labillardiere by the Tonga Islanders, who supplied the astonished and delighted investigator with a numeral vocabulary up to quadrillions. Their real limit was afterward found to be 100,000, and above that point they had palmed off as numerals a tolerably complete list of the obscene words of their language, together with a few nonsense terms. These were all accepted and printed in good faith, and the humiliating truth was not discovered until years afterward.[137] One noteworthy and interesting fact relating to numeral nomenclature is the variation in form which words of this class undergo when applied to different classes of objects. To one accustomed as we are to absolute and unvarying forms for numerals, this seems at first a novel and almost unaccountable linguistic freak. But it is not uncommon among uncivilized races, and is extensively employed by so highly enlightened a people, even, as the Japanese. This variation in form is in no way analogous to that produced by inflectional changes, such as occur in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc. It is sufficient in many cases to produce almost an entire change in the form of the word; or to result in compounds which require close scrutiny for the detection of the original root. For example, in the Carrier, one of the Dene dialects of western Canada, the word _tha_ means 3 things; _thane_, 3 persons; _that_, 3 times; _thatoen_, in 3 places; _thauh_, in 3 ways; _thailtoh_, all of the 3 things; _thahoeltoh_, all of the 3 persons; and _thahultoh_, all of the 3 times.[138] In the Tsimshian language of British Columbia we find seven distinct sets of numerals "which are used for various classes of objects that are counted. The first set is used in counting where there is no definite object referred to; the second class is used for counting flat objects and animals; the third for counting round objects and divisions of time; the fourth for counting men; the fifth for counting long objects, the numerals being composed with _kan_, tree; the sixth for counting canoes; and the seventh for measures. The last seem to be composed with _anon_, hand."[139] The first ten numerals of each of these classes is given in the following table: