It is said indeed that the Yebus, a people on the west coast of Africa, speak a polysynthetic language, and per contra, that the Otomis of Mexico have a monosyllabic one like the Chinese.
The transmission of thought by figures and symbols would, on the whole, therefore, foster those narrow and material tendencies which the genius of polysynthetic languages would seem calculated to produce.
The question before us, therefore, reduces itself to the relations between the three orders inter se, and also between the polysynthetic type and Order II.
But the issue touching the relation between the polysynthetic and other types of language is of more importance for us, inasmuch as it involves the question whether or not we have here to do with the most primitive type of language.
Moreover, philologists themselves are at present so ill-informed touching the facts of polysynthetic language, that there is less presumption here than elsewhere in any outsider offering his opinion upon the matters in dispute.
In the first place, it appears to me that those experts have an overwhelmingly strong case who argue in favour of the polysynthetic languages as presenting a highly primitive form of speech.
Passing on from classification to phylogeny, we had to consider the question of genetic relationship between the three main orders, inter se, and also between the Polysynthetic type and the Agglutinating.
In the polysyntheticlanguages of America the sentence is conceived as a whole, not composed of independent words, but, like the thought which it expresses, one and indivisible.
If we pass to an isolating language like Chinese, we find the exact converse of that which meets us in the polysynthetic tongues.
Their language is extremely polysynthetic as far as derivation by suffixes is concerned, and there are also a number of prefixes.
Naktche is a vocalic language, rich in verbal forms, and, to judge from a few specimens, polysynthetic to a considerable degree in its affixes.
The Creek verb is of the polysynthetic type, and inflects by means of prefixes, infixes and (chiefly by) suffixes.
In their morphological character, certain American and Asiatic languages have a common agglutinative structure, which in the former is developed into their characteristic polysynthetic attribute.
Alone of all the races of the old continent the Basques or Euskarians, of northern Spain and south-western France, have a speech of that highly complex and polysynthetic character which distinguishes the American languages.
But the conservative power of language is indisputable; and if the kinship now claimed for the polysynthetic languages of both hemispheres be correct, we are on the threshold of significant disclosures.
Alone of all the races of the old continent the Basques or Euskarians of northern Spain and southwestern France have a speech of that highly complex and polysynthetic character which distinguishes the American languages.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "polysynthetic" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
