Although the dialects of Maskoki do not now diverge from each other more than did the Semitic dialects two thousand years ago, the time when they all had a common language, or, in other words, the time preceding the separation into four divisions must lie further back than eight or ten thousand years. We cannot expect to reconstruct the parent Maskoki language spoken at that time but very imperfectly, since the oldest text known to exist in any of the dialects dates from A. D. 1688 only. An approach to its reconstruction could be attempted by carefully comparing the lexicon and grammatic forms of the dialects presently spoken, and an individual acquainted with them all, or at least with their four representatives, might also compose _a comparative grammar_ of these dialects as spoken at the present epoch of their development, which would reveal many points concerning the ancient or historic shape of the language once common to all these tribes.