C. Appendix C
The languages which are spoken by the Indians of America,
from the Pole to Cape Horn, are said to be all formed upon the
same model, and subject to the same grammatical rules; whence it
may fairly be concluded that all the Indian nations sprang from
the same stock. Each tribe of the American continent speaks a
different dialect; but the number of languages, properly so
called, is very small, a fact which tends to prove that the
nations of the New World had not a very remote origin. Moreover,
the languages of America have a great degree of regularity, from
which it seems probable that the tribes which employ them had not
undergone any great revolutions, or been incorporated voluntarily
or by constraint, with foreign nations. For it is generally the
union of several languages into one which produces grammatical
irregularities. It is not long since the American languages,
especially those of the North, first attracted the serious
attention of philologists, when the discovery was made that this
idiom of a barbarous people was the product of a complicated
system of ideas and very learned combinations. These languages
were found to be very rich, and great pains had been taken at
their formation to render them agreeable to the ear. The
grammatical system of the Americans differs from all others in
several points, but especially in the following: -Some nations of Europe, amongst others the Germans, have the
power of combining at pleasure different expressions, and thus
giving a complex sense to certain words. The Indians have given
a most surprising extension to this power, so as to arrive at the
means of connecting a great number of ideas with a single term.
This will be easily understood with the help of an example quoted
by Mr. Duponceau, in the "Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of
America": A Delaware woman playing with a cat or a young dog,
says this writer, is heard to pronounce the word kuligatschis,
which is thus composed: k is the sign of the second person, and
signifies "thou" or "thy"; uli is a part of the word
wulit, which
signifies "beautiful," "pretty"; gat is another fragment, of the
word wichgat, which means "paw"; and, lastly, schis is a
diminutive giving the idea of smallness. Thus in one word the
Indian woman has expressed "Thy pretty little paw." Take another
example of the felicity with which the savages of America have
composed their words. A young man of Delaware is called pilape.
This word is formed from pilsit, "chaste," "innocent"; and
lenape, "man"; viz., "man in his purity and innocence." This
facility of combining words is most remarkable in the strange
formation of their verbs. The most complex action is often
expressed by a single verb, which serves to convey all the shades
of an idea by the modification of its construction. Those who
may wish to examine more in detail this subject, which I have
only glanced at superficially, should read: -
1. The correspondence of Mr. Duponceau and the Rev. Mr.
Hecwelder relative to the Indian languages, which is to be found
in the first volume of the "Memoirs of the Philosophical Society
of America," published at Philadelphia, 1819, by Abraham Small;
vol. i. p. 356-464.
2. The "Grammar of the Delaware or the Lenape Language," by
Geiberger, and the preface of Mr. Duponceau. All these are in
the same collection, vol. iii.
3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end
of the sixth volume of the American Encyclopaedia.
