LECTURES ON THE GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE OF THE INDIAN LANGUAGE.
The course of lectures, of which the following are part, were delivered before the St. Mary's committee of the Algic Society. Two of them only have been published. They are here continued from the article "Indian Languages," at page 202 of the "Narrative of the Discovery of the actual Source of the Mississippi, in Itasca Lake," published by the Harpers, in 1834. The family of languages selected as the topic of inquiry, is the Algonquin. All the examples employed are drawn from that particular type of it which is called Chippewa, in our transactions with them, but which they uniformly pronounce themselves, Od-jib-wa. These terms are employed as perfect synonyms. The phrase "Odjibwa-Algonquin," wherever it occurs, is intended to link, in the mind of the inquirer, the species and the genus (if we may borrow a term from natural history) of the language, but is not fraught with, or intended to convey, any additional idea. The three terms relate to one and the same people.