Whether they can be resolved back into a few elementary sounds, primitive elements of speech, I shall not discuss. This has been done for the Cree roots by Mr. Joseph Howse,[165] and most of the radicals of that tongue are identical with those of the Lenape. Some of his conclusions appear to me hazardous and hypothetical; and certainly many of his supposed analogies drawn from European tongues are extravagant.
As in other idioms, so in Lenape, two or more radicals may be compounded to form a combination, which, in turn, performs the offices of a radical in the construction of themes.
This combination is formed either by prefixes or suffixes. The prefixes are generally adjectival in signification, while the suffixes are usually classificatory. A number of these are secondary roots, which are themselves capable of further analysis.
As so much of the strength of the languages depends on this plan of word building, I have drawn off a list of a few of the more frequent affixes of the Lenape, with their signification:—
Lenape Prefixes.
awoss-, beyond, the other side of.
eluwi-, most, a superlative form.
gisch-, [see page 102].
kit-, great, large.
lappi-, again, indicates repetition.
lenno-, male, man.
lippoe-, wise, shrewd; as lippoeweno, a shrewd man.
mach-, evil, bad, hurt.
matt-, negative and depreciatory;
as mattaptonen, to speak uncivilly.
ni-, [see page 101].
ochque-, she, female.
pach-, division, separation; pachican, a knife;
pachat, to split.
pal-, negative, as dis- or in-,
from palli otherwheres.
tach-, pairs or doubles.
tschitsch-, indicates repetition.
wit-, with or in common.
wul-, or wel-, [see page 104].
Many of these are abbreviated to the extent that a single significant letter is all that remains, as min in msim, hickory nut; pakihm, cranberry; and so acki to k, hanne to an, as kitanink (Kittanning), from gitschi, great; hanne, flowing river; ink, locative, "at the place of the great river."
-ak, wood, from tachan; kuwenchak, pine wood.
-aki, place, land.
-ammen, acceptance, adoption; wulistamen,
I accept it as good, I believe it. [See page 104].
-ape, male, man. From a root ap, to cover (carnally).
In Chipeway applied only to lower animals.
-atton, or hatton, to have, to put somewhere.
The radical is ãt. Also a prefix, as,
hattape, the bow; lit., what the man has.
-bi, tree; machtschibi, papaw tree.
-chum, a quadruped.
-elendam, a verbal termination, signifying a disposition of mind.
The root is en, ne, ni,
I; "it is to me so."
-goot, a snake; from achgook, a serpent.
-hanna, properly hannek, a river; from the root,
which appears in Cree as anask, to stretch out along
the ground; mechhannek, a large stream.
Heckewelder derives this from amkamme, a river. The terminal k is, however, part of the root, and not the locative termination. The word is allied to Del. quenek, long.