The words most apt to pervade different nations, and to pass from one people to another, are articles, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions; next to these, numerals; next to these, whatever terms are expressive of striking, useful, hurtful, or very clear and definite objects and ideas; for, if the conceptions we have of things be not very definite, clear, and distinct, the idea and the word are not likely to float down the stream of time together, they will be jostled and separated. Be very careful in spelling the Indian words; spell them in different ways, where our letters don't square exactly with their sounds. Take notice of their musical tones, and whether these tones get in, as essential parts, into their speech; and, above all, remember that a word is a thing, and that it may be examined as a record, or considered like a coin or medal, as well as if it had the stamp of a king or mint upon it.
I will write more if this vessel does not sail to-day. God bless you and yours, and believe me, in haste, your affectionate cousin.
J. McDONNELL.
XXIII.
Difficulties of Studying the Indian Tongues of the United States. By Dr. Alexander Wolcott, Jr.
Dr. Wolcott will be remembered by the early inhabitants of Chicago, when that place was still a military post and the site of an Indian agency, the latter of which trusts he filled. In 1820, the Pottowattomie tribe of Indians and their confederates—the Illinois—Chippewas, and Ottowas—possessed the whole surrounding regions, roving as lords of the prairies. These numerous and fierce hunter-tribes, who traded their peltries for fineries, had many horses, loved rum and fine clothes, and despised all restraints, came in to him, at his agency, as the mouthpiece of the President, to transact their affairs, and they often lingered for days and weeks around the place, which gave him a good opportunity of becoming familiar with their manners, customs, and history.
Dr. Wolcott was a man of education, of high morals, dignified manners, and noble sentiments, with decidedly saturnine feelings, and a keen perception of the ridiculous. Constitutionally averse to much or labored personal effort, his leisure hours, in this seclusion from society, were hours devoted to reading and social converse, and his attention was appropriately called by Gen. Cass to the "Inquiries," No. 21, above referred to. The reply which he at length communicated was written in so happy a vein, that I obtained permission to publish the substance of it, in 1824, in my Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley, p. 381. It declares an important truth, which all must concur in, who have attempted the study of the Indian languages, for they are required to perform the prior labor of ascertaining and generalizing the principles of their accidence and concord. When I first came to St. Mary's, in 1822, and began the study of the Chippewa, I asked in vain the simple question how the plural was formed. It was formed, in truth, in twelve different ways, agreeably to the vowels of terminal syllables; but this could not be declared until quires of paper had been written over, the whole vocabulary explored, and days and nights devoted to it. My first interpreter could not tell a verb from a noun, and was incapable of translating the simplest sentence literally. Besides his ignorance, he was so great a liar that I never knew when to believe him. He sometimes told the Indians the reverse of what I said, and often told me the reverse of what they said.
XXIV.
Examination of the Elementary Structure of the Algonquin Language as it appears in the Chippewa Tongue. By Henry R. Schoolcraft.