1. The double consonants are used in writing the words of the Delaware language, for the sole purpose of indicating that the vowel which immediately precedes them is short, as in the German words immer, nimmer, schimmer, and the English fellow, terrible, ill, butter, &c. The consonant is not to be articulated twice.
2. The apostrophe which sometimes follows the letters n and k, is intended to denote the contraction of a vowel, as n’pommauchsi, for ni pommauchsi, n’dappiwi, for ni dappiwi, &c. If Mr. Zeisberger has placed the apostrophe in any case before the consonant, he must have done it through mistake.
3. There is a difference in pronunciation between ke and que; the latter is pronounced like kue or kwe. In a verb, the termination ke indicates the first person of the plural, and que the second.
4. The word wenn, employed in the German translation of the tenses of the conjunctive mood of the Delaware verbs, means both when, and if, and is taken in either sense according to the content of the phrase in which the word is used. Examples: Ili gachtingetsch pommauchsiane, “If I live until the next year”—Payane Philadelphia, “When I come to Philadelphia.”
5. Sometimes the letters c or g, are used in writing the Delaware language instead of k, to shew that this consonant is not pronounced too hard; but in general c and g have been used as substitutes for k, because our printers had not a sufficient supply of types for that character.
6. Where words are written with ij, both the letters are to be articulated; the latter like the English y before a vowel. For this reason in writing Delaware words I often employ the y instead of j, which Mr. Zeisberger and the German Missionaries always make use of. Thus Elsija is to be pronounced like Elsiya.
7. Answered in part above, No. 5. The double vowels are merely intended to express length of sound, as in the German.
8. Ch, answers to the X of the Greeks, and ch of the Germans. Hh, like all other duplicated consonants, indicates only the short sound of the preceding vowels.
I am, &c.