Among those philosophers the celebrated Dr. Adam Smith stands pre-eminent. In an elegant treatise on the origin and formation of language, he has endeavoured to shew that synthetical forms of speech were the first rude attempts which men made to communicate their ideas, and that they employed comprehensive and generic terms, because their minds had not yet acquired the powers of analysis and were not capable of discriminating between different objects. Hence, he says every river among primitive men was the river, every mountain the mountain, and it was very long before they learned to distinguish them by particular names. On the same principle, he continues, men said in one word pluit (it rains,) before they could so separate their confused ideas as to say the rain or the water is falling. Such is the sense and spirit of his positions, which I quote from memory.
This theory is certainly very ingenious; it is only unfortunate that it does not accord with facts, as far as our observations can trace them. You have shown that the comprehensive compounds of the Delaware idiom are formed out of other words expressive of single ideas; these simple words, therefore, must have been invented before they were compounded into others, and thus analysis presided over the first formation of the language. So far, at least, Dr. Smith’s theory falls to the ground; nor does he appear to be better supported in his supposition of the pre-existence of generic terms. For Dr. Wistar has told me, and quotes your authority for it, that such are seldom in use among the Indians, and that when a stranger pointing to an object asks how it is called, he will not be told a tree, a river, a mountain, but an ash, an oak, a beech; the Delaware, the Mississippi, the Allegheny. If this fact is correctly stated, it is clear that among those original people every tree is not the tree, and every mountain the mountain, but that, on the contrary, everything is in preference distinguished by its specific name.
It is no argument, therefore, against the synthetical forms of language, that they are in use among savage nations. However barbarous may be the people by whom they are employed, I acknowledge that I can see nothing barbarous in them, but think, on the contrary, that they add much to the beauty of speech. This is neither the time nor the place to enter into an elaborate discussion of this subject, but I beg leave to be allowed to illustrate and support my opinion by a lively example taken from the Latin tongue.
Suetonius relates that the Roman Emperor Claudius (one of the most barbarous tyrants that ever existed,) once gave to his courtiers the spectacle of a naval combat on the Fucine lake, to be seriously performed by gladiators. When the poor fellows saw the Emperor approaching, they hailed him with “Ave, Imperator, MORITURI te salutant!” In English this means, “Hail, Cæsar! THOSE WHO ARE GOING TO DIE salute thee!” The tyrant was so moved, or rather struck with this unexpected address, that before he had time to reflect he returned the salutation Avete vos! “Fare ye well!” This gracious reply, from the mouth of an Emperor, amounted to a pardon, and the gladiators, in consequence, refused to fight. But the monster soon returned to his natural ferocity, and after hesitating for a while whether he would destroy them all by fire and sword, he rose from his seat, and ran staggering along the banks of the lake, in the most disgusting agitation, and at last, partly by exhortations and partly by threats, compelled them to fight.[295] Thus far Suetonius.
Now, my dear sir, I put the question to you; if the gladiators, instead of morituri, had said in English those who are about or going to die; would the Emperor even have hesitated for a moment, and would he not at once have ordered those men to fight on? In the word morituri, he was struck at the first moment with the terrible idea of death placed in full front by means of the syllable MOR; while the future termination ITURI with the accessory ideas that it involves was calculated to produce a feeling of tender compassion on his already powerfully agitated mind, and in fact did produce it, though it lasted only a short time. But if, instead of this rapid succession of strong images, he had been assailed at first with five insignificant words Those—who—are—going—to, foreseeing what was about to follow, he would have had time to make up his mind before the sentence had been quite pronounced, and I doubt much whether the gladiators would have been allowed time to finish it. In German, Diejenigen welche am sterben sind, would have produced much the same effect, from the length of the words diejenigen and welche, which have no definite meaning, and could in no manner have affected the feelings of the tyrant Claudius. Ceux qui vont mourir, in French, is somewhat shorter, but in none of the modern languages do I find anything that operates on my mind like the terrible and pathetic morituri. May we not exclaim here with the great Gœthe: O, eine Nation ist zu beneiden, die so feine Schattirungen in einem Worte auszudruecken weiss! “O, how a nation is to be envied, that can express such delicate shades of thought in one single word!”[296]
I hope, indeed I do not doubt, that there is a similar word in the Delaware language; if so, please to give it to me with a full explanation of its construction and meaning.
I thank you very much for the valuable information you have given on the subject of the word “father;” the distinction between wetochemuxit, and wetoochwink, appears to me beautiful, and Zeisberger seems to have perfectly understood it. When he makes use of the first of these words, he displays the “Father of Eternity” in all his glory; but when he says, “Behold what the Father has given us!” he employs the word wetoochwink, which conveys the idea of a natural father, the better to express the paternal tenderness of God for his children. These elegant shades of expression shew in a very forcible manner the beauty and copiousness of the Indian languages, and the extent and the force of that natural logic, of those powers of feeling and discrimination, and of that innate sense of order, regularity and method which is possessed even by savage nations, and has produced such an admirable variety of modes of conveying human thoughts by means of the different organs and senses with which the Almighty has provided us.
Will you be so good as to inform me whether the Delaware language admits of inversions similar or analogous to those of the Latin tongue; and in what order words are in general placed before or after each other? Do you say “bread give me,” or “give me bread”?
I am, &c.