But let us leave these wild theories, and not lose sight of our object, which is to ascertain facts, and let others afterwards draw inferences from them at their pleasure. In Father Breton’s Grammar and Dictionary of the Caribbee language, I have been struck with a fact of a very singular nature. It seems (and indeed there appears no reason to entertain the least doubt on the subject) that in that idiom the language of the men and that of the women differ in a great degree from each other. This difference does not merely consist in the inflexions or terminations of words, but the words themselves, used by the different sexes, have no kind of resemblance. Thus the men call an enemy etoucou, and the women akani; a friend in the masculine dialect is ibaouanale, in the female nitignon. I might adduce a much greater number of examples to shew the difference between these two modes of speaking. It does not, however, pervade the whole language; sometimes the termination of the words only differs, while in many cases the same words are used exactly alike by both sexes. But those which differ entirely in the two idioms are very numerous, and are in general terms of common use, such as names of parts of the body, or of relationship as father, mother, brother, sister, and many others. It is said a tradition prevails in the Caribbee islands that their nation was once conquered by another people, who put all the males to death and preserved only the females, who retained their national language, and would not adopt that of the conquerors. I am not much disposed to believe this story; the more so as I find similar instances in other idioms of different words being employed by the men and women to express the same thing. Thus among the Othomis, (a Mexican tribe) the men call a brother-in-law naco, and the women namo; a sister-in-law is called by the men nabehpo, and by the women namuddu. (Molina’s Grammar of the Othomi language, p. 38.) In the Mexican proper, the men add an e to the vocative of every proper name, and say Pedroe for Pedro; while the women leave out the e and distinguish the vocative only by an affected pronunciation. (Rincon’s Mexican Grammar, p. 6.) It is said also that among the Javanese, there is a language for the nobles and another for the common people.[304] These are curious facts, and a discovery of their causes would lay open an interesting page of the great hidden book of the history of man.
As I have determined to abstain from every hypothesis, I shall leave it to others to discover and point out the causes of these extraordinary facts; but I shall be obliged to you for informing me whether in any of the Indian languages that you know, there is any such difference of dialect between the two sexes, and in what it particularly consists. I cannot believe this story of the conquest of the Caribbee islands and of its producing that variety of language. I find it related by one Davis, an English writer, in whom I place no reliance; for he has pretended to give a Vocabulary of the Caribbee language, which he has evidently taken from Father Breton, without even taking the trouble of substituting the English for the French orthography. Carver acted with more skill in this respect.
I thank you for the explanation which you have given of what Mr. Dencke calls the “particular plural,” of the Chippeway and Delaware languages, of which I had no idea, as Zeisberger does not make any mention of it. It appears to me that this numerical form of language (if I can so express myself,) is founded in nature, and ought to have its place in a system of Universal Grammar. It is more natural than the Greek dual, which is too limited in its comprehension, while the particular plural expresses more, and may be limited in its application to two, when the context or the subject of the conversation requires it. I find this plural in several of the modern European languages; it is the nosotros of the Spanish, the noi altri of the Italian, and the French nous autres. There is nothing like it in English or German, nor even in the Latin. I am disposed to believe that this form exists also in the Greenland language, and has been improperly called dual by those who have written on it. The Abbé Molina speaks also of a Dual in the Araucanian idiom, which he translates by we two. But he may have used a term generally known, to avoid the explanations which a new one would have required. However this may be, the particular plural is well worthy of notice.
I shall be obliged to you for a translation of the Lord’s prayer in the Delaware language, with proper explanations in English. I suspect that in Loskiel is not correct.
In reading some time ago one of the Gospels, (I think St. Mark’s,) in one of the Iroquois dialects, said to be translated by the celebrated chief Captain Brandt, I observed that the word town was translated into Indian by the word Kanada, and it struck me that the name of the province of Canada might probably have been derived from it. I have not been able to procure the book since, but I have now before me a translation of the English common prayer-book into the Mohawk, ascribed to the same chief, in which I find these words: “Ne Kanada-gongh konwayatsk Nazareth,” which are the translation of “in a City called Nazareth,” (Matth. ii. 23.) The termination gongh in this word appears evidently to be a grammatical form or inflexion, and Kanada is the word which answers for “city.” I should be glad to know your opinion of this etymology.
I find in Zeisberger’s grammar, in the conjugation of one of the forms of the verb n’peton “I bring,” n’petagep in one place, and in another n’petagunewoakup, both translated into German by “sie haben mir gebracht,” “they have brought to me.” Are these words synonyma, or is there some difference between them, and which?
I am, &c.
LETTER XXIV.
FROM MR. HECKEWELDER.
Bethlehem, 5th September, 1816.
Dear Sir.—I have received your favour of the 30th ult. I answer it first at the end, and begin with your etymology of the word Canada. In looking over some of Mr. Zeisberger’s papers, who was well acquainted with the language of the Onondagoes, the principal dialect of the Iroquois, to which nation the Mohawks belong, I find he translates the German word stadt (town) into the Onondago by “ganatage.” Now, as you well know that the Germans sometimes employ the G instead of the K, and the T instead of the D, it is very possible that the word Kanada may mean the same thing in some grammatical form of the Mohawk dialect. As you have seen it so employed in Captain Brandt’s translation, there cannot be the least doubt about it. This being taken for granted, it is not improbable that you have hit upon the true etymology of the name Canada. For nothing is more certain than what Dr. Wistar once told you on my authority, that the Indians make more use of particular than of generic words. I found myself under very great embarrassment in consequence of it when I first began to learn the Delaware language. I would point to a tree and ask the Indians how they called it; they would answer an oak, an ash, a maple, as the case might be, so that at last I found in my vocabulary more than a dozen words for the word tree. It was a good while before I found out, that when you asked of an Indian the name of a thing, he would always give you the specific and never the generic denomination. So that it is highly probable that the Frenchman who first asked of the Indians in Canada the name of their country, pointing to the spot and to the objects which surrounded him, received for answer Kanada, (town or village), and committing the same mistake that I did, believed it to be the name of the whole region, and reported it so to his countrymen, who consequently gave to their newly acquired dominions the name of Canada.