Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/207

 SECT. VI.] INDIAN LANGUAGES. 171 sometimes inserted, varying in the several dialects, and even in the same, according to the termination of the noun. The par- ticles shoh, nie, ogu are used in the Onondago ; dah, suh, shoeh in the Seneca. Seneca; * hahjenah, ' a man' ; hahdahjenah, 'men'; hudagoohoneh, 1 a chief ; Imdagoohonehsuh, ' chiefs.' The Choctaw, the Muskhogee, and the Caddo nouns have, with few special exceptions, no inflection designating the plural. That deficiency is respectively supplied by the words okla, u lgy> or homulgy, and wia 9 all of which mean, ' several/ ' many,' ' a multitude. ' When adjectives are connected (not incorporated) with nouns substantive, the sign of the plural may, in most languages, be transferred to the adjective ; and, in the Sioux, the plural sign pee, added to the last word of the sentence, be it noun, verb, or even adverb, makes the whole sentence plural. The plural of pronouns, personal and possessive, is almost universally designated by particular terminations or inflections, distinct from those assigned to the plural of nouns, and which will be adverted to, when treating of conjugations. In all the languages which have been investigated, with the exception of those of the Sioux family, concerning which the information is not sufficient, there is, besides the singular and general or indefinite plural, a third number, which is sometimes a dual, more generally a definite or special plural, occasionally assuming both forms. It is represented as a pure dual by the grammarians of the Eskimau, and of the language of Chili ; and it appears to be such in the Athapasca. In the various dialects of the Algon- kin-Lenape, and in the Choctaw, it is a definite plural ; but, although including always, in every such dialect, a definite number of persons, it is not applied precisely in the same man- ner in all. In the Delaware, according to Mr. Heckewelder, it embraces our family, nation, select body, us who are here assembled, in this room ; and including therefore, at least when he, or they belong to the nation or select body, the person or persons spoken to. But in the Chippeway, as we are informed by Mr. Schoolcraft, it always excludes the person or persons thus spoken to ; and it is used in the same manner in the Micmac. after the appended vocabularies had been prepared for the press.
 * 1) Seneca Spelling-Book. London, 1818. This was not seen till