Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/440

 4:08 AMERICAN INDIANS (LANGUAGES) nated by the words "hands and feet," &c. For grammars of their tongue, see Thorhallesen (1776), and P. Egede (1760), who also made a dictionary, as well as O. Fabricius (1791-1804). On the northwest of the American continent, south of the Esquimaux, is the family of the Ko- loshes, found about Alaska. South of the Es- quimaux, on the east and south of Hudson bay, and running west in a narrow strip along the Saskatchewan to the Rocky mountains, and ex- tending from the Red and Mississippi east to the Atlantic as far down as lat. 36, was the extensive Algonquin family. It occupied the whole of this vast territory, to the exclusion of all other races except the Winnebagoes on Lake Michigan, who belonged to the Dakota family, and the Huron-Iroquois family, who, surrounded by Algonquins, extended from Lake Huron to North Carolina. The Algonquin family, taking its name from tribes on the Ot- tawa river, Canada, comprised, above the St. Lawrence and the lakes, the Nasquapees, Mon- tagnais, Algonquins, Ottawas, and Kilistinons or Crees ; on the Atlantic coast, the Mic- macs, Abenakis, Sokokis, Massachusetts, Nar- ragansetts, Mohegans, Delawares, and Virgin- ian tribes ; in the west, the Chippewas, Meno- monees, Pottawattamies, Miamis, Illinois, Sacs and Foxes, Blackfeet, &c. ; at the south, the Shawnees. Many of these dialects have been studied thoroughly, and many books and even papers have been printed in them. For their study we have Maillard's Micmac grammar (New York, 1864), Rale's Abenaki dictionary (Cambridge, 1833), Eliot's Massachusetts gram- mar (Cambridge, 1666; Boston, 1822), Ro- ger Williams's Narragansett (1643), Edwards's Mohegan grammar (1788), Le Boulanger's Illi- nois grammar and dictionary (MS.), Baraga's Chippewa grammar and dictionary (1851-'3), Belcourt's Chippewa grammar (1839), House's Cree grammar (1844), Cuoq's Algonquin gram- mar (18G6), Zeisberger's Lenni Lenape or Del- aware grammar (1827). As the Algonquin was the language of the tribes on the seacoast where the English colonies were planted, it gave several words to the settlers, as wigwam, squaw, wampum, tomahawk, sachem, &c. In the Algonquin dialects there is no article, and no gender, words being used when neces- sary to designate the male and female of ani- mals and birds. The only division is into what has been called noble and ignoble, or by some animate and inanimate. The Delaware made trees noble, grass ignoble. Possession is desig- nated by a form like the English Peter his book Pien o masinaigan. It has two numbers, though some from the double pronoun we make a dual also. Nouns receive by suffixes modifi- tions that some term cases ; but nouns like verbs undergo a kind of conjugation by the prefixing of possessive pronouns. Thus in Delaware: ooch, father ; nooch, my father ; Icooch, thy fa- ther ; noochenana, our fathers ; koochuwa, your father ; Icoochewywa, your fathers. v Algonquin : ni micomis, my grandfather ; lei micomis, thy grandfather ; omicomisan, his grandfather ; ni (or ki) micomisinan, our grandfather ; Tci mi- comisiwa, your grandfather; omicomwiwan, their grandfather. Verbs take a multiplicity of forms, not only positive, negative, reflective, and reciprocal, but animate and inanimate. Thus in Algonquin : ni sakiha, I love him (an- imate); ni sakiton, I love it (inanimate); ki sakiha, thou lovest him; osakihan, he loves him ; but ki sakih, thou lovest me ; ki sakihi- min, thou lovest us ; ki sakihim, you love me ; ki sakihin, I love thee ; ki sakihinimin, we love thee. In all these there are two forms of we: he and I, ni; thou and I (with or without others), ki. In Delaware : ndahoala, I love; kdahoala, thou; wdahoala, he; nda- hoalaneen, we; kdahoalohhumo, you; wdaho- alewak, they; ndahoatell, I love thee; kda- hoali, thou lovest me. The passive in Algon- quin is ni sakihigo, I am loved; in Delaware, ndahoalgussi. I am loved by him (Alg.), ni sakihik. The Huron-Iroquois family com- prised, in Upper Canada, the Hurons or Wy- andots, Tionontates, Attiwandaronk ; the Iro- quois, Hodenosaunee, or Five Nations in New York; the Minquas, Andastes, or Susquehan- nas in Pennsylvania; the Nottoways, Meher- rin, &c., in Virginia ; the Tuscaroras in Caro- lina, and subsequently in New York. The dialects generally lack the labials. Of those that have been most studied is the Mohawk, into which the Book of Common Prayer and portions of the Bible have been translated, as well as Roman Catholic manuals of prayer, catechisms, &c. The radical words of this dialect, by Bruyas, were published at New York in 1863 ; a short grammar by Cuoq, Montreal, 1866. Of the Onondaga, there is a dictionary published in 1860 ; of the Seneca, a spelling book and some minor works. In Iro- quois dialects the verbs have two distinctly marked paradigms, each containing five regular conjugations. In the paradigm k there are 15 persons, I, thou, he, she, and an indefinite pro- noun like the French on; thou and I, he and I, you two, they two masculine, they two femi- nine, making five dual forms ; and for the plu- ral, you and we, they and we, you, they mascu- line, they feminine. In all the verbal relations pronouns in their separate form are replaced by affixes which modify the initials of the persons. M. Cuoq adds to the three numbers another, the indeterminate. Every noun is or may become a verb. There are no articles, no prepositions, and few adjectives, adverbs, or conjunctions. Nouns have no cases, and no gender proper, the only distinction being that of two classes, one comprising God, the angels, and males of the human race, the rest all other crea- tures animate or inanimate. The verb as- sumes reflective, reciprocal, and passive forms by inserting syllables. Thus : kenonwes, I love; katatenonwes, I love myself; tetiata- tenonwes, we love one another. The pronoun object enters into the verb, as rinonwes, I love him. Verbs of the paradigm w have four