LANGUAGES.
In all the North American territories bounded to the north and east by
the Atlantic ocean, and to the south and west by the river Mississippi,
and the possessions of the English Hudson’s Bay company, there appears
to be but four principal languages, branching out, it is true, into
various dialects, but all derived from one or the other of the four
mother tongues, some of which extend even beyond the Mississippi, and
perhaps, as far as the Rocky Mountains. These four languages are:
I. THE KARALIT.
This language is spoken by the inhabitants of Greenland and on the
Continent by the Eskimaux Indians of the coast of Labrador. Its forms
and principles are sufficiently known by means of the Grammar and
Dictionary of the venerable Egede,[121] and the works of Bartholinus,
Wœldike, Thornhallesen,[122] Cranz[123] and others. It is much
cultivated by the Missionaries of the Society of the United Brethren,
by whom we may expect to see its principles still further elucidated.
It is in Greenland that begin those comprehensive grammatical forms
which are said to characterise the languages of the vast American
continent, as far as they are known, and are the more remarkable when
contrasted with the simplicity of construction of the idioms spoken on
the opposite European shores, in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and other
countries. It appears evident from this single circumstance, that
America did not receive its original population from Europe.
II. THE IROQUOIS.
This language in various dialects is spoken by the Mengwe or Six
Nations, the Wyandots or Hurons, the Naudowessies, the Assinipoetuk,
called by the French Assiniboils, Assinipoils, or Sioux, and by
other tribes, particularly beyond the St. Lawrence. Father La Hontan
distinguishes this class of languages by the name of the _Huron_,
probably because that nation was better known to the French, whose
allies they were, than the Iroquois, who were in alliance with the
English.[124] All these languages, however they may be called in
a general sense, are dialects of the same mother tongue, and have
considerable affinity with each other. Mr. Carver is mistaken when he
describes the _Naudowessie_ as belonging to a class different from the
Iroquois.[125] It is sufficient to compare the vocabularies that we
have of these two idioms, to see the great similitude that subsists
between them. We do not, unfortunately, possess a single grammar of any
of these dialects; we have nothing, in fact, besides the fragment of
Zeisberger’s Dictionary, which I have already mentioned, but a large
vocabulary of the Huron,[126] composed by Father Sagard, a good and
pious French Missionary, but of very limited abilities, and who also
resided too short a time among that nation to be able to give a correct
account of their language. He represents it in his preface, as poor,
imperfect, anomalous, and inadequate to the clear expression of ideas,
in which he is contradicted by others whom we have reason to believe
better informed. Zeisberger considered the Iroquois (of which the Huron
is a dialect,) as a rich and comprehensive idiom. It is to be regretted
that a grammar which he had composed of it, and the best part of his
Dictionary, are irretrievably lost. Sir William Johnson speaks highly
of the powers of this language;[127] Colden,[128] though he did not
know it himself, speaks in the same manner from the information of
others. Indeed, Father Sagard’s Dictionary itself, when attentively
read by a person acquainted with the forms of Indian languages, affords
sufficient intrinsic evidence of the mistakes of the good father who
composed it.
III. THE LENAPE.
This is the most widely extended language of any of those that are
spoken on this side of the Mississippi. It prevails in the extensive
regions of Canada, from the coast of Labrador to the mouth of Albany
river which falls into the southernmost part of Hudson’s bay, and
from thence to the Lake of the Woods, which forms the north-western
boundary of the United States. It appears to be the language of all the
Indians of that extensive country, except those of the Iroquois stock,
which are by far the least numerous. Farther to the north-west, in the
territories of the Hudson’s Bay Company, other Indian nations have
been discovered, such as the Blackfoot Indians, Sussee Indians, Snake
Indians, and others, whose languages are said to be different from the
Iroquois and the Lenape, but we are not able to form a very correct
judgment respecting those idioms from the scanty vocabularies which
have been given us by Mackenzie, Umfreville and other travellers. We
must wait for further light before we decide.
Out of the limits of Canada few Iroquois are found, except the remnants
of those who were once settled in the vicinity of the great Lakes, in
the northern parts of the now State of New York. There are yet some
Wyandots in the vicinity of Detroit. All the rest of the Indians who
now inhabit this country to the Mississippi, are of the Lenape stock,
and speak dialects of that language. It is certain that at the time of
the arrival of the Europeans, they were in possession of all the coast
from the northernmost point of Nova Scotia to the Roanoke. Hence they
were called _Wapanachki_, or _Abenakis_, men of the East. La Hontan
gives us a list of the Indian nations of ancient Acadia, all speaking
dialects of the Abenaki, or as he calls it, of the Algonquin. They
were the Abenakis, Micmacs, Canibas, Mahingans (Mohicans), Openangos,
Soccokis, and Etchemins, from whom all Nova Scotia, (excepting the
peninsula,) and a part of the now district of Maine, were once called
by the French the _country of the Etchemins_. He does not speak of the
Souriquois, who are also known to have inhabited Acadia, and likewise
spoke a dialect of the Lenape.
In the interior of the country we find every where the Lenape and
their kindred tribes. The Miamis, or Twightwees, the Potowatomies,
the Messissaugees, the Kickapoos, all those Indian nations who once
inhabited, and parts of whom still inhabit the interior of our
country on this side of the Mississippi and the great Lakes, are
unquestionably, from their dialects, of Lenape origin. The Shawanos, it
is said, formerly dwelt upon the river Savannah, in Georgia, and a part
of them remaining in that country, associated with the Creeks, still
retain their language.[129] As far as we are able to judge from the
little knowledge that has been transmitted to us of the language of
the Indians who once inhabited Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina,
they all appear to have belonged to the same stock, the Nanticokes have
been shewn to have been intimately connected with the Lenape, and among
those who called them _grandfather_. Two pretty copious vocabularies
of their language, in the possession of the Historical Committee of
the American Philosophical Society, one of them communicated by Mr.
Jefferson and the other by myself, prove it beyond a doubt to have been
a dialect of the Lenape.[130] The Canai or Kanhawas, who have given
their name to a river in Virginia which empties itself into the Ohio,
are known to have been of the same stock. The Indian names of rivers,
mountains, and towns, through that vast extent of country, appear
generally derived from the Lenape language.
The Baron de La Hontan, is one of the first writers, I believe, who
have spoken of the universality of this idiom; but it is extraordinary
that he has not said a word of the Lenni Lenape, that great and
powerful nation. He calls this language the _Algonquin_ tongue,
although he describes that people as “an erratic sort of savages, who,
like the Arabs, had no settled abode,”[131] and admits, that at the
time when he wrote, their number did not exceed 200. What he says on
this subject, however, is so much to my purpose, that I hope I shall be
permitted to make a small extract from it.
“There are,” says the Baron, “but two mother tongues in the whole
extent of Canada, which I confine within the limits of the Mississippi;
they are the _Huron_ and the _Algonquin_. The first is understood
by the Iroquois, for the difference between these two is no greater
than that between the Norman and the French. The second, namely the
_Algonquin_, is as much esteemed among the savages as the Greek and
Latin are in Europe; though it would seem that the aborigines, to whom
it owes its original, disgrace it by the thinness of their nation, _for
their whole number does not amount to two hundred_.”[133]
What the Baron says here of this language is very correct; but why does
he call it the Algonquin, and ascribe its origin to that miserable
wandering tribe? He had the Abenakis at hand, whom in another place he
puts at the head of the tribes inhabiting Nova Scotia, and who still
preserved the generic name of the whole nation, _Wapanachki_, which
the French have softened to suit the analogy of their own tongue, by
which name the different nations and tribes of the Lenape stock still
recognise each other to this day. It is probable that he did not
sufficiently understand their language,[134] to have much conversation
with them, otherwise they would have informed him that they derived
their origin from a great and powerful nation residing in the interior
of the country, whom they revered as their _grandfather_, at whose door
the great national council fire was kept constantly burning, whose
badge was the _Turtle_, and whose supremacy was acknowledged by all the
kindred tribes.
Father Charlevoix, who also speaks of the universality of this
language, commits the same error in ascribing its origin to the
Algonquins. “In the southern part of Hudson’s Bay,” says he, “the
trade is carried on with the Matassins, the Monsonies, the Christinaux
(Knisteneaux), and the Assinipoils, the three first of which speak
the _Algonquin_ language.”[135] In a later publication, (I think by a
Mr. Winterbotham,) of which, during my travels, some years ago, I had
merely a glance, I found by some words he had put down in the language
of those people, that they were _Minsi_ or _Monseys_, a branch of the
wolf tribe of the Lenape. So indeed, one of their names, _Monsonies_,
seems of itself to indicate. The name of the Matassins, means in their
language a tobacco pipe, and so it does in the Monsey to this day.
And they all speak the Algonquin, a language, say both Charlevoix and
La Hontan, universally known for a thousand leagues round. The last
mentioned author subjoins a vocabulary of what he calls the Algonquin
tongue, which bears a greater affinity to the language of the Unamis
or Turtle[136] tribe of the Lenape than that does to the idiom of
the Monsey or Wolf tribe of the same nation. I find many words in
the Algonquin (as given by La Hontan), which are exactly the same as
in the Unami, while others bear more resemblance to the Chippeway,
also a dialect of the Lenape, spoken by a tribe in connexion with the
Delawares, and who call them _grandfather_.
There can be no doubt, therefore, that this universal language, so
much admired and so generally spoken by the Indian nations, is that
of the Lenni Lenape, and is improperly named the Chippeway by Carver,
and the Algonquin by La Hontan. The celebrated Professor Vater, in
his excellent continuation of Adelung’s Mithridates, calls the class
of languages derived from this source, “the Chippewayo-Delawarian,
or Algonkino-Mohican stock.”[137] It is, perhaps, indifferent for
philological purposes, whether a language be called the Delaware or
the Chippeway, the Algonquin or the Mohican; but every body must be
sensible of the inconvenience of those long compound names, which
leave no fixed or determinate idea upon the mind. For the purpose of
general description it seems better to designate the languages of
those connected tribes by the name of their common grandfather, the
Lenni Lenape, or by the generic denomination universally adopted among
them, Wapanachki, or Abenaki. I have preferred the former as a mark of
respect to an ancient and once powerful nation, and in the hope that
her name may be preserved, at least, in the records of philological
science.
This beautiful language, and those which are derived from it, though
more has been written upon them than on any of the other languages of
these parts of the North American continent, are as yet but little
known. The grammar of the Natick dialect published by Eliot, at
Cambridge in Massachusetts, in the year 1666, has long been out of
print, and is to be found only in very few libraries in the United
States; Dr. Edwards’s little tract on the Mohican language, although
printed twice, does not appear to have had much circulation, and is
not alone sufficient to give an idea of the forms and construction of
these Indian dialects. Zeisberger’s Delaware spelling book is but a
collection of words, and does not contain any grammatical explanations.
The learned Vater has taken immense pains, from the scanty helps within
his reach, to discover the grounds and principles of these idioms,
and what he has written on the subject is a proof of what talents
and industry can effect with little means. But still the matter is
not sufficiently understood. There is in the library of the society
of the United Brethren in this town, an excellent MS. grammar of the
Lenni Lenape, written in German by Zeisberger. I understand that the
Historical Committee of the American Philosophical Society are going to
publish an English translation of this valuable work. I rejoice in the
prospect of this publication, which will give a clear and satisfactory
view of the true genius and character of the languages of the Indian
nations. At the request of the same Committee, I have endeavoured to
give some further development of the principles which that grammar
contains, in a series of letters to their Secretary, which, I am
informed, are also to be printed. This supersedes the necessity of my
entering here into more details on this interesting subject. I hope
the result of these publications will be to satisfy the world that
the languages of the Indians are not so poor, so devoid of variety of
expression, so inadequate to the communication even of abstract ideas,
or in a word so _barbarous_, as has been generally imagined.
IV. THE FLORIDIAN.
I call by this generic name, the languages spoken by those Indian
nations who inhabit the southern frontier of the United States and
the Spanish Province of Florida. They are the Creeks or Muskohgees,
Chickesaws, Choctaws, Pascagoulas, Cherokees or Cheerakees, and several
others. It is said that there once existed among them a powerful
nation called the Natchez, whose language was the mother tongue
of all those southern dialects. We are told also of an Apalachian
nation, who it is said lived in the western parts of Louisiana, and
were a part of the great nation of the Apalachians, who resided in
the mountains which bear their name, and whose branches were settled
under different denominations, in the vast extent of country situated
between Louisiana, Canada and New England.[138] In this great
_Apalachian_ nation we cannot help recognising our friends the Lenape,
or _Wapanachki_, whose name the French in the south have as easily
corrupted into _Apalaches_, as those in the north into _Abenakis_.
It was they who gave their name to the Apalachian mountains, once
so called, but which of late have resumed their former appellation
of Alligewi, or Allegheny. Mr. Vater thinks that the remains of
those Apalachians are still to be found in the Catawbas,[139] who
are sometimes named Chaktawas[140] and probably are the same who by
contraction are now called Choktaws.
Other writers speak to us of the Mobilians,[141] as the nation from
which the neighbouring tribes derived their origin, and whose language
was their mother tongue. The fact is, that we know very little about
these southern Indians, and on the subject of their languages we have
nothing to guide our enquiries, but a few words given us by Adair,
and some that have been collected from various sources by the late
Dr. Barton. We are not, however, without the means of obtaining full
and accurate information on this interesting subject, and I hope the
historical committee will be successful in the measures which they
are about to take to procure it. Mr. Meigs, the United States agent
with the Cherokees, Mr. Mitchell, agent to the Creeks, and the Rev.
John Gambold, who has long lived as a Missionary of the Society of
the United Brethren with the former of these nations, are well able
to satisfy their enquiries, and I have no doubt will be happy to give
their aid to the advancement of the literature of their country.
It is a fact worthy of remark, and much to be regretted, that the
French and English, who have been so long in possession of the immense
country extending from Labrador to the Mississippi, have written so
little respecting the Indian languages of this part of the American
continent. Among the English, Eliot alone, and among the French, Father
Sagard, can be said to have published anything on this subject that is
worth notice. Zeisberger was a German, and Mr. Edwards an American.
On the contrary, the Spaniards[142] have published a great number of
grammars and dictionaries of the Indian languages spoken within the
limits of their American possessions, and deserve much credit for
these exertions. It is not yet too late for the independent Americans
to retrieve the neglect of their forefathers; but no time should be
lost, as the Indian nations are fast disappearing from the face of our
country, and our posterity may have to regret hereafter that greater
pains were not taken to preserve the memory of their traditions,
customs, manners, and LANGUAGES.