ou know him. His
name is Shah-wau-ne-noo-tin.

"I never forget your kindness to me. I thing I shall stay here till the
May. I want it to do what the Lord say."

Aside from his teaching among the Chippewas, which was unanswerably
effective, this letter is of the highest consequence to philology, as
its variations from the rules of English syntax and orthography, denote
some of the leading principles of aboriginal construction, as they have
been revealed to me by the study of the Indian language. In truth he
uses the Indian language to a considerable extent, according to the
principles of the Chippewa syntax.

Thus it is perceived from the letter, which is printed verbatim--

1. That the letter _t_ is not uttered when standing between a consonant
and vowel, as in "understand."

2. The want and misuse of the prepositions _of, from_, and _to_.

3. The use of the participial form of the verb for the indicative.

4. The use of pronouns immediately after nouns to which they refer.

5. The interchange of _d_ for _t_, and _g_ for _k_, as in _do_ for _to_,
and "_thing_" for _think_.

6. The suppression of the sound of _r_ altogether, as heard in _re_, and
_re_ligion, &c.

7. Confounding the perfect past with the present tense.

8. The misuse of the indefinite article, which is wanting, in the
Indian.

9. The habitual non-use of the imperative mood.

10. The transitive character of verbs requiring _objective_ inflections,
for the nominative, &c.

11. The absence of simple possessives.

12. The want of the auxiliary verbs _have, are, is_, &c.

John Sunday came to St. Mary's in the autumn of 1832. His prayers and
exhortatory teaching completely non-plussed the Chippewas. They heard
him refute all their arguments in their own language. He had, but a
short time before, been one like themselves--a Manito worshiper, an
idler, a drunkard. He produced a great sensation among them, and
overthrew the loose fabric of their theology and mythology with a strong
hand. I had never before heard the Chippewa language applied to
religion, and listened with great interest to catch his phrases. I was
anxious to hear how he would get along in the use of the dual pronoun
_we_, as applied to inclusive and exclusive persons. He spoke at once of
the affections as they exist between a father and his children, and
addressed the Deity at all times as Nosa, which is the term for my
father. He thus made God the inclusive head of every famil