ltiply complex
sums by placing one under another.
LANGUAGES.--_S_. How desirable it would be if so simple a system could
be applied to language.
_G_. Ah! it was not designed by the Creator. He evidently designed
diversity. I have recently received some of the native vocabularies from
Mackenzie--the Blackfeet and Fall Indians, &c. Parker had furnished in
his travels vocabularies of the Nez Perces, Chinooks, &c.
LEADING FAMILIES.--_S_. The term Algonquin, as commonly understood, is
not sufficiently comprehensive for the people indicated.
_G_. I intended to extend it by adding the term "Lenape." The Choctaw
and the Muscogee is radically the same. The Chickasaw and Choctaw has
been previously deemed one. Du Pratz wrote about the Mobilian language
without even suspecting that it was the Choctaw.
_G_. The National Institute at Paris has printed Mr. Duponceau's Prize
Essay on the Algonquin. Dr. James wrote unsuccessfully for the prize.
Duponceau first mentioned you to me. He has freely translated from your
lectures on the substantive, which gives you a European reputation.
PUBLISHERS ON PHILOLOGY.--_G_. There is no patronage for such works
here. Germany and France are the only countries where treatises on
philology can be published. It is Berlin or Paris, and of these Berlin
holds the first place. In Great Britain, as in this country, there is
not sufficient interest on the subject for booksellers to take hold of
mere works of fact of this sort. They are given to reading tales and
light literature, as here.
ORAL TALES OF THE INDIANS--_G_. Your "Indian Tales" and your
"Hieroglyphics" would sell here; but grammatical materials on the
languages will not do, unless they can be arranged as appendices.
_S_. I urged Governor Cass to write on this subject, and he declined.
_G_. Does he understand the languages?
_S_. Pronouns, in our Indian languages, are of a more permanent
character than philologists have admitted. They endure in some form, in
kindred dialects, the most diverse.
_G_. This is true, the sign is always left, and enables one, clearly
enough, to trace stocks. Dialects are easily made. There are many in
France, and they fill other parts of Europe. Every department in
France has one.
DISCRIMINATING VIEWS OF PHILOLOGY AND PHILOLOGISTS.--_G_. It is not
clear what Heckewelder meant by "whistling sound," in the prefix
pronouns. I told Mr. Duponceau that it had been better that the
gentleman's MSS. wer
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