In the same analogy, there are distinct forms for the English expressions," he is tying you and me," "they are tying you and me," "thou art tying them and me,” "he is tying them and me," "ye are tying them and me," "they are," &c.; "I am tying thee," "he is," &c., "he and I, they and I, they are," &c.; "I am tying you two," "he is," &c., " they are," &c.; "I am tying you (all, in the plural), he is, we are, they are," &c. Thou art tying him and me Ye two are tying him and me. but used by men, it means my sister; and the women exclusively use ungkiling for my sister. It is said that this language has no relative pronoun. Like the Indian languages in general, it is highly compounded, or, as Mr. Du Ponceau first very happily denominated this class, polysynthetic. There are, as we should naturally expect, therefore, but few monosyllables; some say, only fifteen in the whole, which are all interjections and adverbs, with the Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions, In- exception of one, the monosyllable na, terjections. These parts of speech require which is sometimes a pronoun and someno particular remarks. According to times an adverb. Of its polysynthetic some writers, all of them are to be found, character we are able to give one very reas distinct parts of speech, in the Indian markable example, in a single word, which, languages. But others, on the contrary, for perspicuity's sake, we have separated affirm that some of them are wanting in into its syllables; viz. Wi-ni-taw-ti-gé-giparticular dialects; as, for example, it is na-li-skaw-lung-ta-naw-ne-li'-ti-se- sti; said that the Cherokee has no prepositions; though they are to be found in the Delaware. We conclude this article, which the novelty of the subject has led us to extend beyond our original plan, with a few miscellaneous remarks on the Cherokee language. The name of this nation, we would observe, is Tsalaki (pronounced nearly like Tsullakee), the last syllable of which is often written gi; the sound of this final syllable being neither exactly our k nor g, but an intermediate sound between those two. The English name Cherokee, it is supposed, was originally taken from one of the dialects in which the sound of r occurs, Tsaraki or Tsurrakee. This name is believed not to be significant; but, if originally so, the signification of it is now lost. Some names of places among them have been much more changed than this national name, by our English orthography; as Chattahoochie from Tsatahutsi (which may have been a Creek name), Coosewaytee from Kusuwetyi; Tellico from Taliqua; Hightower from Itawa, pronounced Eetawah, &c. Among the words of relationship, brother, sister, &c., we find some terms that have a different signification,according as they are used by a man or woman. Example: the word ungkitaw, used by wornen, signifies my brother; which may be thus rendered-" Theywill-by-that-time-have-nearly-done-granting- [favors] from-a-distance-to-thee-andto-me." It is said that the expression “I ought to tie thee or him" cannot be translated into Cherokee; and that the nearest approach they can make to it is, by a circumlocution, which means, "it would be right for me to tie, or it would be wrong for me not to tie," &c. It is also a feature of this language, that all its words end with a vowel sound; and this has enabled the 'philosopher' Guest to reduce its elementary syllables to so small a number as eighty-five, and to adopt a syllabic alphabet. Their neighbors, the Choctaws (more properly Chah'tahs), having a language which is wholly different in this particular, have not been able to adopt a similar alphabet.--But we are admonished that our limits forbid any further details; and we only add, that this very general survey of these curiously constructed languages "will convince every reader," as is justly remarked by our American philologist, Mr. Du Ponceau, "that a considerable degree of art and method has presided over their formation. Whether this astonishing fact (he adds) is to be considered as a proof-as many are inclined to believe-that this continent was formerly inhabited by a civilized race of men, or whether it is not more natural to suppose, that the Almighty Creator has endowed mankind with a natural logic, which leads them, as it were, by instinct, to such methods in the formation of their idioms as are best calculated to facilitate their use, I shall not at present inquire. I do not, however, hesitate to say, that the bias of my mind is in favor of the latter supposition, because no language has yet been discovered, either among savage or polished nations, which was not governed by rules and principles which nature alone could dictate, and human science never could have imagined.”—For further information on this novel and curious subject, we refer our readers to the following as the most important works: Historical and Literary Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (vol. i, 8vo., Philadelphía, 1819;) in which the reader will find the correspondence of Mr.Du Ponceau and Mr. Heckewelder, and also a copious list of manuscript grammars, dictionaries and other works on the Indian languages); Eliot's Grammar of the Massachusetts Indian Language, first printed in 1666, Cambridge, New England, and reprinted in 1822, by the Massachusetts Historical Society, in their Collections; Edwards's Observations on the Language of the Muhhekanneew [Mohegan] Indians, first published in 1788, and reprinted by the same society in their Collections for 1823; Zeisberger's Grammar of the Delaware or Lenape Language, translated by Mr. Du Ponceau, and published by the American Philosophical Society, in their Transactions, vol. iii—the most important of all the recent publications, to the student; and the Cherokee Phonix, a newspaper now edited and printed by natives of that nation, in their own and the English languages. We subjoin, from that paper, the curious syllabic alphabet, invented by Guest, the native Cherokee to whom we have before alluded. For the use of the types, which have been obligingly furnished by the founders, Messrs. Greele & Willis, of Boston, we acknowledge our obligations to the American Missionary Society, under whose directions they were made. The letters of the English syllables, affixed to each Cherokee character, are to be pronounced according to the following rules:-The vowels have the following sounds: a, as a in father, or short, as a in rival; e as a in hate, or short, as e in net; i, as i in pique, or short, as i in pit; o, as aw in law, or short, as o in not; u, as oo in fool, or short, as u in full. To these add u, as u in but made nasal, nearly as if followed by the French nasal n. The consonants are used as follows: d represents nearly the same sound as in English, but approximating to that of t; g nearly the same as its hard sound in English, but approximating to k; h, k, l, m, n, g, s, t, w, as in English. The letter q, as in English, is invariably followed by u, with the same power, equivalent to kw. The sounds of the other English consonants never occur. |