Note 2 — I

Page 5. The Indian phrases given in this volume are studied from sources as nearly contemporaneous as may be with the events herein narrated, both for the sake of verisimilitude and because of the multitudinous changes to which the aboriginal languages have since been subjected, for the purpose of classification in view of the diverse orthography of the earlier philologists, which varied, of course, according to nationality, French, German, or English.

It is interesting to note the differing estimate of the value which the learned place on this singular jetsam and flotsam of the seas of Time. The study of the aboriginal languages, apart from historical considerations, possesses great interest in the revelation of “new plans of ideas,” as Monsieur Maupertuis felicitously phrases methods of grammatical construction. “The Greek is admired for its compounds, yet what are they to those of the Indians!” exclaims the eminent philologist, Mr. Duponceau. “What would Tibullus or Sappho have given to have had at their command a word at once so tender and so expressive—wulamalessohalian, ‘thou who makest me happy’? How delighted would be Moore, the poet of the loves and graces, if his language, instead of five or six tedious words, had furnished him with an expression like this in which the lover, the object beloved, and the delicious sentiment are blended and fused together in one comprehensive and appellative term. And is it in the language of savages that these beautiful forms are found!”

And yet in the learned work on America by Mr. Edward John Payne of University College, Oxford, still in course of publication, it is stated that “the majority of these languages, if not absolutely the lowest in the glossological scale, are as near the bottom as the student of the origin of speech could well desire.” Of their polysynthetic features, which Mr. Duponceau so much admires, Mr. Payne speaks as of merely bunched words, regarding the holophrase as the primitive and simplest form of ignorant language, which in the development and weight of meaning is broken finally, producing in its disintegration parts of speech.

Lord Monboddo, in his “Origin and Progress of Language,” founding his opinion partly on the testimony of Father Sagard’s work, “Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons,” says of the Huron language, “It is the most imperfect of any that has ever been discovered;” whereas Mr. Duponceau finds it “rich in grammatical forms,” and permits himself the expression “pompous ignorance” in alluding to the conclusions of his learned confrère.

The fact that Dr. Adam Smith as well as Lord Monboddo perceived in the tendency to incorporate in one word the meaning of a whole sentence an evidence of barbarism induces Mr. Duponceau to support the contrary opinion with “a lively example from Suetonius, Ave Imperator, morituri (those-who-are-going-to-die) te salutant. Since it has been discovered that the barbarous dialects of savage nations are formed on the same principles with classical idioms, it has been found easier to ascribe the beautiful organization of these languages to stupidity and barbarism than to acknowledge our ignorance of the manner in which it has been produced.”

Humboldt says: “It is acknowledged that almost everywhere the Indian idioms display greater richness and more delicate gradations than might be supposed from the uncultivated state of the people by whom they are spoken.” Adair, who had forty years’ personal experience among them, writing in 1775, claims that their languages give evidence of culture and scope of expression impossible to have originated with uncivilized tribes such as they were found. A singular circumstance concerning the “syllabic alphabet,” presumed to have been invented by the Cherokee Sequoyah (John Guest) about 1820, would imply an origin at a far more ancient date. A stone engraved with this character was found by an agent of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1889 lying under the skull of a skeleton buried in an Indian mound, with every evidence of antiquity, on the north side of the Tennessee River, in the immediate vicinity of one of the old Cherokee towns. This is of more special interest as Adair and also Buttrick, in his “Antiquities,” record that the Indians always claim to have once had scriptures, or a book, which for their sins they had lost to the white race. May not these quaint characters bear some relation to this tradition?

The “particular plural” for “we,” which it seems occurs in all these languages, even found in the extinct Taensa dialect,—concerning the genuineness of the grammar of which so much interest was elicited some years ago on its publication, edited by Messieurs Adam and Parisot,—seems hardly worth the discussion bestowed upon it, as parallels exist in so many modern European languages,—noi altri, nous autres, nosotros,—and even the vernacular may offer a counterpart in “we-all” and “we-uns.”

Lord Monboddo’s idea, first presented to his attention by the blind poet, the Reverend Thomas Blacklock, “that the first language among men was music,” has an interesting suggestion of confirmation in the speech of the Cherokees as described by Timberlake. “Their language is vastly aspirated, and the accents so many and various you would often imagine them to be singing in their common discourse.” Bartram says of the sound of the Muscogulge (Muscogee) language, “The women in particular speak so fine and musical as to represent the singing of birds.” Gayarre states that the word “Choctaw” means “charming voice,” and was hence applied to the tribe.