Part 2 — LETTER XX. TO MR. HECKEWELDER.

Philadelphia, 21st August, 1816.

Dear Sir.—I have read with the greatest pleasure your two interesting letters of the 12th and 15th. I need not tell you how pleased the Historical Committee are with your correspondence, which is laid before them from time to time. I am instructed to do all in my power to induce you to persevere in giving to your country the so much wanted information concerning the Indians and their languages. The Committee are convinced that the first duty of an American Scientific Association is to occupy themselves with the objects that relate to our own country. It is on these subjects that the world has a right to expect instruction from us.

I am busily employed in studying and translating the excellent Delaware Grammar of Mr. Zeisberger; I hope the Historical Committee will publish it in due time. The more I become acquainted with this extraordinary language, the more I am delighted with its copiousness and with the beauty of its forms. Those which the Hispano-Mexican Grammarians call transitions are really admirable. If this language was cultivated and polished as those of Europe have been, and if the Delawares had a Homer or Virgil among them, it is impossible to say with such an instrument how far the art could be carried. The Greek is admired for its compounds; but what are they to those of the Indians? How many ideas they can combine and express together in one single locution, and that too by a regular series of grammatical forms, by innumerably varied inflexions of the same radical word, with the help of pronominal affixes! All this, my dear sir, is combined with the most exquisite skill, in a perfectly regular order and method, and with fewer exceptions or anomalies than I have found in any other language. This is what really astonishes me, and it is with the greatest difficulty that I can guard myself against enthusiastic feelings. The verb, among the Indians, is truly the word by way of excellence. It combines itself with the pronoun, with the adjective, with the adverb; in short, with almost every part of speech. There are forms both positive and negative which include the two pronouns, the governing and the governed; ktahoatell,293 “I love thee;” ktahoalowi, “I do not love thee.” The adverb “not,” is comprised both actively and passively in the negative forms, n’dahoalawi, “I do not love;” n’dahoalgussiwi, “I am not loved;” and other adverbs are combined in a similar manner. From schingi, “unwillingly,” is formed schingattam, “to be unwilling,” schingoochwen, “to go somewhere unwillingly,” schingimikemossin, “to work unwillingly;” from wingi, “willingly,” we have wingsittam, “to hear willingly,” wingachpin, “to be willingly somewhere,” wingilauchsin, “to live willingly in a particular manner;” from the adverb gunich,294 “long,” comes gunelendam, “to think one takes long to do something;” gunagen, “to stay out long;” and so are formed all the rest of the numerous class of adverbial verbs. The adjective verbs are produced in the same way, by a combination of adjective nouns with the verbal form. Does guneu mean “long” in the adjective sense, you have guneep, it was long, guneuchtschi, it will be long, &c.; from kschiechek, “clean,” is formed kschiecheep, “it was clean;” from machkeu, “red,” machkeep, “it was red;” and so on through the whole class of words. Prepositions are combined in the same manner, but that is common also to other languages. What extent and variety displays itself in those Indian verbs, and what language, in this respect, can be compared to our savage idioms?

Nor are the participles less rich or less copious. Every verb has a long series of participles, which when necessary can be declined and used as adjectives. Let me be permitted to instance a few from the causative verb wulamalessohen, “to make happy.” I take them from Zeisberger.

Wulamalessohaluwed, he who makes happy. Wulamalessohalid, he who makes me happy. Wulamalessohalquon, he who makes thee happy, Wulamalessohalat, he who makes him happy. Wulamalessohalquenk, he who makes us happy. Wulamalessohalqueek, he who makes you happy. Wulamalessohalquichtit, he who makes them happy.

Now comes another participial-pronominal-vocative form; which may in the same manner be conjugated through all the objective persons. Wulamalessohalian! THOU WHO MAKEST ME HAPPY!

I will not proceed further; but permit me to ask you, my dear sir, what would Tibullus or Sappho have given to have had at their command a word at once so tender and so expressive? How delighted would be Moore, the poet of the loves and graces, if his language, instead of five or six tedious words slowly following in the rear of each other, had furnished him with an expression like this, in which the lover, the object beloved, and the delicious sentiment which their mutual passion inspires, are blended, are fused together in one comprehensive appellative term? And it is in the languages of savages that these beautiful forms are found! What a subject for reflection, and how little do we know, as yet, of the astonishing things that the world contains!

In the course of my reading, I have often seen the question discussed which of the two classes of languages, the analytical or the synthetical (as I call them), is the most perfect or is preferable to the other. Formerly there seemed to be but one sentiment on the subject, for who cannot perceive the superiority of the Latin and Greek, over the modern mixed dialects which at present prevail in Europe? But we live in the age of paradoxes, and there is no opinion, however extraordinary, that does not find supporters. To me it would appear that the perfection of language consists in being able to express much in a few words; to raise at once in the mind by a few magic sounds, whole masses of thoughts which strike by a kind of instantaneous intuition. Such in its effects must be the medium by which immortal spirits communicate with each other; such, I should think, were I disposed to indulge in fanciful theories, must have been the language first taught to mankind by the great author of all perfection.

All this would probably be admitted if the Latin and Greek were only in question: for their supremacy seems to stand on an ancient legitimate title not easy to be shaken, and there is still a strong prepossession in the minds of the learned in favour of the languages in which Homer and Virgil sang. But since it has been discovered that the barbarous dialects of savage nations are formed on the same principle with the classical idioms, and that the application of this principle is even carried in them to a still greater extent, it has been found easier to ascribe the beautiful organisation of these languages to stupidity and barbarism, than to acknowledge our ignorance of the manner in which it has been produced. Philosophers have therefore set themselves to work in order to prove that those admirable combinations of ideas in the form of words, which in the ancient languages of Europe used to be considered as some of the greatest efforts of the human mind, proceed in the savage idioms from the absence or weakness of mental powers in those who originally framed them.

Among those philosophers the celebrated Dr. Adam Smith stands pre-eminent. In an elegant treatise on the origin and formation of language, he has endeavoured to shew that synthetical forms of speech were the first rude attempts which men made to communicate their ideas, and that they employed comprehensive and generic terms, because their minds had not yet acquired the powers of analysis and were not capable of discriminating between different objects. Hence, he says every river among primitive men was the river, every mountain the mountain, and it was very long before they learned to distinguish them by particular names. On the same principle, he continues, men said in one word pluit (it rains,) before they could so separate their confused ideas as to say the rain or the water is falling. Such is the sense and spirit of his positions, which I quote from memory.

This theory is certainly very ingenious; it is only unfortunate that it does not accord with facts, as far as our observations can trace them. You have shown that the comprehensive compounds of the Delaware idiom are formed out of other words expressive of single ideas; these simple words, therefore, must have been invented before they were compounded into others, and thus analysis presided over the first formation of the language. So far, at least, Dr. Smith’s theory falls to the ground; nor does he appear to be better supported in his supposition of the pre-existence of generic terms. For Dr. Wistar has told me, and quotes your authority for it, that such are seldom in use among the Indians, and that when a stranger pointing to an object asks how it is called, he will not be told a tree, a river, a mountain, but an ash, an oak, a beech; the Delaware, the Mississippi, the Allegheny. If this fact is correctly stated, it is clear that among those original people every tree is not the tree, and every mountain the mountain, but that, on the contrary, everything is in preference distinguished by its specific name.

It is no argument, therefore, against the synthetical forms of language, that they are in use among savage nations. However barbarous may be the people by whom they are employed, I acknowledge that I can see nothing barbarous in them, but think, on the contrary, that they add much to the beauty of speech. This is neither the time nor the place to enter into an elaborate discussion of this subject, but I beg leave to be allowed to illustrate and support my opinion by a lively example taken from the Latin tongue.

Suetonius relates that the Roman Emperor Claudius (one of the most barbarous tyrants that ever existed,) once gave to his courtiers the spectacle of a naval combat on the Fucine lake, to be seriously performed by gladiators. When the poor fellows saw the Emperor approaching, they hailed him with “Ave, Imperator, MORITURI te salutant!” In English this means, “Hail, Cæsar! THOSE WHO ARE GOING TO DIE salute thee!” The tyrant was so moved, or rather struck with this unexpected address, that before he had time to reflect he returned the salutation Avete vos! “Fare ye well!” This gracious reply, from the mouth of an Emperor, amounted to a pardon, and the gladiators, in consequence, refused to fight. But the monster soon returned to his natural ferocity, and after hesitating for a while whether he would destroy them all by fire and sword, he rose from his seat, and ran staggering along the banks of the lake, in the most disgusting agitation, and at last, partly by exhortations and partly by threats, compelled them to fight.295 Thus far Suetonius.

Now, my dear sir, I put the question to you; if the gladiators, instead of morituri, had said in English those who are about or going to die; would the Emperor even have hesitated for a moment, and would he not at once have ordered those men to fight on? In the word morituri, he was struck at the first moment with the terrible idea of death placed in full front by means of the syllable MOR; while the future termination ITURI with the accessory ideas that it involves was calculated to produce a feeling of tender compassion on his already powerfully agitated mind, and in fact did produce it, though it lasted only a short time. But if, instead of this rapid succession of strong images, he had been assailed at first with five insignificant words Those—who—are—going—to, foreseeing what was about to follow, he would have had time to make up his mind before the sentence had been quite pronounced, and I doubt much whether the gladiators would have been allowed time to finish it. In German, Diejenigen welche am sterben sind, would have produced much the same effect, from the length of the words diejenigen and welche, which have no definite meaning, and could in no manner have affected the feelings of the tyrant Claudius. Ceux qui vont mourir, in French, is somewhat shorter, but in none of the modern languages do I find anything that operates on my mind like the terrible and pathetic morituri. May we not exclaim here with the great Gœthe: O, eine Nation ist zu beneiden, die so feine Schattirungen in einem Worte auszudruecken weiss! “O, how a nation is to be envied, that can express such delicate shades of thought in one single word!”296

I hope, indeed I do not doubt, that there is a similar word in the Delaware language; if so, please to give it to me with a full explanation of its construction and meaning.

I thank you very much for the valuable information you have given on the subject of the word “father;” the distinction between wetochemuxit, and wetoochwink, appears to me beautiful, and Zeisberger seems to have perfectly understood it. When he makes use of the first of these words, he displays the “Father of Eternity” in all his glory; but when he says, “Behold what the Father has given us!” he employs the word wetoochwink, which conveys the idea of a natural father, the better to express the paternal tenderness of God for his children. These elegant shades of expression shew in a very forcible manner the beauty and copiousness of the Indian languages, and the extent and the force of that natural logic, of those powers of feeling and discrimination, and of that innate sense of order, regularity and method which is possessed even by savage nations, and has produced such an admirable variety of modes of conveying human thoughts by means of the different organs and senses with which the Almighty has provided us.

Will you be so good as to inform me whether the Delaware language admits of inversions similar or analogous to those of the Latin tongue; and in what order words are in general placed before or after each other? Do you say “bread give me,” or “give me bread”?

I am, &c.