Note 20 — LECTURE XIV.
Reading edition
Dr. Edwards observes, in a communication to the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences, from personal knowledge, that "the Mohegans (Indians) have no adjectives in all their language. Altho it may at first seem not only singular and curious, but impossible, that a language should exist without adjectives, yet it is an indubitable fact." But it is proved that in later times the Indians employ adjectives, derived from nouns or verbs, as well as other nations. Altho many of their dialects are copious and harmonious, yet they suffered no inconvenience from a want of contracted words and phrases. They added the ideas of definition and description to the things themselves, and expressed them in the same word, in a modified form.