Note 111 — Chapter VI

The Cherokee language exceeds even the Greek in its power to express, by the inflection of a single word, delicate modifications of thought. An example is given in the Appendix to the 6th volume of the Encyclopædia Americana. It is also a specimen of the length to which the words in the Indian languages are often extended. The word is, Winitaw´tigeginaliskawlungtanawneli´tisesti, which may be rendered, “They will by that time have nearly done granting [favors] from a distance to thee and to me.” This word is understood to be regularly inflected, according to fixed rules. If so, the Cherokee language must have an arrangement of modes, tenses and numbers, which few if any other languages on earth can equal.