UF THE UERBERS. 4(31 



Shaler calls '-a monster in pronunciation;" it is that oltlic 

 g durum of our iangua2;e, as we pronounce it before tlie let- 

 ter o in God, i(otien, followed by that of the r forte mail gras- 

 sci/ee,as the French would express it. 'Vh\s grass('iieme7it is 

 not known in this couiitiy. though in England it is occasion- 

 ally met with. It cannot be represented e.\ce|)t to the ear. 

 In this Berber sound, the g is softly and the r strongly arti- 

 culatcd. It is represented in these vocabularies hy g'r. 



JMr. Shaler has hitheito been al^le to communicate but lit- 

 tle information respecting the granuuatieal peculiarities and 

 the forms and construction of this language. The following 

 is all that his latest communications contain. 



The word asenick, which means balloon, signifies also a 

 street. Voting and little are expressed in the same maimer 

 by temsien, — a little door, tivoiirt cenisien ; a little (or a young) 

 girl, tacks/list ta-wsien. The letter t prefixed or alTixed indi- 

 cates the feminine gender. 



The woid moiirt signifies both town and countrij ; mour- 

 tihaden, a foreign country ; rouh hat mourtik, go to your 

 country. The word zuk signifies viurkrt, which seems to 

 give the etymology of the name of the city of J/o//;7;//A:, ca- 

 pital of the kingdom of Fezzan, inourt town, zuk market, a 

 market tmvn. But it is said that zuk or zonk signifies also a 

 market in Arabic ; so that this name may not be entirely and 

 originally of Berber derivation. 



There is a remarkal)le peculiarity in this language. The 

 word woman, as we see in the vocal)ulary of Mr. Shaler's 

 Swedish fiiend. is expressed in the Kabyle dialect by tanitolz 

 audkhaleth; but he observes that the latter word is only em- 

 ployed when sj)eaking to several women in the same place. 

 This is analogoirs to the varifuis dual forms which exist in 

 the vert)S of our American Cherokees, which vaiy in ilx-if 

 inflections according to the persons to or of wliom one speaks. 

 'I'his will be explained at large in a grammar of the Chero- 

 kee language, which our learned countryman Mr. Pick<Ming 

 of Salem is now preparing for the press, and which may be 



YOL, II. — 3 o 



