78 GRAMMAR OF THE LANGUAGE 



my of Sciences, in an ingenious and profound disserta- 

 tion on the forms of languages*, while he admits that those 

 of the American Indians are rich, methodical, and arti- 

 ficial in their structure, yet will not allow them to pos- 

 sess what he calls genuine grammatical forms (sechte for- 

 men), because, says he, their words are not inflected like 

 those of the Greek, Latin, and Sanscrit, but are formed by 

 a different process, which he calls agglutination, and on that 

 supposition, he assigns to them an inferior rank in the scale 

 of languages, considered in the point of view of their capa- 

 city to aid the development of ideas. That such prejudices 

 should exist among men who have deservedly acquired an 

 eminent reputation for science is much to be regretted; and 

 it is particularly with a view to remove them from the minds 

 of such men, that this grammar is published. The learned 

 baron will, I hope, recognize in the conjugations of the Del- 

 aware verbs those inflected forms which he justly admires, 

 and he will find that the process which he is pleased to call 

 agglutination, is not the only one which our Indians em- 

 ploy in the combination of their ideas and the formation 

 of their words. 



But it is not in Europe alone that we find persons dispo- 

 sed to disparage every thing that belongs to the American 

 Indians. The same spirit prevails, I am sorry to say in a 

 much higher degree, among many in this country, particu- 

 larly those who inhabit our frontier settlements, where causes 

 of difference too often arise between the two races. This 

 feeling, when once entertained, knows no bounds, and men, 

 in other respects gifted with judgment and talents, feel its 

 influence unperceived. I have been led into this observa- 

 tion by a well written and otherwise interesting article on 

 the Indians and their languages, which appeared in the North 

 American Review for January, 1836, the anonymous author 



* Ueber das Entstelien der grammatischen Formen, und ihrcn Einfluss 

 aufdie Ideen Entwicklung. Von Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt. Pub- 

 lished in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy of Sciences for the year 

 1822. Historical and Philological Class, p. 401. 



