90 GRAMMAJl OP THE LANGUAGE 



languages to be written in that character, and not only pro- 

 posed a plan to that effect, but left a considerable legacy by 

 his will to be employed in premiums to those who should 

 suggest the best means of carrying it into execution. This 

 shews how far a favourite idea may take hold of the mind of 

 a man, however distinguished by his genius and talents. 



It is not for those languages that have already an alphabet 

 and an orthography of their own that a uniform mode of 

 writing their words is desirable ; uniformity in this respect, 

 even among the nations that use the same characters, is ab- 

 solutely unattainable. All that is desired is a common mode 

 of communicating the sounds of unwritten languages, in or- 

 der to facilitate the comparison of their words and gramma- 

 tical forms with eaeh other with the greater exactness. To 

 this object the powers of our English alphabet are not ade- 

 quate ; because its vowel sounds are uncertain and a great 

 part of them are represented by diphthongs. But most nations 

 seem to think that their national honour is concerned in 

 forcing their own orthography upon the learned world. 

 Thus since the study of the Chinese language has become 

 fashionable in Europe, the Portuguese mode of spelling Chi- 

 nese words, to which all were before accustomed, has been 

 entirely abandoned, and the English and French have each 

 adopted the orthography of their own language; so that it is 

 sometimes difficult to recognize the same words in ihe giam- 

 marsand dictionaries which they have respectively published. 



In this country we are free from this prejudice; therefore 

 my learned friend Mr Pickering, with the liberality which 

 characterizes an American man of science, has proposed a 

 uniform mode of writing the words of our Indian languages*, 

 which 1 am happy to find has been almost universally 

 adopted by our Missionaries not only on this continent, but 

 in the South Sea Islands. 1 am also informed that our go- 



* An Essay on a uniform Orthography for the Indian Languages of 

 North America. By John Pickering. Published at Boston in the Me- 

 moirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. IV. p. 319. 



