22 PRINCE — A MODERN DELAWARE TALE. [Jau. 3, 



where the Minsi deviates greatly from the mixed UnamiUnalach" 

 tigo dialect, in which the missionaries wrote, I have had recourse to 

 the vocabularies of the cognate Abenaki and Ojibwe languages,' 

 which have given fairly satisfactory aid in every instance save one 

 (in V. ^). The chief phonetic variation between Montour's dialect 

 and the language of the Moravian missionaries is the appearance of 

 ih (soft, as in 'this') in Minsi as representing s in Unami-Una- 

 lachtigo ; cp. wsheetha for O. D. ■w' schiessa * his uncle,' the end- 

 ing -multhoo for O. D. -inallsiuy etc. Brinton asserts {Diet., p. vi) 

 that this s in O. D. was due to the fact that the Germans were 

 unable to distinguish the soft th, which they accordingly represented 

 by s. Thus Anthony, Brinton's native authority, states (Diet., p. 

 T15) that the common word for ' boy ' in his language is skahenso, 

 which appears in Montour's text in the form thkuhinthoowh, IV. *, 

 representing the actual pronunciation. Furthermore, in the letter 

 from Chief Gottlieb Tobias {Len. Legends, p. 88) we find the form 

 lichsoagan ' language,' which Montour would write leerhthoowawgun. 

 In other words, those Indians who read the language according to 

 the German system lisp the s. 



In the following modern Minsi text these important points with 

 regard to the pronunciation should be noted : i. Medial and final 

 h is never an aspirate, but merely a pause. 2. The combination ng 

 is pronounced like ng in 'king.' 3. The combination rh is a 

 deep guttural gh. Actual r has not existed in Lenape since the 

 days of the early Swedish colony in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

 It is now represented by /as in modern Abenaki (/= ancient r). 

 4. W before another consonant is pronounced, as in Passamaquoddy, 

 with a short unclear vowel following it, similar to the Hebrew 

 SKva mobile. 5. Wh is a guttural combination composed oi w -^ 

 kh. 6. The apostrophe (') indicates a very short u. 7. The 

 vowels are to be pronounced exactly as in English.'' The O. D. 

 words are written entirely according to the German system. The 

 Abenaki vowels are pronounced as in Italian, except the o, which 

 has the sound of the French nasal on. The sign ' indicates a soft 

 guttural voice-stop similar to the Arabic medial He. The vowels 



3 The Abenaki material is drawn from a dictionary of tlie modern dialect now 

 in course of preparation by myself, and the Ojibwe words are taken from Baraga's 

 Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, Circinnati, 1853. 



♦Cp. Prince, "Notes on the Modern Minsi Delaware Dialect," Atner, Journal 

 of Philol., xxi, pp. 295-302. 



