116 



DANIEL WILSON ON THE ARTISTIC 



Kj/adnrashte : To Draw. 



rASSIVE. (ContinmxI.) 



CONDITIONAL MOOD. 



Prrsbnt Ten.se. 



ayonkyadarahsU-fe 

 aiiegai/adaralistc-sc 

 ahonwai/aduralisti'-fe 

 nkomivyuihiralisti-nc 



ayvnihiyadamhsk-se 



oyi:l!tiyadara]tslc-se 



oronwridiyadarahnlr-.ic 



SISCl. 



I should be drawn, 

 ïhou .sliouldst be drawn. 

 He should lie draw n. 

 She should bo drawn. 



PLUR. 



We should lie drawn. 

 You should be drawn. 

 Tliey (M.) should be drawn. 



ay on kyadarali Hon h-se 

 ayesayadarahstonh-se 



iikonvridiyadandislc-si: They (F.) should be drawn. 



ahomnayadaralistonh-se 

 akomrayadarahslonli-nc 



ayonlltiyridnralidonh-se 



ayctsiyadaraliKlonli-se 



altomvadiyadaralislovh-ac 



akomcadiyadarahstonh-se 



Past Ten.se. 



SINXt. 



I should have been drawn. 

 Thou shouldst have been 



drawn. 

 He should have been drawn. 

 She should have been drawn. 



PLUR. 



We should have been drawn. 

 You should have been drawn. 

 They (M.) shor.ld have been 



drawn. 

 They (F.) should have been 



drawn. 



The Iroquois tongue, iu its Avarions dialects, lias long received the attention of diligent 

 students. It has been written and printed both by French and English missionaries for 

 nearly two centuries. As they have, for the most part, carried on their work without con- 

 cert, there is no established system of orthography ; but the language has been skilfully 

 analyzed, and its elaborate grammatical structure systematized. The object of the aboA^e 

 paradigm is simply to illustrate the inherent capacity of the language to express, with 

 minute nicety of detail, the requirements of an a-sthetic faculty as yet very partially 

 developed. The latest results of philological study are amply set forth in the " Lexique " 

 and the " Études philologique " of Abbé Cuoq, and in an admirable resume in Mr. Horatio 

 Hale's introduction to "The Iroc^uois Book of Rites.'" The systematic processes by which 

 the moods and tenses are indicated, either by changes of termination, or prefixed particles, 

 or by both conjoined, are carefully indicated by Mr. Hale ; but he adds : " a complete 

 grammar of this speech, as full and minute as the best Sanscrit or Greek grammars, 

 would p>robably equal, and perhaps surpass those grammars iu extent. The uncon- 

 scious forces of memory and of discrimination required to maintain this complicated intel- 

 lectual machine, and to preserve it constantly exact, and in good working order, must 

 be prodigious."^ This tendency to elaborate niceties of discrimination is in striking 

 contrast to that of the modern cultivated languages of Europe ; and it is not without 

 reason that it is spoken of as a " complicated intellectual machine." The contrast, for 

 example, between the Mohawk or other Iroquois verb, in all its complex variations, and 

 the extreme simplicity of the Anglo-Saxon verb, with only its Indefinite and Perfect 

 Tenses, — the former predicated either of the present, or of a future time, and the latter of 

 any past time, — can scarcely fail to impress the thoughtful student who keeps in view 

 the relatiA'e civilization of the Iroquois, and of the English people at the period when 

 Anglo-Saxon in its purely inflexional stage was still the national language. The English 

 verb has since then acquired wonderful power and compass by means of the auxiliary 

 verbs ; but its whole tendency is at variance with the elaborations iu number and gender 



Iroquois Book of Rites, p. 110. 



''Irocjuois l?ook of Rites, p. US 



