TRANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, Xc. 



No. I. 



On the Language of Sig7is amoiig certain North American Indians. 

 By William Dunbar, Esq. of the Mississippi Territory, com- 

 municated by Thomas Jefferson, President of the Society. 



Natchez, June 30, 1800. 



g jjj Read 16th January, 1801. 



Mr. NOLAN'S man of signs has been here, but was 

 so occupied that a long time elapsed ere I could have an 

 opportunity of conversing with him, and afterwards falling sick 

 was seized with such an invincible desire of returning to his 

 own country, that I had little hopes of gaining much upon 

 his impatience. 



A commencement however we have made, and although lit- 

 tle has been done, it is sufficient to convince me, that this lan- 

 guage by signs has been artfully and systematically framed. In 

 my last I took notice of some analogy which I conceived to sub- 

 sist between the Chinese written language and our Western 

 language by signs; I had not then read Sir George Staunton's 

 account of the British Embassy to China. I will here beg 

 your permission to transcribe a paragraph or two from that 

 work, which appear to strengthen my ideas of the probability 

 of their common origin. " Almost all the countries border- 



A 



