364 VOCABULARIES OF NORTH AMERICA. 



according to the circumstances under which they are 

 viewed ; and the terms for actions are altered, as the 

 agents, time, place, and other circumstances, vary. Un- 

 less, therefore, these facts be known and attended to 

 by one who forms a vocabulary, there may appear to 

 be no resemblance between the dialects of two tribes who 

 mutually understand each other, and converse together 

 with ease. The introduction of the syllabic characters 

 used by the late Rev. Mr. Evans in teaching the Cree 

 Indians would, I believe, remove the difficulties which 

 orthography throws in the way of a European, who en- 

 deavours to reduce the native languages of North America 

 to writing. 



The column containing Eskimo spoken on the Labrador 

 coast, is extracted from a pretty large vocabulary and 

 grammar, which the Rev. Peter Latrobe had the kindness 

 to procure for my use on the expedition. I have reason 

 to believe that some errors may have crept into this 

 vocabulary, from the similarity of the German written h 

 to s not being always adverted to by the transcriber, and 

 also from the uncertainty of the proper English equiva- 

 lent of the German v. These are not, however, I trust 

 numerous among the examples I have used. Where the 

 Labrador dictionary was defective, the excellent English 

 and Eskimo vocabulary, drawn up by Captain Washington, 

 and published by the Admiralty for the use of the Search- 

 ing Expeditious, has been referred to. The dialects spoken 

 by the intermediate Eskimo tribes inhabiting the north 

 shores of the continent are seldom quoted, my object having 

 been to identify the language spoken by members of the 

 nation occupying geographical positions the most remote 

 from each other. 



In writing out the table it was obvious to me that the 

 Labrador dialect is in general the softer of the two. 



