ESKIMO VOCABULARY. 36.5 



Instead of the hard tch so frequent in the Kuskuchewak 

 tongue, the east coast tribes generally use s, and in Coro- 

 nation Gulf h is substituted. The strongly aspirated sound 

 which is heard in the Scottish word " loch " is of frequent 

 occurrence in the Kuskuchewak column of the vocabulary, 

 where it is denoted by hh. An Englishman in attempt- 

 ing this sound lets the k be heard, which he ought not 

 to do. The difficulty of constructing a correct Eskimo 

 vocabulary is increased by the necessity of previously 

 mastering the exceedingly numerous inflections of the nouns, 

 adjectives, pronouns, and verbs, which supply the place 

 occupied by auxiliary verbs, possessive pronouns, prepo- 

 sitions, and adverbs in the European languages. These 

 inflections are briefly noticed in the introduction to Capt. 

 Washington's vocabulary, and I shall merely add here, 

 that in the Labrador grammar, obtained for us by Mr. 

 Latrobe, there are examples of thirty different terminations 

 of the dual and plural numbers of nouns, which have evi- 

 dently had their origin in euphuism. 



Each noun has six cases in each number, distinguished 

 by their terminations, the vocative being, however, absent 

 in some. The cases are formed by affixes having the 

 power of prepositions, as mut, mik, mit, me, and kut in the 

 singular, and nut, nik, ?iit, ne, and gut in the plural. The 

 nominative is also varied by affixes which perform the func- 

 tions of possessive pronouns, as ga, go, ne, ait, anga, ara, 

 &c. ; as kivgah, a servant, kivganga, my servant, kivgane, his 

 servant ; nuna, land, nunaga, my land ; nelegah, a master, 

 nelegara, my master; tunnusuga, my nation, &c. Pagit, 

 panga, or par-ma are affixes employed when the noun is 

 connected with a verb signifying action or suffering. The 

 noun, when changed by a qualifying affix, is declined in its 

 new form, in the usual way. Besides the ordinary active 

 nominative, each noun has also an intransitive one, which 



