386 VOCABULARIES OF NORTH AMERICA. 



The fragment of a vocabulary of the Chepewyan dialect, 

 which follows, was formed entirely from the diction of 

 Mrs. M'Pherson, to whom the language has been familiar 

 from her infancy. It was written in the following manner : 

 Having at hand a pretty full vocabulary of the Cree, 

 drawn up at Carlton House in 1820, in which the words 

 were arranged in alphabetical order, I propounded the Cree 

 expressions to her in succession, assisting her with a French 

 translation when she had any doubt of their meaning. The 

 Chepewyan equivalent was pronounced by her again and 

 again, until my ear caught the sound, and I was able to 

 repeat it after her. I then wrote it down, and read it to 

 her from the manuscript. Such words as I was unable to 

 pronounce to her satisfaction, and they were not few, were 

 left out. The nasal sounds resembling the French final n 

 were the most difficult, and they are of frequent occurrence 

 in the language. The Chepewyan tongue also abounds in 

 the burring sound of the letter r combined with an aspirate, 

 which I know not how to express in English ; and such 

 words have consequently been left out of the vocabulary. 

 The ordinary aspirate, similar to the och of the Scottish or 

 Irish, is denoted in the vocabulary by kh. The vocabu- 

 lary, short as it is, took some weeks to produce. It was 

 interrupted by a change in our arrangements in travelling, 

 canoes having been substituted for boats, which made it 

 less convenient for me to receive lessons in Chepewyan. 

 This difficulty would not, however, have prevented the 

 prosecution of the task, especially as Mrs. M'Pherson 

 with much kindness expressed her willingness to proceed 

 until we had gone through the whole Cree vocabulary, of 

 which about nine-tenths remained ; but knowing that the 

 language was becoming a written one, under the active 

 superintendence of the Roman Catholic missionaries at 

 Isle a la Crosse, I gave up my intention of endeavouring 

 to ascertain its structure, and contented myself with the 

 following specimen. 



