BG fe 
A Dictionary of the Abnaki Language, in North America; by 
Father SEBASTIAN RASLES. With an Introductory Me- 
moir and Votes, 
By JOHN PICKERING, A. A. S. 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 
Tue impulse which has been lately given by our distinguished 
American scholar, Mr. Du Ponceau, to the study of the Indian 
Languages of America, has been already attended with the most 
important advantages to the science of Philology. His profound 
learning and untiring zeal have irresistibly drawn the attention of 
the learned in Europe and America to this extraordinary, but long 
neglected class of languages, and have been the means of not 
only inciting our students in the pursuit, but also of bringing to 
light, and preserving, various dictionaries and grammars, particu- 
larly manuscripts, which, but for his interest in the subject, might 
have perished for ever. 
The learned have been already informed, by his admirable 
Report on the Indian Languages (published in the Transactions 
of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philo- 
sophical Society at Philadelphia*), that several Grammars, Vo- 
cabularies, copious Dictionaries, and other manuscript works on 
the Indian Languages have been collected, and are now deposited 
in the Library of that Society; one of which, the invaluable 
Grammar of the Lenni-Lendpe, or Delaware Language, written 
in German, by the Rev. David Zeisberger, has with great labor 
* Vol. I. p. xvii. Philad., 1819. 
