Mr. Pickering on Rasles’ Abnaki Dictionary. 371 
been translated by Mr. Du Ponceau himself, and enriched with 
an able and interesting Preface and Notes by the translator. * 
- In consequence of the great interest which was thus excited 
by that learned writer in the study of these languages, my own 
attention was drawn to the subject; andI began to make inquiries, 
in this part of our country, for such memorials of them as were 
still to be found among us; hoping that I might render some 
small service, by collecting and preserving these valuable mate- 
rials for the use of those persons, whose leisure and ability would 
enable them to employ them more advantageously, than it was in 
my power to do, for the benefit of philological science. 
The printed books relating to these languages are well known 
to readers in general. Among them, the wonderful work of Eliot, 
“the Apostle,” I mean his entire translation of the Old and New 
Testaments, and his Grammar of the Massachusetts Indian Lan- 
guage, are in every respect the most remarkable. 
But of all the memorials of the aboriginal languages in the 
Northern Atlantic portion of America, the following Dictionary 
of the .ddnaki language (or Abenaqui, as it is often called, after 
the French writers,) is now among the most important. In order, 
however, that its value may be, justly appreciated by those who 
have never directed their attention to this subject, it may be 
necessary to make a few general remarks upon the dialects of 
this continent. 
According to Mr. Du Ponceau, whose opinion is adopted by 
other American philologists, the various Indian dialects on the 
Northern Atlantic side of America may be classed under four 
principal stocks or families: 1. The Karalit, or language of Green- 
land and the Esquimaux; 2. The Iroquois, called by some of the 
early French writers the Huron; 3. The Lenni-Lenape, called 
* Published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. III., 
New Series, 1827. 
