the Abnaki Language, in North America. 569 
to affix the double numbers as abovementioned. 'Those readers who may wish to 
consult the manuscript will now be able to do it with great convenience by means 
of this marginal paging. 
In general the MS. is fairly written, and perfectly legible ; a few places, howev- 
ever, are quite illegible ; and, where this is the case, there is of necessity an hiatus 
in the printed copy; of which the reader is apprized by a series of periods placed 
in this manner,..... Where a word was not wholly illegible, but the reading 
doubtful, a note of interrogation is placed immediately after it, in brackets, thus [?]. 
Many passages, which at first defied the keenest eye-sight, were subsequently re- 
stored by the application of the tincture of nut-galls. The discovery of numerous 
obscure readings is due to the critical sagacity of my friend, Mr. Charles Fol- 
som, A. A. S., whose indefatigable care also detected many errors, which would 
otherwise have remained unobserved. 
The Alphabet used by Rasles. 
The Author’s Alphabet requires a brief explanation. Being a Frenchman, he 
naturally adopted the French alphabet; and, as a general rule, the reader will, 
therefore, pronounce the Abnaki words as a Frenchman would. There are, how- 
ever, some sounds in the language, which are not known in the French; and for 
these he added certain characters and diacritical marks to the common French 
Alphabet. It is not quite certain, that we can at this day determine what 
were the precise sounds intended by those additional characters ; but by the aid 
of the living dialects of the Delaware or Lenape family, we can make approxi- 
mations which will be sufficient for the purposes of general philology. 
The following is an accurate list, I believe, of all the different letters and 
characters used in this Dictionary; with an explanation of their several powers, as 
well as I am able to determine them: 
a, b, d, e, g, h, 0, i, j, k, m, nm, fi, 0, p, 7, S, SS, tr 8, Yr ZF Gi, Bt. 
To these should be added the mark of aspiration (“ ) which frequently occurs 
in the middle of words. 
138 
