the Abnaki Language, in North America. 571 
irregularity in the use of the kindred letters g and &; and in many words, which 
he first wrote with g, he afterwards substituted the & In the same manner the 
author, in revising his Indian words, frequently changes 6 into p, and the reverse. 
In this connexion a remark. may be made upon some of the regular dialectical 
distinctions observable in languages of the Lenape stock. 
It was remarked by Roger Williams, as early as the year 1643, for example, 
that the word anwm, a dog, had the following forms in four different dialects : 
“ Anum, the Cowweset 
yim the Nariganset j 
ae 3 ames } dialect.” 
Arun, the Qunnipiuck § 
Alun, the Neepmuck 
Towhich he adds a remark, that is deserving of notice, as refuting an errone- 
ous opinion of that day, which has been preserved by most writers on this subject : 
«So that,” (says Williams) “although some pronounce not L nor R, yet it is the 
most proper dialect of other places; contrary to many reports.” * A similar obser- 
vation is made by Eliot: “* We in Massachusetts pronounce the N; the Mipmuck 
Indians pronounce L; and the Northern Indians pronounce R.” + Conformably 
with this remark, it will be perceived that in the present Dictionary, which gives us 
a dialect of the Northern Indians, the R is constantly used, while there is no 
word in which & occurs, 
An attention to these established differences is indispensable to a just compari- 
son of the various dialects, and the useful application of such comparisons to the 
purposes of philology ; and it will enable us to detect affinities, where at first view 
there may be little or no appearance of any resemblance. ‘‘ We should be very 
careful,’ as Mr. Du Ponceau justly remarks, ‘‘ how we ascribe a want of analogy 
to Indian derivations; although it may not be always observable at first sight, it 
will be discovered by those who investigate the subject with the necessary atten- 
tion.’ { An example or two will illustrate these remarks. The letter A, as we 
have seen, is a characteristic of the Abnaki dialect; as, for instance, in the word 
aremss, a dog, in the Delaware, L is used, and they would accordingly say, n’dal- 
lemous, my dog ; the n being the inseparable personal pronoun, here signifying my. 
In Abnaki, mirars is the tongue; and in the Massachusetts dialect, — which takes 
the N instead of R,—the same word becomes meenan, as written according to 
our English orthography, or minazi, as it would be according to the orthography of 
* William’s Key, ch. xvii, p. 106, London ed. 1643. t Eliot’s Ind, Gram. p. 2. 
t Notes to Zeisberger’s Delaware Grammar, p. 83. 
