the Abnaki Language, in North America. 573 
nouns was formed in og or ok, and of inanimate nouns in ash; as wosketomp, a 
man, wosketompaog, men; in which plural it is to be observed, that the a is only 
thrown in for the sake of euphony;* for, strange as we may think it in savages, 
the Indians, as Eliot says, observed ‘a curious care of euphonie.”+ He after- 
wards adds, particularly ; —* there be also suppletive syllables of no signification, 
but for ornament of the word; as tit, tin, tinne; and these, in way of elegancy, 
receive the affix which belongeth to the noun or verb following ; as nuétit, kuttit, 
wuttit,”’ &c.,¢ which we should now write n’tit, K’tit, w’tit, &c. In the same 
dialect the inanimate nouns formed their plural in ash ; as hussun, a stone ; plural 
hussunash, stones. So in the Delaware, the animate plurals are generally formed 
by ak, and the inanimate by all or wall; as, lenno-wak, men, achsin-all, stones. 
In the Abnaki also, the plural animate ended in ak, but the plural znanimate, in ar, 
which is in analogy with the Delaware all, by the usual dialectical interchange of 
Zand r. “ 
2. According to this principle of classification, the verbs, as well as the 
nouns, have two forms, called conjugations ; the one applied to animated objects, 
and the other, to inanimate ones. Examples of this may be seen in the present 
Dictionary under Aimer and various other verbs. 
3. The verbs to Have and vo BE. It is a general characteristic of the Ameri- 
can languages, that they have neither of these verbs in the abstract, European, 
sense. ‘Their verb to have always conveys the idea of possession; and to be, that 
of a particular situation of body or mind.§ Father Rasles, it is true, has given the 
French verbs avoir and étre, and accompanied them with an interpretation in the 
Abnaki language. But, upon examining the phrases annexed to them, and in other 
parts of the work, we shall find that they had not the abstract signification of the 
European verbs. 
4. Specific or concrete Character of the Indian Verbs. It is observed by Mr. 
Heckewelder, that the Indians are more in the habit of using particular or specific 
terms than generic ones; and, hence, as he remarks, when he first began to ask 
them the names of objects, he found himself much embarrassed by their answers. 
“T would point to a tree,” says he, “and ask the Indians how they called it; they 
would answer, an oak, an ash, a maple, as the case might be, so that I found in my 
vocabulary more than a dozen words for the word tree. It wasa good while before 
I found out, that when you asked of an Indian the name of any thing, he would 
always give you the specific, and never the generic denomination.” \| 
* Eliot's Indian Grammar, p. 9. t Ib. p. 6. f Ib. p. 23. 
§ Zeisberger’s Delaware Grammar, p. 49. || Correspondence with Mr. Du Ponceau, p. 437. 
139 
