542 



PHILOLOGY. 



One noun may be formed from another ; as, 



from svmdnfM, tobacco, is formed suma.np.utSn, pipe 



from sawitflkwv, water, suauwifyl, a fish, or any animal that lives in the water 



from Mity.au, the name of a place, Sumityauif, the people of Mit/.au. 



17. The Selish, like other Indian languages, possesses in a high degree the power of 

 composition, or, as it has been called, agglutination, by which one or two syllables are taken 

 from different words, and combined to form a new term. Thus, from j>o/.po^ot, old, and 

 tgesus, ugly, is made the word poius, meaning " ugly from age ;" from sits, new, and 

 suiatyde^u, house, is made silsley.u, new house. The same word for house, combined 

 with the numerals esel, two, ketyles, three, makes esele/.u, two houses, ketylele?.u, three 

 houses. From kwutunt, great, and spoos, heart, is derived kutespoos, a brave man, a 

 warrior ; from sinl<;it/.lsaskd)(.a, a horse, and fylotyloosum, to look for any thing, is 

 formed tlie verb tylaskdy.a, to look for horses, which is regularly varied, as, kaksty.las- 

 kay.atylip, we mean to look for our horses; mukinuaustyldy.a, I shall go to look for my 

 horse. 



These observations, though necessarily imperfect, will serve to give some idea of the 

 character of the Selish language, and of the others which belong to this family. Some 

 notes, of a similar kind, which were made on the Shush wap, Tsihailish, and Nsietshawus, 

 are omitted, as they show no peculiarities differing, in any important point, from the fore- 

 going. 



4. SAHAPTIN FAMILY. 

 (M. Sahaptin. N. Walawala [i. Pelus; j. I&akema; k. Tjnl6kata(\). 



These vocabularies are from various sources, but we are principally indebted for them 

 to the assistance of Dr. M. Whitman, Missionary of the American Board, at Waiilatpu, 

 through whose mediation we were enabled to obtain the words from the natives with 

 greater accuracy than would otherwise have been possible. To the same gentleman, 

 who has been six years a resident at that station, we owe much valuable information on 

 various subjects connected with the character and customs of the natives. 



We had also the good fortune to meet at Astoria the Rev. A. B. Smith, who had resided 

 three years in the same tribe, near the Kooskooskee River. During that time he had 

 applied himself, with singular success, to the study of their language, and the elucidation 

 of its very peculiar and complex structure. We are indebted to him for a copy of his 

 grammar, or, as he has modestly entitled it, " Remarks on the Peculiarities" of this lan- 

 guage, together with many additional explanations on the same subject. In the summary 

 which follows, the only changes that have been made are the omission of unimportant 

 details, and some alteration in the arrangement. As the words given in our vocabulary 

 will be found to differ somewhat in orthography from those contained in this grammar, it 

 will be proper to explain the cause of the discrepancy. 



To the vowels e, i, o, u, the missionaries give the same sounds as they have in our 

 system ; but they employ the a to represent, besides the sounds heard in father and man, 

 those of the a in hall and what, and the u in but. In our vocabulary, these sounds are 

 written with peculiar characters, and u. The propriety of separating these elements is 



