NORTHWESTERN AMERICA. 543 



evident from the fact that two of the modifications of the verb differ only in the sounds a 

 and .'', which distinction the missionaries are obliged to leave vinmarked. In some words 

 it a|>|K-arcd to us that the a of the missionaries might ! letter represented by ea, as 

 " . land, for irii/m: , hut this may have been a dialectical difference, as the Indians 

 near VVniilatpu ,s|x-ak a patois varying a little from that of the bands about the Koos- 

 kooskee. 



The consonants used in the grammar are nine, viz. : h, k, I, m, n, p, s, t, w. No 

 distinction is there made 1 between /, and q ; in fact, the latter differs from the former only 

 in a more guttural, or hollow utterance, and has by no means the aspirated roughness of 

 the same letter in the Tshinuk. The proper English h does not exist in the language; 

 where employed, both in the vocabulary and the grammar, it should have the same 

 sound as the ^. 



A difference of opinion exists among the missionaries with regard to the proper mode 

 of writing certain words, in which some hear only the sound of s, while others distin- 

 guish a preceding t. The words usually offered as a test are tahs, good, and kusfcus, 

 small. The question is, whether they arc to be pronounced, as here written, or rather 

 (tits and kit/sk/its. The h in tahs is intended, as we were told, to represent a sort of 

 hiatus, or indistinct breathing after the vowel a. After hearing these two words pro- 

 nounced perhaps a hundred times by several natives, we were still in doubt as to the best 

 mode of writing them. The Sahaptin Indians about Waiilatpu, and those of other tribes 

 who had learned to speak their language (such as the Cayuse and Wallawallas), pro- 

 nounced the U very distinctly, while the natives from the -interior touched so lightly upon 

 the t as to leave it hardly, if at all, audible. On the whole, we were inclined to believe 

 that the full orthography of ts was the most correct. This opinion rests chiefly on the 

 fact tha those who reject the t do so only when the sound in question occurs at the 

 beginning or end of words, as in sildkt (or tsildkOt), body, sihsih (tstytsfy), grass, 

 hartH'ilis /nnioli/s), handsome; but in the middle of words all agree in writing it, as in 

 matsaiu, ear, liitsiu, star, &c. The hiatus above mentioned, represented by h in tahs, is 

 merely the shor 0, which sound frequently occurs before the ts; we have therefore 

 written /tints, good, kuOtskuitts, small, miauls (for mias), child, etc. 



The soft s and the j - are frequently confounded in this language, as are the I and n : 

 the latter, however, is rather a dialectical difference. 



The general sound of the language is very pleasing to the ear, clear, smooth, and 

 sonorous, more resembling, in its general quality and intonations, the Spanish, than 

 any other of the European languages which we have heard spoken. 



The following is an abstract of Mr. Smith's grammar of the Sahaptin language : 



1. The number ofletters necessarily used to express the sounds of this language is 

 fourteen, five vowels and nine consonants. Seven other consonants are occasionally 

 employed in foreign words introduced by the missionaries in their translations. 



2. The following is the arrangement of the alphabet : 



A pronounced as a in father 

 E " "a in hate 



I " " i in machine 



O " " o in note 



U " "oo in moon 



