byington] A DICTIONAEY OF THE CHOCTAW LANGUAGE IX 



amount of unprofitable labor. Therefore the work is presented almost 

 as he left it, as a source of valuable linguistic, and also ethnologic, 

 information faithfully recorded by one of the most capable of the 

 early missionaries at a time when many things were to be learned 

 which are now doubtless entirely forgotten. In order to increase the 

 utility of the dictionary an English -Choctaw index has been compiled 

 and appended, which will make it possible to find where information 

 is to be had regarding the Choctaw equivalent of each English word 

 or phrase given. This part is in no sense a dictionary, nor is it to be 

 regarded as such. 



As might naturally have been expected, Mr. Byington's inspiring 

 motive was his desire to translate the Biblical writings into Choctaw 

 and to further the conversion of the Choctaw tribe to the Christian 

 religion. The present work contains therefore numerous references 

 to early translations of the Biblical writings undertaken by him. 

 From the changes incorporated into later editions it is evident that the 

 exact shade of meaning was not always determined in those first efforts, 

 but, in any event, perhaps it could only have been approximated, and 

 no attempt has been made to alter the references except in a few cases 

 where palpable errors had been made. Nevertheless, these citations 

 have been verified as far as possible and a few question marks inserted 

 where no words resembling the ones under consideration could be 

 found. In other instances it will be noticed that Mr. Byington has 

 ignored certain affixes of common occurrence which alter the exact 

 form as it appears in the text. 



Anciently there were several Choctaw dialects, but only one of these, 

 that of the Sixtowns Indians living in the southern part of the old 

 Choctaw country, differed to any considerable degree from the stand- 

 ard, or Longtown, dialect spoken in the western part of the Nation. 

 Moreover, this difference seems to have been confined mainly to cer- 

 tain words, involving but very slightly the language as a whole. A 

 number of these Sixtowns words will be found interspersed through- 

 out the present work. 



It has been my good fortune to have enlisted as coeditor Mr. Henry 

 S. Halbert, of the Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, 

 Ala., who has spent many years of his life among the Choctaw 

 Indians, is familiar with their language, and is an enthusiastic student 

 of everything relating to the history and present culture of the tribe. 

 While he has noted and corrected many errors, he has deemed it best 

 to let certain doubtful words and sentences stand as in the original 

 manuscript, with the idea that they may represent certain dialectic or 

 archaic variations which have escaped him. 



Acknowledgment is here made of the courtesy of Mrs. Eliza Innes, 

 of Lockesburg, Ark., daughter of the Rev. Cyrus Byington, and 

 of that of her son, Mr. E. S. Byington, of Broken Bow, Okla., in 



