OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. XVII 



Dress and Ornaments, Dwellings, Implements and Utensils, 

 Food, Colors, Numerals, Measures, Divisions of Time, Stand- 

 ards of Value, Animals, Plants, &c., Geographic Terms, the 

 Firmament, Meteorologic and other Phj^sical Phenomena and 

 Objects, Kinship, Social Organization, Government, Rehgion, 

 Mortuary Customs, Medicine, Amusements. 



In each of the schedules above mentioned an explanation 

 was given of certain anthropologic facts necessary to the proper 

 understanding of the subjects, so that the student might as far 

 as possible be put in possession of the thoughts of the Indian 

 whose language he was endeavoring to compile. 



As the study of an unwritten language must commence by 

 committing it to writing, and as no alphabet used by a civilized 

 people will represent distinctly all the sounds of Indian lan- 

 guages, the adoption of a proper alphabet became of prime 

 importance. For many reasons the Roman alphabet was se- 

 lected for use, with numerous modifications, the following fun- 

 damental rules being observed: 



I. The Roman alphabet must be used without additions, and 

 with only such diacritical marks as are found in ordinary fonts 

 of type. 



II. Each sound must have a letter of its own. 



III. Each character must be used to represent but one 

 sound. 



IV. The Roman alphabet must be used for sounds in the 

 Indian tongue the same as or kindred to the sounds for which 

 the letters are used in the English and other civilized lan- 

 guages. 



This alphabetic scheme with copious illustrations by ex- 

 amples has proved so successful in operation that collectors 

 accustomed to former schemes have voluntarily, though at great 

 labor, copied their manuscripts into that possessing such mani- 

 fest advantages. 



Instruction specially adapted to Indian languages was also 

 introduced upon the topics of new words, number and gender 

 of nouns, demonstrative and adjective pronouns, personal and 

 article pronouns, transitive verbs, possession, intransitive verbs, 

 adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and nouns used as verbs, and 

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