tfti 



I 



• 



*■ V 







>H' ^ . 





Indian Languages in ^^orth America. 837 



T 



But, in order that we may successfully penetrate into this 



unexplored region of lan-nages as barbarous and foreign to our 

 modes of thinking, as the manners of the uncivilized people who 

 use them, it is indispensable that we should adopt every practi- 

 cable expedient to render our progress easy and pleasant. Now 

 nothing is more clearly necessary at the very beginniog, than 

 some common and systematic metfiod of icrit'ing them; whether 

 our object is, to enable the learned of other countries and our 

 own to study and compare the numerous varieties of human 

 speech with all that exactness, which is essential to accurate and 



ouli 



-Cft 



prac 



purpose of possessing the means of 



bord 



^flth a view to the common 

 riuciplcs of our relicion 



t^ 



among them ; and any investigation, which is so intimately con. 

 nected as this with results of sucli ii^portance, will not be 

 thought unworthy of the attention of our countrymen. Nor will 

 they, I trust, need further incitement to prosecute any inauirics 



may at first view appear 



r 



of so much distinction in the literary world, as Count Volnoy 

 j^ among the French and the incomparable Sir William Jones 



r 



among the English, have given importance and dignity bj their 

 laborious and learned researches.* 



**-* 



>■ 



* Count Volney's elaborate work, entitled VAlfabet Europcen applique aux 

 Langiies Jsiatiques. 8vo. pp. 223 (for the use of which I have been indebted to 

 Mr. Du Ponceau since this paper was first communicated to the Academy) was 

 published at Paris in 1819. The Dissertation of Sir William Jones, which 1 have 

 already quoted, is well known to exerj scholar. 



-4 



4-4* 





m 



i 



'ii' 



m 



# 



§f mi'- ^ 





^- 



'Ij 



a*"** ■ *i^«,. 



m 



-'J " 



