INTRODUCTION. 



E X P E ANA T O K Y 11 E M A 71 K 8 . 



Ill till' inrpanitiou of the following sets of words, plirases, and sentences, with accompanying hints to il illin,,!-. ihree objects have been l«e|)t 



In viuw: lirst, to select words whicli can be obtained with the greatest ease; second, to select words whicli c:ui i.r niji^un. ,1 with the greatest certain ty; 

 and tlilril, to sileft words whicli will be of the greatest linguistic and general ethnographic value. These cmi^iih mtions were sometimes in contiict, 

 but a ciu-cful WL'ighing of tliem has led to tlie following result. 



it sliouKl not be supposed that these words and sentences are tlie only ones of value; the collector may, as opportunity is alTorded, increase tlie 

 list to any .Icsired extent. All the new material added will be not only of value in itself, lint will have additional interest because of that whldi has 

 been done before. 



.V smaller number than called for in the schedule may be of great value {f obtained in sets as given lierein ; any one of the sets of the words 

 obtained fi-om almost any Indians in Nortli America would be a valuable contribution to linguistics, but words selected at random here and tliere 

 would be of little or no u.se. 



Care should be taken to obtain words from the Indians themselves. Indians speaking English can be found in almost every tribe within the 

 United States. Words cannot be obtained accurately from white men who are supposed to speak the Indian tongue, unless such persons have been 

 long with the Indians and are intelligent and scliolarly, and have had some reasons for studying Indian languages on account of their being mission- 

 aries, teachers, or linguists. 



The general method of communication between white men and Indians is by a conventional Jargon, composed of corrupted Indian and English 

 words, with man,v words from other Euroijean tongues. In this fact is found one of the reasons why words should not be collected from white men 

 unless they have a scliolarly knowledge, as indicated above. ' ' 



To collect words from an Indian requires great patience, as it is difficult to hold his attention for juiy great length of time, and it requires a con- 

 stant exercise of ingenuity to devise methods by wliich he may fully understand what is asked by tlie collector and that the collector himself may 

 feel that he is working witli certainty. 



Sometimes an Indian will deceive by giving foolisli or vulgar words, considering it a good jest; for this and other reasons, everything collected 

 siiould lie carefully verilied. 



