Ex. Doc. No. 41. 427 



Their language is considered one of the most difficult of any of 

 those spoken by our Indian tribes, but the difficulty is chiefly due 

 to the habit the Indians have of swallowing the last syllable of 

 every word, so that many persons would hardly notice the last 

 syllable, and therefore omit it when attempting to speak the Chey- 

 enne language, and are not understood by the Indians. 



They have no articles^ their substantives are nearly as numerous 



as ours. Plurality and unity are generally denoted by prefixing 



numbers, and sometimes by terminations; as, vo-vote, an egg; vo- 



vo-tuts, eggs. Their pronouns have only one number, or rather 



they are of both numbers. Their numerical terms are beautifully 



arranged, eacft one of the digits I's expressed by a different name, 



and the tens are expressed by affixing certain terminations to the 

 digits. 



The numbers are thus expressed: 



2?^t> one. Nah-to-te-ote-nah, thirteen, 



^ish,. two. do do 



Nah, three. Ne-so, ' twenty, 



^nave, four. Ne-so-ote-nast, twenty-one. 



None, five. do do 



Nah-so-to, six. Na-vo, thirty. 



JVe-so-to, seven. Ne-vo, forty. 



Nah-no-to, eight. No-no, fifty.* 



^o-to, nine. Na-so-to-no, sixty. 



Mah-to-te, ten. Ne-so-to-no, seventy. 



Mah-to-te-ote-nast, eleven, Na-no-to-no, eighty. 



Mah-to-te-ote-nish, twelve. So-to-no, ninety. 



Mah-to-to-no, one hundred. 



IL 



They express thousands by so many hundreds: as 10, 20, or 30 

 hundreds for 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000, &c., &c. 



Their degrees of comparison of adjectives are expressed by pre- 

 tixing words significant of augmentation or diminution; the adjec- 

 tive Itself remains unchanged. The verbs have all the principal 

 times, but are only used in one number, as the subject or subjects 

 JO which the verb belongs render distinction of number sufficiently, 

 exact without varying the number of the verb. They have all 

 the other parts of speech belonging to the languages of civilized 

 nations; but their nouns are the only species of words that will 

 bear a comparison in a numerical view. The Cheyenne is far from 

 Deing deficient in its capability of expressing abstract ideas. Some 

 persons think that it would be incomplete without gesture, because 

 ttoe Indians use gesture constantly. But I have been assured that, 

 xne language is in itself capable of bodying forth any idea to which 

 one may wish to give utterance. 



From this day forth I spent several hours in the daily study of 

 mis language, and had succeeded in forming an elementary gram- 

 mar; Dut, on my winter journey back to St. Louis, in December and 

 p eDruary, these papers were lost. In fact it was with great diffi- 

 culty 1 managed to save anything that I had collected. I have, 

 However, been able to form the following vocabulary from letters 



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