The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-08-15
THE ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES
OF AMERICA:
Their Wealth and Peculiarities.
THE CHOCTAW (CHAHTA) LANGUAGE:
Its Great Variety of Forms and
Singular Combinations.

was made In 1919 by MIR. Peter S. Duponceau
distinguished French refugee from St. Do
mingo, who took up his residence in Phila
delphia, where he attained great eminence
both as a jurist and an Oriental scholar
Thoroughly versed in the languages of tn
East, Mr.. Duponceau applied his vas
stores of pathological learning to the investi
cation of the idioms of the Five Nations
and especially of that of the Delaware Indians
Into this field of research he was soon fol
lowed by eminent American and European
llnguists, prominent among whom stand
Hecke welder, Schooicraft and Wilhelm Hum
boldt. The result of these investigations was
the discovery of the important fact of a won
derful organization by which those languages
are distinguished from all the other idioms Of
the known world. It was further shown
that-as regards the unwritten speech of the
North American Indians at least-the aston
ishing variety of idioms which exists in the
Eastern Hemisphere is not to be found in the
Western. They are neither naonosylabic like the
Chinese, nor analytical, like those of the North
of Europe, but are characterized by Mr..
Duponceau as poEysynthstic, from the numer.
Gus combinations of ideas which they present
in the form of compound words. It was
further demonstrated that the American lam
guages are rich in words, and regular in their
syntactical forms, yielding in that respect to no
other idiom.
"The pride of civilization says a very
able writer on this subjsct-"is reluctant to
admit facts like these, because they show how
little philosophy and science have to do with
the formation of language. A vague idea still
prevails that the idioms Of barbarous tribes
must be greatly inferior to those of civilized
nations" and even Humboldt, in his ingeni-
GUS and profound dissertation on the forms
of languages, while admitting that those of
the American Indians are rich, methodical
and artificial in their structure, denies to
them genuine grammatical forms, because
their words are not infected like those of the
Greek, Latin and Sanscrit, but are formed by
0 different process, which he calls agglutiHa-
ton.
Upon this question ISSUE is taken by most
American philologists, although they all agree
that this process of agglutination though not
the only one employed in the Indian Ian
guages, is undoubtedly the most curious one
10 be found therein. "By this MEANS" says
Gov. Golden, speaking of the Iroquois
80 these nations can increase their words to
any extent. None of the languages of the
Did World, that we know Of, appears to pos
less this prerogative; multitude of ideas are
combined together by process which, by
whatever name it may be called, is neverthe
ess subject of real wonder to the inquiring
One example from the Delaware
language will convey clear idea of this pro-
Tess of compromising; "and have chosen,
Jays Mr.. Du ponce ~, " this word for the sake
If its euphony, to which even the most deli
'ate Italian ear will not object. When Del
ware woman is playing with little cat or
log. or other small animal, she will often say
70 it, kulgatschis, which I would translate
nto English, 'give me your pretty little pa,c.
n ,nhat a pretty little pa,o you haze w"
This word is com pounded thus K is the
pronoun Of the second person,
md may be rendered thou or thy, according
o the context; ui pronounced oolee) is part
If the word aoulit, which signifies handsome or
,retty; gat is part of the word ,oichgat, which
ignifies leg ora pa,o; schis pronounced
cheess) is diminutive termination, and con.
'eys the idea of EHleness. Thus, in one word,
he Indian woman says, thy pretty little paU !
nd according to the gesture which she makes,
ither calls upon it to present its foot, or
imply expresses her fondling admiration.
n the same manner piQps IA YOUTH is formed
rom pasH (chaste, innocenD aud lenape "a
man, 1t is difficult to find more elegant
ombination of ideas in a single word in any
xisting idiom. l do not know of any language
ut of this part of the world in which words
re compounded in this manner. The pro-
ess consists in putting together portions of
ifferent words so as to awaken at the same
IDEAS which they separately express.
Mr.. Duponceau then goes on to remark
hat this is not the only manner in which the
lmerican Indians combine their ideas into
words, and asserts that they have also many
f the forms which we SO much admire in the
attn, Greek, Sanscrit Sclavonic and other
languages of the Hindo-European stock. He
peaks Of their transitive conjugations, ex-
PRESSING, at the same time, the idea of the
,erson acting and that acted upon-of their
,asinq together two verbs into one to ex-
,ress compound action, as in the Delaware
|, schinqi,oipon,a, which means :" do not like
o eat with him." of the curious part played
" their adverbs, and of the various and nice
hades of meaning conveyed by the different
orms of their subjunctive mood, future lenses,
to-, all of which applies with equal force to
he structure and grammar of the Chahta
anguage, as we shall now proceed to show
rom the examples supplied to US by Father
aouquette.
Suppose, for instance, you should exhibit
L. al buff