Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/141

expressions are found in all languages and in the English as well as in the Basque or any American. In this very instance there is no pretence for any fragment corresponding to the word 'give' in the compound 'Kuligatschis.' That word 'give' is therefore to be understood, and the abbreviated forms of the other words 'uli' for 'wulit' and 'gat' for 'wichgat', may be easily compared with numberless instances of the same kind in our own language and indeed every other. The second instance Dr. Prichard has quoted is from Heckewelder, and of the same character. He says "The Lenni Lenape express by one word and that not a very long one the phrase 'come with the canoe and take us across the river.' The word is nadholineen. The first syllable nad is derived from the verb naten to fetch; the second hol is put for amochol, a boat or canoe; ineen is the verbal termination meaning 'us', as in millineen 'give us'. The simple ideas expressed by these fragments of words are 'fetch in canoe us;' but its usual acceptation is 'come and fetch us across the river with a canoe.' The verb thus formed is conjugated through all the moods and tenses, which are in the Delaware language very numerous and complicated. Thus nadholawal is the form of the third person singular indicative in the present tense and passive voice; it means 'he is fetched over the river in a canoe'." p. 309. Such are the instances adduced of the system of agglutination, upon which we are called upon to pronounce the American languages formed on a peculiar basis. Had we the new word or new verb conjugated throughout, we might perhaps come to a different conclusion, but otherwise this instance seems like the other a contracted phrase, such as is common in familiar discourse especially among uneducated people in all languages. As in the first instance there was no pretence for a word or fragment of a word answering to the word give — so in this instance there is no letter or fragment pretending to be equivalent to the phrase "across the river." That is therefore to be understood and is selfevidently only intended. It must therefore be thrown entirely out of our consideration of the new alleged compound, nadholineen. Then of the syllables forming this compound, nad as the imperative of the verb naten to fetch is surely no fragment or abbreviation nor is the word ineen the pronoun 'us.' Hol for amichol may be easily supposed a familiar name for a boat, as Bus is for omnibus with us, so the word is merely answerable to "fetch us the boat." The word afterwards given nadholawal, literally 'he is fetched in a boat', shows thus only a combination similar to what may be found in