Some nations of Europe, amongst others the Germans, have the power of combining at pleasure different expressions, and thus giving a complex sense to certain words. The Indians have given a most surprising extension to this power, so as to arrive at the means of connecting a great number of ideas with a single term. This will be easily understood with the help of an example quoted by Mr. Duponceau, in the Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of America.
“A Delaware woman playing with a cat or a young dog,” says this writer, “is heard to pronounce the word kuligatschis, which is thus composed: k is the sign of the second person, and signifies ‘thou’ or ‘thy;’ uli is a part of the word wulit, which signifies ‘beautiful,’ ‘pretty;’ gat is another fragment of the word wichgat, which means ‘paw;’ and, lastly, schis is a diminutive giving the idea of smallness. Thus in one word the Indian woman has expressed, ‘Thy pretty little paw.’ ”
Take another example of the felicity with which the savages of America have composed their words. A young man of Delaware is called pilapé. This word is formed from pilsit, chaste, innocent; and lenapé, man; viz. man in his purity and innocence.
This facility of combining words is most remarkable in the strange formation of their verbs. The most complex action is often expressed by a single verb, which serves to convey all the shades of an idea by the modification of its construction.
Those who may wish to examine more in detail this subject, which I have only glanced at superficially, should read:—
1. The correspondence of Mr. Duponceau and the Rev. Mr. Hecwelder relative to the Indian languages, which is to be found in the first volume of the Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of America, published at Philadelphia, 1819, by Abraham Small; vol. i. p. 356-464.
2. The grammar of the Delaware or Lenape language by Geiberger, and the preface of Mr. Duponceau. All these are in the same collection; vol. iii.
3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end of the 6th volume of the American Encyclopædia.
Appendix D. — Vol. I. p. 9.
See in Charlevoix, vol. i. p. 235, the history of the first war which the French inhabitants of Canada carried on, in 1610,
