Difficulties exist in writing it, from the want of an exact
and uniform system of notation. The vowels assume their short and
slender as well as broad sounds. The language appears to want entirely
the consonant sounds of f, l, r, v, and x. In conjugating their verbs,
the three primary tenses are well made out, but it is doubtful how much
exactitude exists in the forms given for the oblique and conditional
tenses. If it be true that the language is more corrupt now than at a
former age, it is important to inquire in what this corruption consists,
and how it came about. "To rescue it," I observe at the close of a
letter now on my table to his Excellency Governor C., transmitting him a
vocabulary of one hundred and fifty words, "To rescue it from that
oblivion to which the tribe itself is rapidly hastening, while yet it
may be attempted, with a prospect of success, will constitute a novel
and pleasing species of amusement during the long evenings of that
dreary cold winter of which we have already had a foretaste.
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