The translator is a French missionary,
who has long resided among those Indians in Canada. He has written a
grammar and dictionary of that idiom, which he writes me he is shortly
going to put to press. It will be curious to compare that grammar and
that dictionary with your own, and to see how far the two languages, the
Algonquin and the Chippewa, agree with or differ from each other. When I
was in Canada I heard much of this Mr. Thavenet, the name of that
missionary. He enjoys a great reputation in this country, and it seems
he has obtained the favor of the Pope.
"We have in this city a Mexican gentleman, Don Manuel Najera, a man of
letters, well skilled in the Mexican and other Indian languages of that
country. He says they are all, as I call them, polysynthetic, and
resemble in that respect those of the Indians of the United States. One
only he excepts, the Othomi, and that, he says, is monosyllabic, like
the Chinese. He has translated into it, from the Greek, the eleventh Ode
of Anacreon, which I am going to present to the Philosophical Society.
Pages:
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090