The Esquimaux had the free use of the sound of the letter
_l_, which was not used at all by the N.E. Indians.
Mr. Gallatin, in a letter of Feb. 22, in response to me on this subject,
says: "The letter _L_ occurs in every Esquimaux dialect of which I have
any knowledge. Thus heaven or sky, is in Greenland, _Killak_; Hudson's
Bay, _Keiluk_; Kadick Islands, _Kelisk_; Kotzebue's Sound, _Keilyak_;
Asiatic Tshuktchi, _Kuelok_.
"I am not so certain about the _v_, which I find used only by Egede, or
Crantz (not distinguished from each other in my collection) for the
Greenland dialect. In their conjurations I find 'we (sing. and dual)
wash them' Ernikp-auvut, and Ernikp-auvuk. In the Mithradites, the same
letter _v_ is repeatedly used in dual examples of the Greenland and
Labrador dialects, principally (as it appears to me) but not exclusively
in the pronominal terminations, _picksaukonik, akeetvor, tivut_,
Profetiv-vit! that is, good ours, debtors ours, a prophet art thou.
"By comparing this with the pronouns of the other Esquimaux dialects, I
suspect that _oo_ and _w_ in these, are used instead of _v_.
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