Evans.[94] I
stated to him the analytical mode which I had pursued in my lectures on
the structure of the languages, with the very best helps at St. Mary's;
and that I had found it to yield to this process--that the Algonquin
was, in fact, an aggregation of monasyllabic roots: that words and
expressions were formed entirely of a limited number of original roots
and particles, which had generic meanings. That new words, however
compounded, carried these meanings to the Indian ear, and were
understood by it in all possible forms of accretion and syllabication.
That the derivatives founded on these roots of one or two syllables,
could all be taken apart and put together like a piece of machinery.
That the principles were fixed, philosophical, and regular, and that,
although the language had some glaring defects, as the want of a
feminine pronoun, and many redundancies, they were admirably adapted to
describe geographical and meteorological scenes. That it was a language
of _woods and wilds_. That it failed to convey knowledge, only because
it had apparently never been applied to it.
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