Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,003 pages of information about Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers.

Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,003 pages of information about Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers.

THE ORDINARY NOUNS WOULD RUN THUS:—­

In, Man.  Ind, Men.

Ee, Woman.  Eed, Women.

Ab, Child.  Abad, Children.

Kwi, Boy.  Kwid, Boys.

Kwa, Girl.  Kwad, Girls.

Os, Father.  Osad, Fathers.

Gai, Mother.  Gaid, Mothers.

All the existing monosyllables of the language would be retained, but subjected to new laws of construction and concordance.  Thus the plural of Koan, snow, would be koanad; of ais, shell, aisad; moaz, moas, moazad, &c.  Variety in the production of sounds, and of proper cadences in composition, might dictate retention of a certain class of the dissyllables—­as ossin a stone, opin a potato, akki earth, mejim food, assub a net, aubo a liquid, mittig a tree, &c., the plurals of which would be assinad, opinad, akkid, mejimad, assubad, aubad, mittigad.  Every substantive would have a diminutive form in is, and an augmentative in chi, the vowel of the latter to be dropped where a vowel begins the word.  Thus, chab, a grandchild; chigai, a grandmother. Inis, a little man; osis, a little father, &c.

Adjectives would come under the same rules of abbreviation as nouns and verbs.  They would be deprived of their present accidents of number and gender.

Min, Good.  Koona, Ugly.

Mon, Bad.  Soan, Strong.

Bish, Handsome.

The colors, seasons, cardinal points, &c., would consist of the first syllable of the present words.

The demonstrative pronouns, this, that, there, those, would take the following forms:  Mau, this; aho, that.  By adding the common plural, the terms for these and those would be produced:  Maud, these; ahod, those.

The prepositions would fall naturally under the rule of abbreviation applied to nouns, &c. Chi, by; peen, in; kish, if, &c.; li, of; ra, to; vi, is; af, at.

Ieau is the verb to be.  The auxiliary verbs, have, shall, will, &c., taken from the tensal particles, are ge, gu, gei, go, ga.

Pa may stand for the definite article, being the first syllable of pazhik; and a comma for the indefinite article.

Ie is matter. Ishi, heaven.

EXAMPLES.

Ni sa Eo—­I love God
Eo vi min—­The Lord is good
Nin os ge pa min in—­My father was a good man
Ishiod (Isheod)—­The heavens.

Thus a new language might be formed.

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Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.