[154] Major Ebenezer Denny's "Journal" in _Memoirs of the Hist. Soc. of Penna_.,âpé Vol. VII, pp. 481-86.
[155] _Report upon the Indian Tribes_, by Whipple, Ewbank and Turner, p. 56 (Washington, 1855).
[156] _History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes_, Vol. II, p. 470.
[157] I am aware that in this proposition I am following the German and French linguists, Steinthal, F. Müller, Adam, Henry, etc., and not our own distinguished authority on Algonkin grammar, Dr J Hammond Trumbull, who, in his essay "On the Algonkin Verb," has learnedly maintained another opinion (_Transactions of the American Philological Association_, 1876, p. 146). I have not been able, however, to convince myself that his position is correct. The formative elements of the Algonkin paradigms appear to me simply attached particles, and not true inflections Their real character is obscured by phonetic laws, just as in the Finnish when compared with the Hungarian.
[158] "Ungemein wohlkhngend." Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission_, p. 24. An early traveler of English nationality pronounced it "sweet, of noble sound and accent." Gabriel Thomas, _Hist. and Geog. Account of Pensilvania and West New Jersey_, p. 47 (London, 1698).
[159] _Key into the Language of North America_, p. 129. See, also, Mr. Bickering's remarks on the same subject, in his Appendix to Rasles' _Dictionary of the Abnaki_.
[160] Howse, _Grammar of the Cree Language_, p. 316.
[161] See his _Ancient Society_, pp. 172-73.
[162] The native name of William Penn offers an instance of this phonetic alteration. It is given as _Onas_. The proper form is _Wonach_. It literally means the tip or extremity of anything; as _wonach-sitall_, the tips of the toes; _wonach-gulinschall_, the tips of the fingers. The inanimate plural form _wolanniall_, means the tail feathers of a bird. To explain the name _Penn_ to the Indians a feather was shown them, probably a quill pen, and hence they gave the translation _Wonach_, corrupted into _Onas_.
[163] _Trans. Am. Philol. Assoc._, 1872, p. 157.
[164] De Schweinitz, _Life of Zeisberger_, p. 131.
_The Root and the Formation of the Theme._--As they appear in the language of to-day, the Lenape radicals are chiefly monosyllables, which undergo more or less modifications in composition. They cannot be used alone, the tongue having long since passed from that interjectional condition where each of these roots conveyed a whole sentence in itself.