More ample proofs of the connexion of the dialects examined by Du Ponceau with those of the Old World, occur hereafter. In this place I must confine myself to one remarkable example.
With reference to the names given by the Indians to the great object of their worship, Du Ponceau states the result of his analysis to be that the names of the Supreme Being in all the Indian dialects he has explored, primarily mean “a Spirit.” But there is one instance, he adds, in which he has not been able to verify this conclusion, viz. in that of the dialect of the Abenaki tribe. It is true, he remarks, that “Father Raffles” had made a statement tending to show that in this instance there was no exception to the general rule he (Du Ponceau) had adopted, for, according to Father Raffles, in the dialect of the Abenaki the name of the Supreme Being was Ke tsi Niou esk ou, and these words K etsi “_Ni ou eskou_,” mean the Great “_Spirit_ or Genius;” while the name of the Evil Being was Matsi “_Nioueskou_,” and these terms mean the Evil “Spirit or Genius.”
But Du Ponceau intimates that he has not been able by means of his own researches to satisfy himself of the accuracy of Father Raffles’s statement, as to the origin of these words, and he adds, “I do not know whence this word ‘Ni oueskou’ comes.” (“Je ne sais pas d’où vient ce mot Nioueskou.”)
Among the specimens he has published of words used in the Iroquois dialects, a class of Indian languages which he has not minutely analysed, Du Ponceau gives _“__N’ iou__”_ as the name of “the Deity.”
Now the following comparison exhibits the remarkable fact that these words “_N’iou_” and “Nioueskou” may be distinctly and extensively recognized in the languages of the old world, in the very sense which, according to Father Raffles, was the primitive meaning of “Nioueskou” among the Abenaki tribe of Indians, viz., in that of “_a Spirit or Genius_.” They also reappear in physical meanings, which, according to Horne Tooke’s principles, may, à priori, be pronounced to be philologically analogous.
The resemblance of the Indian terms to the European and Asiatic words is as close as the resemblance which exists between such words of the two latter classes as belong to the same languages or to the same group of languages. The variation of inflection between N’ioh and Niou-es kou, may also be restored; compare No- (the root or unchangeable part of “Noos,”) with “No-os Nous,” “The Mind,” (in the nominative case, _Greek_.) Compare also “Nose,” (_English_,) with “Nas-ika,” (_Sanscrit_.)