There is danger that newspapers in America will too much supersede and usurp the place of books, and lead to a superficial knowledge of things. Gleaning the papers in search of that which is really useful, candid, and fair seems too much like hunting for grains of wheat in a chaos of chaff.
_3d_. Our third express went off this morning, freighted with our letters, and, of course, with our reasons, our sentiments, our thanks, our disappointments, our hopes, and our fears.
_6th_. I resumed the subject of the Indian language.
_Osánimun_ is the word for vermilion. This word is compounded from _unimun_, or plant yielding a red dye, and _asawa_, yellow. The peculiar color of yellow-red is thus indicated. _Bëizha_ is the neuter verb "to come." This verb appears to remain rigid in its conjugation, the tenses being indicated exclusively by inflections of the pronoun. Thus _nim beizha, I_ come; _ningee peizha_, I came; _ninguh peizha_, I will come. The pronoun alone is declined for past and future tense, namely _gee_ and _guh_.
There does not appear to be any definite article in the Chippewa language. _Pazhik_ means one, or an. It may be doubtful whether the former sense is not the exclusive one. _Ahow_ is this person in the animate form. _Ihiw_ is the corresponding inanimate form. More care than I have devoted may, however, be required to determine this matter.
Verbs, in the Chippewa, must agree in number and tense with the noun. They must also agree in gender, that is, verbs animate must have nouns animate. They must also have animate pronouns and animate adjectives. Vitality, or the want of vitality, seems to be the distinction which the inventors of the language, seized upon, to set up the great rules of its syntax.
Verbs, in the Chippewa language, are converted into nouns by adding the particle _win_.
_Kegido_, to speak. _Kegido-win,_ speech. This appears to be a general rule. The only doubt I have felt is, whether the noun formed is so purely elementary as not to partake of a participial character.
There are two plurals to express the word "we," one of which _includes_, and the other _excludes_, the person addressed. Neither of these forms is a dual.
_Os_ signifies father; _nos_ is my father; _kos_, thy father; _osun_, his or her father. The vowel in this word is sounded like the _o_, in note.