Book Description

Excerpt from A Grammar of the Massachusetts Indian Language The languages of the American Indians, however little value may be attached to them, as the source of what is frequently (though without much discrimination) called useful knowledge, have for some time deeply engaged theattention of the learned in Europe, as exhibiting nu merous phenomena, if the term may be applied, the know ledge Of which will be found indispensable to a just theory of speech. It is 'true, indeed, that we have long had our systemsof universal grammar, or in other words our the ories of language, as, deduced from the small number of European and Oriental tongues, which have been the sub jectof investigation with scholars; just as in the physi cal sciences we have had, for example, our theories of chemistry, founded upon the comparatively small number of phenomena, which had been Observed in past ages. Butthe discovery of numerous facts of the most surpris ing character in that science, even within our own me mory, has compelled the, chemists of the present age to reexamine the Old, and resort to new theories and from thegreat advances made in Comparative Philology in the present age, particularly by means of an extensive ao quaintance with the unwritten dialects of barbarous nations, there is reason -to believe that some important modifications are yet to be made in our theories of language. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.