many guttural letters which are formed -more in the throat than by the mouth, teeth, and lips, which our people not being accustomed to, guess at by means of their signs, and then It imagine that they have accomplished something wonderful. is

true, one can learn as much as

of trading, but

this

is

sufficient for the purposes

occurs almost as

thumb and fingers as by speaking.

much by signs with the

It also seems to us that

they

rather design to conceal their language from us than to

properly communicate it, except in things which happen in daily trade ; saying that it is sufficient for us to understand them in those

:

and then they speak only half their reasons with shortened words ; and frequently call a dozen things and even more by

HUDSON RIVER INDIANS.

one name

;

and

all

things which have only a rude resemblance same name. In truth

to each other they frequently call by the it is

a made up childish language

:

so that even those

who can

best of all speak with the Indians and get along well in trade, are nevertheless wholly in the dark and bewildered when they

hear the Indians speaking

Another writer says

cc :

with

each

other by themselves."

The language of this people is very

various ; they are very difficult for strangers to learn as they without any principles." And Van der Donck,

are spoken

writing in 1656, concludes: "Their languages and dialects are very different, as unlike each other as the Dutch, French, Greek are. Their declensions and conjugations have an the Greek and accord to it. Their declensions, with affinity and adverbs, are like the Greek ; but to cases augmentations,