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,

and Latin

reduce their language to any of ours, would be impossible, for Before we have there is no resemblance between the same. acquired a knowledge of any of their languages or dialects, know no more of what they say than if a dog had barked."

While subject,

we

these sturdy Dutch linguists were plodding over the the Rev. John Eliot, of Massachusetts, had grasped

the hidden key of the language and proclaimed that it had prin ciples and form ; that

even that which Michaelius denominated

" shortened words " was made

in

accordance with rules, and

that in the observation of that writer of the fact that they fre " a dozen things and even more by one name," quently called

he had simply failed to note the inflections which constituted But notwithstanding an important principle of the language. the publication of Eliot's grammar in 1666, and the observations of the Jesuit and Moravian priests, it was not until 1819 that

Du Ponceau, after a thorough comparison of the Writings of predecessors, was enabled " That the American