LETTER XI.

FROM MR. HECKEWELDER.

BETHLEHEM, 24th June, 1816.

DEAR SIR.--I now proceed to answer the several queries contained in your letter of the 13th inst.

1. The double consonants are used in writing the words of the Delaware language, for the sole purpose of indicating that the vowel which immediately precedes them is short, as in the German words _immer_, _nimmer_, _schimmer_, and the English _fellow_, _terrible_, _ill_, _butter_, &c. The consonant is not to be articulated twice.

2. The apostrophe which sometimes follows the letters _n_ and _k_, is intended to denote the contraction of a vowel, as _n’pommauchsi_, for _ni pommauchsi_, _n’dappiwi_, for _ni dappiwi_, &c. If Mr. Zeisberger has placed the apostrophe in any case before the consonant, he must have done it through mistake.

3. There is a difference in pronunciation between _ke_ and _que_; the latter is pronounced like _kue_ or _kwe_. In a verb, the termination _ke_ indicates the first person of the plural, and _que_ the second.

4. The word _wenn_, employed in the German translation of the tenses of the conjunctive mood of the Delaware verbs, means both _when_, and _if_, and is taken in either sense according to the content of the phrase in which the word is used. Examples: _Ili gachtingetsch pommauchsiane_, “IF I live until the next year”--_Payane Philadelphia_, “WHEN I come to Philadelphia.”

5. Sometimes the letters _c_ or _g_, are used in writing the Delaware language instead of _k_, to shew that this consonant is not pronounced too hard; but in general _c_ and _g_ have been used as substitutes for _k_, because our printers had not a sufficient supply of types for that character.

6. Where words are written with _ij_, both the letters are to be articulated; the latter like the English _y_ before a vowel. For this reason in writing Delaware words I often employ the _y_ instead of _j_, which Mr. Zeisberger and the German Missionaries always make use of. Thus _Elsija_ is to be pronounced like _Elsiya_.

7. Answered in part above, No. 5. The double vowels are merely intended to express length of sound, as in the German.

8. _Ch_, answers to the X of the Greeks, and _ch_ of the Germans. _Hh_, like all other duplicated consonants, indicates only the short sound of the preceding vowels.

I am, &c.