Ogimawkwe Mitigwaki (Queen of the Woods)

The Algonquin Language

· 83 · TheAlgonquinLanguage Simon Pokagon In presenting “Queen of the Woods” to the public, I realize that many of its readers will inquire why so many Indian words are used. All such will please bear in mind that the manuscript was first written in the Algonquin language,the only language spoken by me until fourteen years of age, and that in translating it into English, many parts of it seem to lose their force and euphony, insomuch that I deeply regret that “Queen of the Woods” can not be read by the white people in my own language. It is indeed mortifying for me to consider that outside of the proper names of lakes, streams, and places, our language is being almost entirely ignored by the incoming race, while other languages of foreign birth are entering largely into the English dialect;and our children,who are being educated in the white man’s schools,are forsaking and forgetting their mother tongue. In consideration of the fact that the language of the great Algonquin family, which once was spoken by hundreds of thousands throughout more than half of North America, is fast passing away, I have retained such Indian words and expressions as appear in “Queen of the Woods,” as monuments along the way, to remind the reader in after-generations, that such a language as ours was once spoken throughout this loved land of my fathers. · 84 · The Algonquin Language I also wish to leave on record the fact that our language is not a sort of “gibberish,” as some believe, containing a few hundred words, but that, on the contrary, it contains at least twenty thousand words, aside from their many variations. There are only seventeen letters in the pure Algaic language: four vowels, a, e, i, o, and thirteen consonants, b, c, d, g, h, j, k, m, n, p, s, t, w. They pronounce f and v like b or p; and l and r like n. Like every other language, it has its own orthography. The sound of the vowels never changes. The four vowels are pronounced as follows: a, as in father (as anakanan, mats); e, as in met (as eteg, what there is; eta, only); i, as in pin (as inini, a man; iwidi, there); o, as in note (as in odon, his mouth; okoge, its bill). These rules have no exception in our language. Where two or more vowels come together, each must be sounded. There are some diphthongs in this language; for instance, ai, ei, oi, ia, ie, io, and both vowels must be distinctly sounded. Examples: misai (fish), pronounced mi-sai; apakwei (a mat to cover a lodge), pronounced a-pa-kwei; saiagiad (whom thou lovest), pronounced sa-ia-gi-ad. There are nine parts of speech in our language, as follows: — 1. the Substantive; as, inini (man), ikwe (woman), wigiwam (a lodge) 2. the Pronoun; as, nin (I), kin (thou), win (he, she, or it) 3. the Verb; as, nin gigit (I speak), ki nondam (thou hearest) 4. the Adjective; as, gwanatch (beautiful), matchi (bad) 5. the Number; as, midasswi (ten), nigtana (twenty) 6. the Preposition; as, nawaii (in the midst) 7. the Adverb; as, sesika (suddenly), nibiwa (much) 8. the Conjunction; as gaie (and), kishpin (if) 9. the Interjection; as, hoi! (hallo!); haw! (go on!) I believe that in our language there is greater liberty in the transposition of the words in a sentence than in any other, unless it may be the Latin language; and even in that, the changes can not be made without suffering greater violence than in ours. For example, we will take the following sentence : K ’oss (thy father) tabiija (will come) oma (here) nongom (to-day). The Algonquin Language· 85 · example K ’oss tabiija oma nongom. Thy father will come here today. Nongom oma tabiija k ’oss. Today here will come thy father. Tabiija k ’oss oma nongom. Will come thy father here today. Nongom oma k ’oss tabiija. Today here thy father will come. Oma nongom k ’oss tabiija. Here today thy father will come. Tabiija k ’oss nongom oma. Will come thy father today here. K ’oss nongom tabiija oma. Thy father today will come here. Oma tabiija nongom k ’oss. Here will come today thy father. Another peculiarity of our language is that in some cases men have their own interjections, and the women have theirs; for instance, the men and boys will say, Atawa! or tiwe! and the women and...