American Languages in New France: Extracts from the Jesuit Relations (review)

This is a disappointing book. The publisher's announcement promises a collection of 'valuable fragments of linguistic data and accounts of Native language as used among the Algonquian and Iroquoian tribes of New France,' including 'extended tracts in various Native American languages,' a concordance, a linguistic classification, and 'nearly 100' brief biographies of the most prominent Jesuits. As it turns out, the key word is fragments: Salvucci has assembled all the references to Native languages in the Jesuit Relations, but many are only two or three lines, presented without context or explanation; the longest are two four-page extracts from Paul Le Jeune (1634) on Montagnais, and a ten-page specimen of Huron with interlinear translation from Jérôme Lalement (1640-41). The 'concordance' (291-311) is just an alphabetized index of words from two distinct language families, without language identifications, translations, or cross-references to spelling variants or cognate forms. The linguistic classification (313-21), drawn from the Smithsonian's Handbook of North American Indians (vol. 17, 1996), omits Tunica, Houma, and some other languages shown on the map at the end of the volume. There are actually eighty-nine 'biographies' (323-31), two to six lines each, selected from those prepared by A.E. Jones in 1900.

The main problem is that this book does not include any extracts from the actual Jesuit Relations. Historians (and linguists) are taught to use original sources whenever possible; few have access to first editions of the Relations, but the reprint edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites (73 vols., Cleveland, 1896-1901; facsimile edition New York, 1959, and on CIHM microfiche) is widely available, and there are also more recent scholarly editions of some volumes. It would of course be useful to have all the passages relating to Native languages gathered together, but only if the editor could improve on what was already available, correcting misprints in the original editions, translating both the French and the Native languages accurately, and pointing out the missionaries' mistakes and misunderstandings. Instead, here we are given only the English translations of the Thwaites edition, in which the Native words were respelled to make them look less exotic; even the most obvious misprints (e.g., Vortmandia for Nortmandia, 'the Normans,' 1:163; taponé and Tap de for tap8é/tapoué, 'in truth,' 5:105, 29:223; natchi manitou for matchi manitou, 'the evil spirit,' 49:67) remain, with a few new ones introduced; and the only page references provided are for the first line of each extract.

Some extracts could have been omitted with no loss to scholarship, for instance '"I love nothing in the world so much as petun or tobacco," said he' (29:157; the French word pétun is listed in the 'concordance') and 'Good Madame de la Pelterie ... does not cease to visit these poor people; she speaks to them with her eyes not being able to speak to them in their language' (20:139). Others would have been more informative if the locality or tribe were specified: 'God gave a small wild fruit, called here Atoka' (43:147; New France or Huronia?); 'Their language is a regular one' (15:155; presumably Huron, but the preceding extract refers to Algonquin); and many entries of the type 'they put them in the charge of one of our Fathers, who knew their language' (48:107) in which 'they' and 'their language' are unidentified.

Edna Kenton's The Indians of North America (2 vols., New York, 1927) contains much of the same material and would be a better choice for the non-specialist, since she provided much more context, proper pagination, and some of Thwaites's footnotes. The specialist, whether historian or linguist, will still have to consult the Thwaites edition for the original French (or Latin) text and the historical and ethnographic background.

As Salvucci points out in his introduction, the Jesuit Relations do provide glimpses of the many languages formerly spoken in New...