There is not, perhaps, any one language or speech, except the Hebrew, and the Indian American, which has not a great many prepositions. The Indians, like the Hebrews, have none in separate and express words. They are forced to join certain characters to words, in order to supply that great defect. The Hebrew consonants, called _serviles_, were tools to supply the place of the prepositions. The Indians, for want of a sufficient number of radical words, are forced to apply the same noun and verb, to signify many things of a various nature. With the Cheerake, _Eeankke_, signifies a _prisoner_, _captive_, _slave_, _awl_, _pin_, _needle_, &c.; which occasions the Indian dialects to be very difficult to strangers. The Jewish Rabbins tell us, that the Hebrew language contains only a few more than a thousand primitive words, of which their whole language is formed. So that the same word very often denotes various, though not contrary things. But there is one radical meaning, which will agree to every sense that word is used in. By custom, a Hebrew noun frequently supplied the place of a pronoun; by which means, it caused a tedious, and sometimes an ambiguous circumlocution. From this original defective standard of speech, the Indians have forgotten all their pronouns, except two primitives and two relatives; as, _Anòwah_, _Ego_, and _Ishna_, _Tu_: the latter bears a great many significations, both as singular and plural, viz. _Eeàpa_ and _Eeàko_; which signify he, she, this, that, &c.: And they are likewise adverbs of place; as here, there, &c. הוא _Hewa_, signifies he or she; אני _Ani_ we; and אנ, _Anowa_, he, she, him, her, &c. {39} The Hebrew language frequently uses hyperboles, or magnifying numbers, to denote a long space of time: the Indians, accordingly, apply the words, _Neetak akroohah_, “all days,” or, in other words, “for ever,” to a long series of years. With the Jews, sitting, signified dwelling; and, with the Indians, it is the very same; for, when they ask a person where he dwells, they say, _Katèmuk Ishbeneele_ (_chuak?_), which is literally “where do you sit?” And when they call us irreligious, they say _Nãna U-bat_, “_No thing_,” or literally, “a relation to nothing;” for _Nãna_ signifies a relation: and the other is always a negative adverbial period; which seems also to proceed from a religious custom of the Hebrews, in giving despicable borrowed names to idols; as to בעלים, Baalim, “Particles of air,” meaning, _nothing_. To which the Psalmist alludes, saying, “I will not take up their names in my lips.” And St. Paul says, “We know that an idol is _nothing_.” This expression the Indians apply, in a pointed metaphor, to the white people, but never to each other.