The elaborate article on the Indian Languages of America in the
Encyclopædia Americana is from his pen. The subject was considered so
interesting, in regard to general and comparative philology, while
so little was known respecting it, that a space was allowed to this
article beyond that of other philological articles in the Encyclopædia.
The forthcoming volume of Memoirs of the American Academy contains
an interesting paper of a kindred character, one of his latest
productions, on the Language and Inhabitants of Lord North's Island, in
the Indian Archipelago, with a Vocabulary.
The Address before the American Oriental Society, delivered and
published in 1843, as the first number of the Journal of that body, is
an admirable contribution to the history of languages, presenting a
survey of the peculiar field of labor to which the Society is devoted,
in a style which attracts alike the scholar and the less critical
reader.
Among his other productions in philology may be mentioned an
interesting article on the Chinese Language, which first appeared
in the North American Review for January, 1839, and was afterwards
_dishonestly reprinted, as an original article_, in the London Monthly
Review for December, 1840; also an article on the Cochin-Chinese
Language, published in the North American Review for April, 1841;
another on Adelung's "Survey of Languages," in the same journal, in
1822; a review of Johnson's Dictionary, in the American Quarterly
Review for September, 1828; and two articles in the New York Review
for 1826, being a caustic examination of General Cass's article in the
North American Review respecting the Indians of North America. These
two papers were not acknowledged by their author at the time they were
written. They purport to be by KASS-_ti-ga-tor-skee_, or _The Feathered
Arrow_, a fictitious name from the Latin CAS-_tigator_ and an Indian
termination _skee_ or _ski_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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