{viii} As the mode of spelling a language which has never been reduced to a grammatical system, must be arbitrary, and principally depend on the ear, I have endeavoured to use such letters as best agree with the English pronunciation; avoiding a multiplicity of consonants, which only perplex: and to enable the reader to speak so as to be understood by the natives, it is necessary to observe that _a_ is generally sounded broad; and _e_ final never pronounced but in monosyllables. The following are the motives which induced me to make the Vocabulary in the Chippeway language so copious. In the first place it is, strictly speaking, one of the mother tongues of North America, and universally spoken in council by the chiefs who reside about the great lakes, to the westward of the banks of the Mississippi, as far south as the Ohio, and as far north as Hudson’s Bay; notwithstanding many of the tribes, within the space of territory I have described, speak in common a different language.—This observation is confirmed by authors of established repute, and further proved by the concurrent testimony of the Indian interpreters. Baron de Lahontan[12] asserts that the Algonkin is a mother tongue, and that it is in as much estimation in North America, as Greek and Latin in Europe: this being admitted, I am persuaded the Chippeway language possesses as much, if not greater merit, as it is in every respect better understood by the northwest Indians. But as the knowledge of both {ix} may not only be useful, but necessary, I have given a comparative table of about two hundred and sixty words in both tongues, that the reader may use either as he shall find it best understood by the tribes with whom he may have occasion to trade; though he will find, in a variety of instances, a perfect accordance. The table of words in the Muhhekaneew, or Mohegan, and Shawanee tongues, are extracted from the Rev. Mr. Edwards’s publication, and are inserted to shew their analogy with the Chippeway language;[13] and, as he observes that the language of the Delawares in Pennsylvania, of the Penobscots on the borders of Nova Scotia, of the Indians of St. Francis, in Canada, of the Shawanees on the Ohio, and many other tribes of Savages radically agree, I judged the tables of analogy would not be unacceptable. In the course of the historical part, several speeches in the Chippeway language are introduced: and at the end of the Vocabulary, a number of familiar phrases, which not only serve to shew the mode of speech, but give a better idea of the language than single words. The numeral _payshik_, or one, is frequently used to express the articles _a_ and _the_; and _woke_ is the general word for the plural number, though not always used.