The dialect which the Moravian missionaries learned, and in which they composed their works, was that of the Lehigh Valley. That it was not an impure Minsi mixed with Mohegan, as Dr. Trumbull seems to think[163], is evident from the direct statements of the missionaries themselves, as well as from Heckewelder's Minsi vocabularies, which show many points of divergence from the printed books. Moreover, among the first converts from the Delaware nation were members of the Unami or Turtle tribe, and Zeisberger was brought into immediate contact with them[164]. We may fairly consider it to have been the upper or inland Unami, which, as I have said, was recognized by the nation as the purest, or at least the most polished dialect of their tongue. It stood midway between the Unalachtgo and Southern Unami and the true Minsi. FOOTNOTES: [151] _Transactions of the American Philological Association_, 1872, p. 158. [152] Penn, Letter to the Free Society of Traders, 1683, Sec. xii. [153] On the literary works of Zeisberger, see Rev. E. de Schweinitz, _Life of Zeisberger_, chap, xlviii, who gives a full account of all the printed works, but does not describe the MSS. [154] Major Ebenezer Denny's "Journal" in _Memoirs of the Hist. Soc. of Penna_., Vol. VII, pp. 481-86. [155] _Report upon the Indian Tribes_, by Whipple, Ewbank and Turner, p. 56 (Washington, 1855). [156] _History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes_, Vol. II, p. 470. [157] I am aware that in this proposition I am following the German and French linguists, Steinthal, F. Müller, Adam, Henry, etc., and not our own distinguished authority on Algonkin grammar, Dr J Hammond Trumbull, who, in his essay "On the Algonkin Verb," has learnedly maintained another opinion (_Transactions of the American Philological Association_, 1876, p. 146). I have not been able, however, to convince myself that his position is correct. The formative elements of the Algonkin paradigms appear to me simply attached particles, and not true inflections Their real character is obscured by phonetic laws, just as in the Finnish when compared with the Hungarian. [158] "Ungemein wohlkhngend." Loskiel, _Geschichte der Mission_, p. 24. An early traveler of English nationality pronounced it "sweet, of noble sound and accent." Gabriel Thomas, _Hist. and Geog. Account of Pensilvania and West New Jersey_, p. 47 (London, 1698). [159] _Key into the Language of North America_, p. 129. See, also, Mr. Bickering's remarks on the same subject, in his Appendix to Rasles' _Dictionary of the Abnaki_. [160] Howse, _Grammar of the Cree Language_, p. 316. [161] See his _Ancient Society_, pp. 172-73.