Indian Languages Database
Record Details
Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis d’Amérique. Suivi d’éclaircissemens sur la Floride, sur la colonie française au Scioto, sur quelques colonies canadiennes et sur les sauvages.
Paris: Chez Courcier, 1803
Physical Description: 2 v. : ill., maps ; 28 cm. (4to) v.1: [4], xvj, 300 p., [2] folded leaves of plates; v.2: [4], [301]-534, [2] p., [2] folded leaves of plates
Call number: E803/ V928t/ 1-SIZE
Accession number: 06187
Notes: Includes “Observations générales sur les Indiens ou Sauvages de l’Amérique-Nord, suivies d’un Vocabulaire de la langue des Miâmis, tribu établie sur l’Ouabache” (v.2, article V, p. 422-532). The vocabulary (p. [525]-530), printed in 4 parallel columns, lists nearly 200 terms in French (column 1) with Miâmi equivalents in French orthography (column 2). Column 3, “Orthogr. anglaise”, gives alternative spelling for a limited number of the Miami terms “afin de faire sentir la confusion qui résulte de la valeur différente des lettres chez eux et chez nous, et la nécessité d’un alphabet unique” (p. [525]). Column 4, “Observations”, contains (extremely brief) scattered remarks on phonetics, semantics, and comparative linguistics. The vocabulary is followed by several verb paradigms (p. 531-532).
Text comments on Native American verse as mnemonic device and on hieroglyphics (p. 517-518), and discusses (p. 520-522) B.S. Barton’s linguistic comparisons in his New views of the origin of the tribes and nations of America, 1798.
In spring of 1795 the author, “membre du Sénat conservateur” (t.p.), travelled to North America, where his plans to remain indefinitely were interrupted in spring of 1798 by accusations of espionage and conspiracy amid “une épidémie d’animosité contre les Français” (Préface, p. ij).
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Languages: Miami
Genre: Vocabulary
Region: North America
