Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin · Benjamin Franklin
"DEAR SIR,
"I am glad the little book[23] proved acceptable. It does not appear to me intended for a grammar to teach the language. It is rather what we call in English a _spelling-book_, in which the only method observed is to arrange the words according to their number of syllables, placing those of one syllable together, and those of two syllables, and so on. And it is to be observed that _Sa ki ma_, for instance, is not three words, but one word of three syllables; and the reason that _hyphens_ are not placed between the syllables is, that the printer had not enough of them. [23] A Vocabulary of the Language of one of the Indian Tribes in North America. "As the Indians had no letters, they had no orthography. The Delaware language being differently spelt from the Virginian, may not always arise from a difference in the languages; for strangers who learn the language of an Indian nation, finding no orthography, are at liberty, in writing the language, to use such compositions of letters as they think will best produce the sounds of the words. I have observed that our Europeans of different nations, who learn the same Indian language, form each his own orthography according to the usual sounds given to the letters in his own language. Thus the same words of the Mohock language written by an English, a French, and a German interpreter, often differ very much in the spelling; and without knowing the usual powers of the letters in the language of the interpreter, one cannot come at the pronunciation of the Indian words. The spelling-book in question was, I think, written by a German.
"You mention a Virginian Bible. Is it not the Bible of the Massachusetts language, translated by Elliot, and printed in New-England about the middle of the last century? I know this Bible, but have never heard of one in the Virginian language. Your observation of the similitude between many of the words and those of the ancient world, are indeed very curious. "This inscription, which you find to be Phoenician, is, I think, near _Taunton_ (not Jannston, as you write it). There is some account of it in the old Philosophical Transactions; I have never been at the place, but shall be glad to see your remarks on it. "The compass appears to have been long known in China before it was known in Europe; unless we suppose it known to Homer, who makes the prince that lent ships to Ulysses boast that they had a _spirit_ in them, by whose directions they could find their way in a cloudy day or the darkest night. If any Phoenicians arrived in America, I should rather think it was not by the accident of a storm, but in the course of their long and adventurous voyages; and that they coasted from Denmark and Norway, over to Greenland, and down southward by Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, &c., to New-England, as the Danes themselves certainly did some ages before Columbus. "Our new American society will be happy in the correspondence you mention; and when it is possible for me, I shall be glad to attend the meetings of your society,[24] which I am sure must be very instructive. [24] L'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Letters. * * * * * "_To Francis Hopkinson, Philadelphia._ "Passy, September 13, 1781.
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