o the uNivMsrrr » • SANTA DAMARA » g£ v^T) I o jo Ammm mi ° ° SANTA tAMAIlA ° o vmnntvj vinvs « 5m « AllSWAINn 3H1 o / \ 1IKKN1A o £0 ftyo warv or o 3 / • SANTA BARBARA ° IftOBWA O THS UMIVt' i €0 s Ei < yo z \ HI1V3 JO • \. i»»ait or o p£t- J pit/ DICTIONARY OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE MICMAC INDIANS, WHO RESIDE IN NOVA SCOTIA, NEW BRUNSWICK, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, CAPE BRETON AND NEWFOUNDLAND. BY REV. SILAS TERTIUS RAND, D. D., L.L.D. HALIFAX, \. S. : NOVA SCOTIA PRINTING COMPANY. 1888. mm/3/ KEY TO THE PRONUNCIATION. The Consonants are sounded as in English, g being always hard, as in go, egg,M\i. c exactly like k : ch as in church, //following a vowel, in the same syllable, (as in ahk), is a soft guttural, (like the German ch in ich). The Vowels are sounded thus : a as in father. a as in fate. a as in fat. 2 as the second a in abaft. e as in me. S as in met. ei as ; in pine (ei in height). I as in pin. o as in no. o as in not. u as in tube, use. fl as in tub. oo as in fool, (move). Ofl as in good, wood. ow as in now. When any other vowel is doubled, as aa, aa, ee, or when an o is marked thus, o, the usual sound of these letters is prolonged. The usual place for the accent in Micmac is on the penult. When it falls on any other syllable, it is marked. But a prolonged vowel (aa, aa, ee, 6, or oo') always takes the accent ; n doubled (nn) at the end of a word is prolonged ; m or n at the beginning of a word, preceded by an accent (thus : '/«, '»), is sounded without a vowel. — .3 PREFACE. /l\HE compiler of the following work has been for more than forty years laboring as a Mis- sionary among the Micmac Indians. He considered it a matter of prime importance to make himself acquainted with their language, and early set himself to the task, with what few helps he could command ; and his success has surprized himself as well as many others. As many as forty thousand of their words have been collected and arranged in alphabetical order ; the whole of the New Testament, and portions of the Old Testament, have been translated and published in Micmac, with other smaller books. The compiler of this volume soon discovered, what many are now willing to admit, that the Indians are a very remarkable people, with most remarkable languages, traditions, customs and habits, and that every thing connected with them is calculated to awaken the deepest interest, for the christian, the philologist, the ethnolo- gist, and all others who take an interest in exploring the works of nature and of art, and who are interested in the welfare of their fellow men. It is pleasant to know that a wide-spread interest in the aborigines of America has been of late years awakened, and is every where extending. From all quarters of the civilized world there comes a demand for more information respecting these people and all that pertains to them. To contribute in some measure in aid of these enquiries, has been my object— or one object at least — in preparing this Dictionary. It is but one portion, and that the smallest and least important portion of the whole work. It is, however, complete by itself, and will give a good idea of the Language, and may lead, it is devoutly hoped, to the publication of the larger and more important portion — viz. : The Micmac- English, which is ready for the press, or nearly so, and the printing may be begun as soon as the means of defraying the expense is forthcoming. The Dominion Government have paid for the manuscripts of both portions of the work. They have declined to undertake the cost of publishing both portions, but have furnished means for printing the smaller portion — the Engiish-Micmac. THE OBJECT OF A DICTIONARY. A Dictionary of any language should contain all the words of the language — at least so far as their ground-forms are concerned. The Grammar should exhibit all the phenomena of its etc. of the Nouns and the conjugation the language ; Etymology and Syntax, the declension of the Verbs, and whatever else belongs to its peculiar idiom — but the Lexicon, the Dictionary — should exhibit the words to the eye. A dictionary is defective that omits a single word. Vocabularies and Abridgements have their value, and they can be easily obtained and printed at small cost. But what can a vocabulary even of one thousand worr's teach respecting a language, which contains besides the tens of thousands of forms in their Inflections and Con- jugations, forty thousand ground-forms and more. — — — —a iv PREFACE. The Micmac, like many, if not all, of the Native American Languages, is remarkable for its copiousness, its regularity of Declension and Conjunction, its expressiveness, its simplicity of vocables, and its mellifluousness. In all these particulars and others, it will not suffer from a comparison with any of the most learned and polished languages of the world. One peculiarity which has been termed by philologists, Holophrastic,—a word derived from two Greek words, and denoting that "a whole sentence is comprehended in a single word"— compound of course, —may be referred to as explaining one cause of the multiplicity of words. This characteristic of the language, while it wonderfully shortens speech, greatly multiplies words. For instance the phrase, " I am walking about, carrying a beautiful black umbrella over my head," comprising a sentence of twelve words and twenty-one— syllables, can be all expressed in a single word in Micmac, containing but ten' syllables " yale-oole-maktawe-pckose" This is done by seizing upon the roots, or principle parts of the several words of which the word is composed, dropping off all that is mere grammar, and then by means of union-vowete, or the union of vowels combining or dove-tailing these roots together in the most artistic manner, so as exactly to express the meaning of the whole, without any ambiguity or possibility of mistake. Like the arrow shot from his bow, by which the Indian lad can hit a cent placed in the sand, edge toward It im, and knock it up without missing his aim—which I have many a time seen done —so in his speech he learns to hit the mark exactly, say what he intends, nothing more, and nothing less —he can tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The ideas thus expressed, can also, if we choose, be brought out in the usual way, by using these words by themselves. Thus the above specimen is composed of four words and may be thus analyzed : ist. Pokwoson — meaning— I. A roof. 2. Any skelter from the rain over the head. 3. An — umbrella. From this noun a verb is formed —epkwose— which means " I have a shelter from the rain over my head." (In itself a capital illustration of the holophrastic principle.) The other words which are combined in this long are — 1st. —" I walk — one Yalea about." Maktawae "I am black;" welae " / am well, good, or beautiful"— which becomes oolc in composition thus we get the whole word —(which may be added to ad libitum,) yale-oole —maktawe-pokwose, a regular verb, in the Indicative Mood, Present Tense, First Person, Singular: I am—walking —about—carrying — a beautiful — black—umbrella —over my head." Several illustrations on a smaller scale, are given in the body of this Dictionary. But we may introduce here a more extended specimen. I select the word for foot. There are three words in Micmac to denote this ; some of them never used except in composition. But here, as in other cases, the usual term in other dialects of the same family, viz., The Algonkin, appears when the word comes out in compostion. The following list, which comprises more than two hundred and fifty Micmac words, will show the wonderful fullness of the language {a. defect we may call it — but with that matter philologists and philosophers have nothing to do in the case. Our business is to exhibit facts, and neither to make or to mend the language,) and the main reason why a dictionary unabridged must, if justice be done, contain so many words. Of course it is out of the question to exhibit all the forms of conjugation and declension. For the conjugation of a single Micmac verb would make a large book. It would have to contain about fifteen thousand forms. We may be content to exhibit a few of the ground forms connected with the noun " mkat," a foot : . ;; PREFACE. plur., A foot, 'Mkat ; Ookwot ; Ookwodul. My foot, 'Nkat'. Thy foot, ukat'. His foot, Ookwot'. The sole of the foot, elkunasedei'. The hollow of the foot, Wolnoksedei'. The ball of the foot, ketsedei'. The instep, Nseses'unum. Also, The top portion of the moccasin, covering the instep. likoon The heel of the foot, 'Mkoon ; Ookoon. My, Thy, His, 'Nkoon ; ; Ookoon. The end of the foot, keneskooseedei'. To have feet, Wegade ; Ookwode. The foot or hoof of a gramenivorous animal, Oosit' ; plur., Oositk'. He has a hoof, Oositawit'. It is a hoof, It is the footprint of a hoof, Oositawik. A pretty foot, Welekat'. To have good or pretty feet, Weluhkwode ; Welekadei' ; Welsedei'; Wela'bookse ; Welabooksedei'. An ugly foot, Winekat'. To have ugly feet, Winuhkwode ; Winegadei' ; Winsedei' ; Wina'bookse ; Winabooksedei'.