Cover not available
Article published In:
Quot homines tot artes: New Studies in Missionary Linguistics
Edited by Otto Zwartjes and E.F.K. Koerner †
[Historiographia Linguistica 36:2/3] 2009
► pp. 325–344

David Zeisberger’s Description of Delaware Morphology (1827)

| Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
This article proposes an analysis of the linguistic work of the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger (1721–1808), and more particularly of his grammar of the Delaware language (= [Lenni-]Lenape), which was published in 1827 in an English translation by Peter S. Du Ponceau (1760–1844), on the basis of the author’s German manuscript. A life-sketch and a short presentation of Zeisberger’s missionary work are intended to place the Delaware grammar in the context of his scholarly output, thus allowing the reader to adequately appreciate the practical orientation of the work. The analysis of the grammar, which is essentially a description of Delaware verb morphology, focuses on the parts-of-speech model, and on the treatment of the various word classes, with special attention being paid to the verb. The article offers a detailed study of the organization of the verb paradigms, of the division into conjugations and into ‘forms’ (positive, negative, etc.), and of the description of verbal ‘transitions’. The practical and analytical outlook of Zeisberger is confirmed by the lexicographically oriented treatment of the undeclinable parts of speech: the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction and the interjection. The conclusion insists on the fact that Zeisberger’s grammar was an important source for 19th-century linguists interested in language typology and more particularly in the structure of polysynthetic languages.
Published online: 2 December 2009
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.36.2.08swi
References
Adelaar, Willem
1997 “Las transiciones en la tradición gramatical hispano-americana: historia de un modelo descriptivo”. Zimmermann, ed. 1997.259–270.Google Scholar
Eggers, Eckhard, Joachim Becker, Jürgen Udolph & Dieter Weber
eds. 1999 Florilegium Linguisticum. Festschrift für Wolfgang P. Schmid zum 70. Geburtstag. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Goddard, Ives
1975 “The Delaware Language Past and Present”. Kraft, ed. 1975.103–110.Google Scholar
1978 “Delaware”. Trigger, ed. 1978.213–239.Google Scholar
1979 Delaware Verbal Morphology: A descriptive and comparative study. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
1996 “The Description of the Native Languages of North America Before Boas”. Goddard, ed. 1996.17–42.Google Scholar
ed. 1996 Handbook of North American Indians, vol. XVII1: Languages. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Gray, Elma E.
1956 Wilderness Christians: The Moravian mission to the Delaware Indians. Toronto: Macmillan; Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Greenfield, John
1909 “David Zeisberger”. Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 181.189–198.Google Scholar
Heckewelder, John G. E.
1820 A Narrative of the Missions of the United Brethren among the Delaware & the Mohegan Indians, from its Commencement, in the year 1740, to the close of the year 1808. Philadelphia: M’Carty & Davis.Google Scholar
Hulbert, Archer B.
1909 “The Moravian Records”. Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 181.199–226.Google Scholar
Kaiser, Siegrun
1992 Die Delaware und die Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine: Konflikte einer Missionierung, 1741–1806. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Johann-Wolfgang-von-Goethe Universität, Frankfurt/Main.Google Scholar
Kraft, Herbert C.
ed. 1975 Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. (= Anthropological Series, 4.) Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.Google Scholar
2001 The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage: 10,000 B.C. – A.D. 2000. With an Epilogue by David M. Oestreicher. Seton Hall, Pa.: Lenape Books.Google Scholar
Loskiel, Georg H.
1789 Geschichte der Mission der evangelischen Brüder unter den Indianern in Nord-Amerika. Leipzig: P. G. Kummer. (English translation by Christian Ignatius La Trobe, History of the Missions of the United Brethren among the Indians of North America, London: J. Stockdale 1794.)Google Scholar
Oestreicher, David M.
1994 “Unmasking the Walam Olum: A 19th-century Hoax”. Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of New Jersey 491.1–44.Google Scholar
1995 The Anatomy of the Walam Olum: The dissection of a 19th-century anthropological hoax. [Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. Available through University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Mich.]Google Scholar
2005 “The Tale of a Hoax”. Swann, ed. 2005.3–41.Google Scholar
Olmstead, Earl P.
1991 Blackcoats among the Delaware: David Zeisberger on the Ohio frontier. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press.Google Scholar
1997 David Zeisberger: A life among the Indians. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press.Google Scholar
Osgood, Charles
ed. 1946 Linguistic Structures of Native America. New York: Viking Fund Publications.Google Scholar
Pilling, James C.
1891 Bibliography of the Algonquian Languages. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of American Ethnology.Google Scholar
Randall, Emilius O.
1909 “David Zeisberger Centennial. November 20, 1908”. Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 181.157–164.Google Scholar
Rice, William H.
1909 “David Zeisberger”; “Site of Lichtenau”. Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 181.164–173; 179–181.Google Scholar
1912 David Zeisberger and his Brown Brethren. Bethlehem, Pa.: Special Moravian Publication Fund Committee.Google Scholar
Schwarze, William N.
1909 “Characteristics and Achievements of David Zeisberger”. Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 181.182–188.Google Scholar
Schweinitz, Edmund A. de
1870 The Life and Times of David Zeisberger, the Western Pioneer and Apostle of the Indians. Philadelphia: Lippincott.Google Scholar
Stevens, C. J.
1954 “Soul Savers, Grammarians, and the Red Man”. American Speech 291.40–51.Google Scholar
Swann, Brian
ed. 2005 Algonquian Spirit. Contemporary translations of the Algonquian literatures of North America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Swiggers, Pierre
1996 “Les débuts de la ‘philologie comparée’ et la fin de la grammaire générale: Humboldt entre l’Europe et le Nouveau Monde”. Incontri Linguistici 181.39–60.Google Scholar
1998 “Americanist Linguistics and the Origin of Linguistic Typology: Peter Stephen Du Ponceau’s ‘Comparative Science of Language’”. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 1421.18–46.Google Scholar
1999 “Linguistique générale et comparaison des langues: Le projet de Wilhelm von Humboldt”. Eggers et al., eds. 1999.449–467.Google Scholar
Swiggers, Pierre & Alfons Wouters
2002 “ De adverbio: Statut et signification de l’adverbe chez les grammairiens latins”. Swiggers & Wouters, eds. 2002.287–323.Google Scholar
eds. 2002 Grammatical Theory and Philosophy of Language in Antiquity. Leuven–Paris–Sterling,Va.: Peeters.Google Scholar
Trigger, Bruce G.
ed. 1978 Handbook of North American Indians, vol. XV1: Northeast. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Voegelin, Charles F.
1946 “Delaware, an Eastern Algonquian Language”. Osgood, ed. 1946.130–157.Google Scholar
Wolfart, H. Christoph
1967 “Notes on the Early History of American Indian Linguistics”. Folia Linguistica 11.153–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zeisberger, David
1806 Delaware Indian and English Spelling Book, for the Schools of the Mission of the United Brethren. Philadelphia: M. Cist.Google Scholar
Zeisberger, David & Peter S. Du Ponceau
1827 “A Grammar of the Language of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians”. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, new series. vol. III1, 65–250. (Separately published, Philadelphia: J. Kay 1827.)Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Klaus
ed. 1997 La descripción de las lenguas amerindias en la época colonial. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert & Madrid: Iberoamericana.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Dossena, Marina
2015. (Re)constructed eloquence: rhetorical and pragmatic strategies in the speeches of Native Americans as reported by nineteenth-century commentators. Brno Studies in English 41:1 ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo
Verlato, Micaela
2015. The Challenge of Polysynthesis: Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early Comparative Americanist Linguistics. Language & History 58:2 ► pp. 82 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. A History of the Study of the Indigenous Languages of North America [Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 129], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.