John Pickering an Wilhelm von Humboldt, 15.04.1830

 Sir,

I did myself the pleasure to address a letter to you on the 29.th of March last, accompanied with two packets, containing your Cherokee Newspapers & five copies of Cotton’s Indian Vocabulary, which is just published by our Massachusetts Historical Society.

[a]I now forward five more of your newspapers; & also a little volume of Scriptural Extracts & Hymns in the language of the Seneca Indians.[b] This tribe of Indians is one of the Six Nations, as they are called, formerly known in our histories as the Five Nations; & their language is a dialect of what is called the Iroquois stock. I am gratified to observe that the translators take my Orthography as the basis of theirs.

I have been anxiously expecting to see your great work (at least some part of it) upon the American Languages; but I can appreciate the difficulties of such an undertaking; & it is this circumstance, which makes me so earnestly desire that you may accomplish what no other man, probably, will be able to do.

I have the honour to be
Sir,
with the highest respect
your obedient & faithful
servant
JnoPickering
Boston, U. States
Apr. 15, 1830

Fußnoten

    1. a |Editor| Textabschnitt von "I now forward …" bis "… our histories as the" am linken Rand mit Bleistift angestrichen.
    2. b |Editor| In Humboldts Nachlass fanden sich zwei Bücher in der Seneca-Sprache (Schwarz 1993, Nr. 437 und 438). Das eine ist ein Lukas-Evangelium, das andere ein Auszug des Matthäus-Evangeliums. [FZ]