Vocabulaire Chacta, American Philosophical Society

Table of contents	Abstract The anonymous compiler of the Vocabulaire Chacta, ca.1820, gathered 149 elementary words in the Choctaw language, the basic numerals, and six "useful" (if not always appropriate) phrases. The notebook was donated to the American Philosophical Society by Peter Stephen Duponceau in 1827.
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Background note

An early and avid linguist and ethnographer, Peter Stephen Duponceau nurtured the core collection of vocabularies of American Indian languages begun by Thomas Jefferson. By the time of his death in 1844, Duponceau had established the American Philosophical Society as one the nation's premier centers for the study of the indigenous languages of North America.

Scope and content

The Vocabulaire Chacta is a slender notebook assembled in about 1820 by an unidentified author containing vocabulary words in French with Choctaw equivalents. The vocabulary includes parts of the body, basic nouns and a few verbs, with numerals and simple phrases added at the end of the volume. The six phrases elicited are of particular interest, and are suggestive of the interests and attitudes of the collector:

Vous êtes une jolie femme
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?
Cette femme est-elle mariée?
Elle n'est par mariée
Sont celà vos enfants?
Comment appelez-vous ça?

The author of the vocabulary added a note to the effect that he could never comprehend Choctaw verbs because of their great irregularity.

Administrative information

Restrictions

None.

Provenance

Gift of Peter Stephen Duponceau, January 19, 1827.

Preferred citation

Cite as: Vocabulaire Chacta, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Recatalogued by rsc, 2002.

Other finding aids

Indexed in Freeman and Smith A Guide to Manuscripts Relating to the American Indian in the Library of the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia: APS, 1966), no.184 (on-line at http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/guides/indians/).