88 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

Protestant aborigines. It would be as vain as unjust
to try and belittle Evans’ achievement, even if it had
no other merit than that of having hit upon the out-
lines of the system. But that minister’s syllabics are
inadequate to the task of rendering the so numerous
and delicate sounds of the Déné languages.’ More-
over, in a set of signs the vocalic value of which
depends on the direction of its general strokes, it is a
real drawback to have some turned, for instance, to
the right, others to the left, etc., while expressing
the same vowel sound. For instance, Evans’ sign for
@ points upwards, while those for cha and ma point
downwards. On the other hand, so complicated is
the make-up of those for syllables in y, that it is next
to impossible to tell the direction of their angle, or
rather of their angles, for the character therefor has
two of them, each of which points differently, etc.

The same remark is in order when it is a question
of curves.

Be this as it may, Father Morice had not been two
months among the Carrier Indians of Stuart Lake
when, already familiar with the most frequently
recurring sounds of their language by what he knew of
the Chilcotin dialect, he devised, and immediately set
to teach, what he called ““A New Methodical, Easy
and Complete Déné Syllabary.’’ It was definite and
final as early as November, 1885. It would detain us
too long, on a subject which cannot be very interesting
to the general reader, to enter into a detailed account
of its many points of excellence. Let the following
suffice for our present purpose. To briefly enumerate
those which are not to be found in its Cree prototype:

! Which cannot be rendered by less than 70 letters.

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