Massachusett

American: extinct dialect of Algonkin . Vocaby.: “Amer. Ethnol.,” vol. ii., p. 110. ⁂ The name carries with it its own geographical position. The town of Boston, U.S., now stands on the land of the Ma achusett Indians. I find that Natik or Nadick is rather a synonym for Ma achusetts than the name of a separate form of speech, whether language or dialect; on the coast, the name changed, and the language also, which is Narraganset . The two forms are closely allied, but Ma achusetts means the parts about Boston, Narraganset the language of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The greatest work in any American language is, undoubtedly, the translation of the Bible by Eliot; but no one knows whether the language is to be called Natick or Ma achusett . Eliot also wrote a Grammar, dated A.D. 1666; the author merely calls it Indian ; reprinted at Boston in 1832.     R. G. L.