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ALEUTIAN, OR ALIOUT-LISEYEFF.
"THE Aleutian Islands form a
long circular chain, above 1300 miles in length, traversing the North
Pacific from Cape Alaska, in America, to the peninsula of Kamtschatka, in
Asia, so as almost to unite
the two continents. These islands are extremely numerous. They
were partially discovered by Behring
in 1741; the largest, which still bears his name, is upwards of sixty miles in
length, but many of the
others are mere rocks. They are much frequented by the Russian Fur
Company, and are included in
the government of Irkutsk. Most of the inhabitants are idolaters,
though many of them have been
baptized and instructed in the rites of the
Greek
church. They subsist chiefly on the produce of
fishing and the chase; and, to judge from their habits and physical
conformation, appear an inter-
mediate race between the Mongolians
and the North American Indians. Their language is very similar
to that of the Esquimaux,
especially of the Namolles, an Esquimaux tribe residing on the shore of
the
north-eastern promontory of Asia. In point of number the Aleutians
have been variously estimated
at from a few hundreds to six thousand.
The Gospel of St. Matthew has been translated for the benefit of
these islanders by Priest Joan
Veniaminoff, otherwise written John Benjaminoff, by whom the language was
first reduced to writing,
and a Grammar of it published at St. Petersburg in 1846. He had
resided for fifteen years as my.
among this people: the dialect in which the translation is made is
that spoken in the island of
Oonalashka; but there is no great difference between the idioms of the various
islands of this group,
any local peculiarity being readily explained by means of marginal notes.
The first chapter of St. Luke,
and the first two chapters of the Acts, have been translated by the same
Russian priest into the dialect
spoken in the island of Atkho, or Atcha. The only Aleutian translation
which has hitherto been com-
mitted to the press is that of the Gospel of St. Matthew, which was printed
at Moscow, in 1840, in
parallel columns with the Russian
version."--The Bible of Every Land. (1860, Second Edition)
Samuel Bagster [Info only]
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