J.A. Cuoq letters

Collection

Identifier: VAULT box-Ayer-MS-206

Staff Only

Abstract

Five letters, 1879-1894, from J.A. Cuoq to James Constantine Pilling, an American ethnologist particularly interested in Indian languages, who compiled comprehensive bibliographies on the topic and assembled the renowned library of the Bureau of American Ethnology.,In Cuoq's responses to Pilling's apparent requests for copies of his works, he notes in an 1879 letter that all copies of requested volumes were destroyed in an 1877 fire at Lac-des-Deux-Montagnes. Later notes concern the forwarding of copies of Cuoq's Lexique de la langue iroquoise (published 1882) and Anotc keton (published 1893), which was an appendix to his Grammaire de la langue algonquine.

Dates

Creation: 1879-1894

Creator

Cuoq, J. A. (Jean André), 1821-1898 (Person)

Biographical / Historical

Priest, missionary, linguist, and philologist, also known as Nuj-Kwenatc-anibic (Algonquian) and Orakwanen-takon (Iroquois).,Born in 1821 in France, J.A. Cuoq studied theology and discovered a facility for languages before his ordination as a priest in 1845 and his departure for Canada in 1846. Appointed curate at the Notre Dame church in Montreal, Cuoq also began a ministry at the mission Lac-des-Deux-Montagnes in Oka, Quebec. There, among the Iroquois and Algonquians, Cuoq began writing and publishing religious booklets in the languages of his parishioners. By the 1860's Cuoq had become a recognized authority on Indian languages; he continued to write and publish until his death in 1898.