Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Farther We Penetrate Into Their
Internal Structure, The More Do Contrasts And Decided Characters
Vanish.
It may be said that they are like clouds, the outlines of
which do not appear well defined, except when viewed at a distance.
But though we may not admit one simple and absolute principle in
the classification of languages, yet it cannot be decided, that in
their present state some manifest a greater tendency to inflexion,
others to external aggregation. It is well known, that the
languages of the Indian, Pelasgic, and German branch, belong to the
first division; the American idioms, the Coptic or ancient
Egyptian, and to a certain degree, the Semitic languages and the
Biscayan, to the second. The little we have made known of the idiom
of the Chaymas of Caripe, sufficiently proves that constant
tendency towards the incorporation or aggregation of certain forms,
which it is easy to separate; though from a somewhat refined
sentiment of euphony some letters have been dropped and others have
been added. Those affixes, by lengthening words, indicate the most
varied relations of number, time, and motion.
When we reflect on the peculiar structure of the American
languages, we imagine we discover the source of the opinion
generally entertained from the most remote time in the Missions,
that these languages have an analogy with the Hebrew and the
Biscayan. At the convent of Caripe as well as at the Orinoco, in
Peru as well as in Mexico, I heard this opinion expressed,
particularly by monks who had some vague notions of the Semitic
languages. Did motives supposed to be favourable to religion, give
rise to this extraordinary theory? In the north of America, among
the Choctaws and the Chickasaws, travellers somewhat credulous have
heard the strains of the Hallelujah* of the Hebrews (* L'Escarbot,
Charlevoix, and even Adair (Hist. of the American Indians 1775).);
as, according to the Pundits, the three sacred words of the
mysteries of the Eleusis* (konx om pax) resound still in the
Indies. (* Asiat. Res. volume 5, Ouvaroff on the Eleusinian
Mysteries 1816.) I do not mean to suggest, that the nations of
Latin Europe may have called whatever has a foreign physiognomy
Hebrew or Biscayan, as for a long time all those monuments were
called Egyptian, which were not in the Grecian or Roman style. I am
rather disposed to think that the grammatical system of the
American idioms has confirmed the missionaries of the sixteenth
century in their ideas respecting the Asiatic origin of the nations
of the New World. The tedious compilation of Father Garcia, Tratado
del Origen de los Indios,* (* Treatise on the Origin of the
Indians.) is a proof of this. The position of the possessive and
personal pronouns at the end of the noun and the verb, as well as
the numerous tenses of the latter, characterize the Hebrew and the
other Semitic languages. Some of the missionaries were struck at
finding the same peculiarities in the American tongues: they did
not reflect, that the analogy of a few scattered features does not
prove languages to belong to the same stock.
It appears less astonishing, that men, who are well acquainted with
only two languages extremely heterogeneous, the Castilian and the
Biscayan, should have found in the latter a family resemblance to
the American languages. The composition of words, the facility with
which the partial elements are detected, the forms of the verbs,
and their different modifications, may have caused and kept up this
illusion. But we repeat, an equal tendency towards aggregation or
incorporation does not constitute an identity of origin. The
following are examples of the relations between the American and
Biscayan languages; idioms totally different in their roots.
In Chayma, quenpotupra quoguaz, I do not know, properly, knowing
not I am. In Tamanac, jarer-uac-ure, bearing am I, - I bear;
anarepra aichi, he will not bear, properly, bearing not will he;
patcurbe, good; patcutari, to make himself good; Tamanacu, a
Tamanac; Tamanacutari, to make himself a Tainanac; Pongheme, a
Spaniard; ponghemtari, to Spaniardize himself; tenecchi, I will
see; teneicre, I will see again; teecha, I go; tecshare, I return;
maypur butke, a little Maypure Indian; aicabutke, a little woman;
maypuritaje, an ugly Maypure Indian; aicataje, an ugly woman.* (*
The diminutive of woman (aica) or of Maypure Indian is formed by
adding butke, which is the termination of cujuputke, little: taje
answers to the accio of the Italians.)
In Biscayan: maitetutendot, I love him, properly, I loving have
him; beguia, the eye, and beguitsa, to see; aitagana, towards the
father: by adding tu, we form the verb aitaganatu, to go towards
the father; ume-tasuna, soft and infantile ingenuity; umequeria,
disagreeable childishness.
I may add to these examples some descriptive compounds, which call
to mind the infancy of nations, and strike us equally in the
American and Biscayan languages, by a certain ingenuousness of
expression. In Tamanac, the wasp (uane-imu), father (im-de) of
honey (uane);* (* It may not be unnecessary here to acquaint the
reader that honey is produced by an insect of South America,
belonging to, or nearly allied, to the wasp genus. This honey,
however, possesses noxious qualities which are by some naturalists
attributed to the plant Paulinia Australis, the juices of which are
collected by the insect.) the toes, ptarimucuru, properly, the sons
of the foot; the fingers, amgnamucuru, the sons of the hand;
mushrooms, jeje-panari, properly, the ears (panari) of a tree
(jeje); the veins of the hand, amgna-mitti, properly, the ramified
roots; leaves, prutpe-jareri, properly, the hair at the top of the
tree; puirene-veju, properly, the sun (veju), straight or
perpendicular; lightning, kinemeru-uaptori, properly, the fire
(uapto) of the thunder, or of the storm. (I recognise in kinemeru,
thunder or storm, the root kineme black.) In Biscayan, becoquia,
the forehead, what belongs (co and quia) to the eye (beguia);
odotsa, the noise (otsa) of the cloud (odeia), or thunder;
arribicia, an echo, properly, the animated stone, from arria,
stone, and bicia, life.
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