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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In The
Tamanac Tongue, Acurivane Means Beautiful, And Acurivanepra,
Ugly - Not Beautiful; Outapra, There Is No Fish, Properly Fish None;
Uteripipra, I Will Not Go, Properly I To Go Will Not, Composed Of
Uteri,* To Go, Ipiri, To Choose, And Pra, Not.
(* In Chayma:
utechire, I will go also, properly I (u) to go (the radical ute,
or, because of the preceding vowel, te) also (chere, or ere, or
ire).
In utechire we find the Tamanac verb to go, uteri, of which
ute is also the radical, and ri the termination of the Infinitive.
In order to show that in Chayma chere or ere indicates the adverb
also, I shall cite from the fragment of a vocabulary in my
possession, u-chere, I also; nacaramayre, he said so also;
guarzazere, I carried also; charechere, to carry also. In the
Tamanac, as in the Chayma, chareri signifies to carry.) Among the
Caribbees, whose language also bears some relation to the Tamanac,
though infinitely less than the Chayma, the negation is expressed
by an m placed before the verb: amoyenlengati, it is very cold; and
mamoyenlengati, it is not very cold. In an analogous manner, the
particle mna added to the Tamanac verb, not at the end, but by
intercalation, gives it a negative sense, as taro, to say,
taromnar, not to say.
The verb to be, very irregular in all languages, is az or ats in
Chayma; and uochiri (in composition uac, uatscha) in Tamanac. It
serves not only to form the Passive, but it is added also, as by
agglutination, to the radical of attributive verbs, in a number of
tenses.* (* The present in the Tamanac, jarer-bae-ure, appears to
me nothing else then the verb bac, or uac (from uacschiri, to be ),
added to the radical to carry, jare (in the infinitive jareri), the
result of which is carrying to be I.) These agglutinations remind
us of the employment in the Sanscrit of the auxiliary verbs as and
bhu (asti and bhavati* (* In the branch of the Germanic languages
we find bhu under the forms bim, bist; as, in the forms vas, vast,
vesum (Bopp page 138).)); the Latin, of es and fu, or fus;* (*
Hence fu-ero; amav-issem; amav-eram; pos-sum (pot-sum).) the
Biscayan, of izan, ucan, and eguin. There are certain points in
which idioms the most dissimilar concur one with another. That
which is common in the intellectual organization of man is
reflected in the general structure of language; and every idiom,
however barbarous it may appear, discloses a regulating principle
which has presided at its formation.
The plural, in Tamanac, is indicated in seven different ways,
according to the termination of the substantive, or according as it
designates an animate or inanimate object.* (* Tamanacu, a Tamanac
(plur. Tamanakemi): Pongheme, a Spaniard (properly a man clothed);
Pongamo, Spaniards, or men clothed. The plural in cne characterizes
inanimate objects: for example, cene, a thing; cenecne, things:
jeje, a tree; jejecne, trees.) In Chayma the plural is formed as in
Caribbee, in on; teure, himself; teurecon, themselves; tanorocon,
those here; montaonocon, those below, supposing that the
interlocutor is speaking of a place where he was himself present;
miyonocon, those below, supposing he speaks of a place where he was
not present.
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