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 Brown-Haired Celtic Nations Were Certainly Different
From The Race Of The Light-Haired Germanic Nations; And Though The
Druid caste recalls to our minds one of the institutions of the
Ganges, this does not demonstrate that the idiom
Of the Celts
belongs, like that of the nations of Odin, to a branch of the
Indo-Pelasgic languages. From analogy of structure and of roots,
the Latin ought to have penetrated more easily on the other side of
the Danube, than into Gaul; but an uncultivated state, joined to
great moral inflexibility, probably opposed its introduction among
the Germanic nations.) But the natives of these countries were not
savages; - they inhabited towns; they were acquainted with the use
of money; and they possessed institutions denoting a tolerably
advanced state of cultivation. The allurement of commerce, and a
long abode of the Roman legions, had promoted intercourse between
them and their conquerors. We see, on the contrary, that the
introduction of the languages of the mother-countries was met by
obstacles almost innumerable, wherever Carthaginian, Greek, or
Roman colonies were established on coasts entirely barbarous. In
every age, and in every climate, the first impulse of the savage is
to shun the civilized man.
The language of the Chayma Indians was less agreeable to my ear
than the Caribbee, the Salive, and other languages of the Orinoco.
It has fewer sonorous terminations in accented vowels. We are
struck with the frequent repetition of the syllables guaz, ez,
puec, and pur.
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