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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These Terminations Are Derived In Part From The
Inflexion Of The Verb To Be, And From Certain Prepositions, Which
Are Added At The Ends Of Words, And Which, According To The Genius
Of The American Idioms, Are Incorporated With Them.
It would be
wrong to attribute this harshness of sound to the abode of the
Chaymas in the mountains.
They are strangers to that temperate
climate. They have been led thither by the missionaries; and it is
well known that, like all the inhabitants of warm regions, they at
first dreaded what they called the cold of Caripe. I employed
myself, with M. Bonpland, during our abode at the hospital of the
Capuchins, in forming a small catalogue of Chayma words. I am aware
that languages are much more strongly characterised by their
structure and grammatical forms than by the analogy of their sounds
and of their roots; and that the analogy of sounds is sometimes so
disguised in different dialects of the same tongue, as not to be
recognizable; for the tribes into which a nation is divided, often
designate the same objects by words altogether heterogeneous. Hence
it follows that we readily fall into mistakes, if, neglecting the
study of the inflexions, and consulting only the roots (for
instance, in the words which designate the moon, sky, water, and
earth), we decide on the absolute difference of two idioms from the
mere want of resemblance in sounds. But, while aware of this source
of error, travellers would do well to continue to collect such
materials as may be within their reach.
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