Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 503 of 779 - First - Home
I May Acquaint The Reader, That I Have Written The Words
Of The American Languages According To The Spanish Orthography,
So
that the u should be pronounced oo, the ch like ch in English, etc.
Having during a great number
Of years spoken no other language than
the Castilian, I marked down the sounds according to the
orthography of that language, and now I am afraid of changing the
value of these signs, by substituting others no less imperfect. It
is a barbarous practice, to express, like the greater part of the
nations of Europe, the most simple and distinct sounds by many
vowels, or many united consonants, while they might be indicated by
letters equally simple. What a chaos is exhibited by the
vocabularies written according to English, German, French, or
Spanish notations! A new essay, which the illustrious author of the
travels in Egypt, M. Volney, is about to publish on the analysis of
sounds found in different nations, and on the notation of those
sounds according to a uniform system, will lead to great progress
In the study of languages.)
I will prove this connection by two means which serve to show the
analogy of idioms; namely, the grammatical construction, and the
identity of words and roots. The following are the personal
pronouns of the Chaymas, which are at the same time possessive
pronouns; u-re, I, me; eu-re, thou, thee; teu-re, he, him. In the
Tamanac, u-re, I; amare or anja, thou; iteu-ja, he.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 503 of 779
Words from 136412 to 136663
of 211363
