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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Abbe
Gili Thinks With Some Probability, That They Are Derived From The
Tongue Of Some People Who Inhabited The Temperate Climate Between
Coro, The Mountains Of Merida, And The Tableland Of Bogota.
(Saggio
volume 3 page 228.) How many Celtic and German words would not
Julius Caesar and Tacitus have handed
Down to us, had the
productions of the northern countries visited by the Romans
differed as much from the Italian and Roman, as those of
equinoctial America!) Not satisfied with retaining these words
borrowed from the Haitians, they helped also to spread them all
over America (at a period when the language of Haiti was already a
dead language), and to diffuse them among nations who were ignorant
even of the existence of the West India Islands. Some words, which
are in daily use in the Spanish colonies, are attributed
erroneously to the Haitians. Banana is from the Chaconese, the
Mbaja language; arepa (bread of manioc, or of the Jatropha manihot)
and guayuco (an apron, perizoma) are Caribbee: curiara (a very long
boat) is Tamanac: chinchorro (a hammock), and tutuma (the fruit of
the Crescentia cujete, or a vessel to contain a liquid), are Chayma
words.
I have dwelt thus long on considerations respecting the American
tongues, because I am desirous of directing attention to the deep
interest attached to this kind of research. This interest is
analogous to that inspired by the monuments of semi-barbarous
nations, which are examined not because they deserve to be ranked
among works of art, but because the study of them throws light on
the history of our species, and the progressive development of our
faculties.
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