Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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House, In Aztec, Calli; In Wogoul,
Kualla Or Kolla.
Water, in Aztec, atel (itels, a river, in Vilela); in
Mongol, Tscheremiss, and Tschouvass, atl, atelch, etel, or idel.
Stone, in Caribbee, tebou; in the Lesgian of Caucasus, teb; in Aztec,
tepetl; in Turkish, tepe.
Food, in Quichua, micunnan; in Malay,
macannon. Boat, in Haitian, canoa; in Ayno, cahani; in Greenlandish,
kayak; in Turkish, kayik; in Samoyiede, kayouk; in the Germanic
tongues, kahn.) But we must distinguish from these foreign elements
what belongs fundamentally to the American idioms themselves. Such is
the effect of time, and communication among nations, that the mixture
with an heterogenous language has not only an influence upon roots,
but most frequently ends by modifying and denaturalizing grammatical
forms. "When a language resists a regular analysis," observes William
von Humboldt, in his considerations on the Mexican, Cora, Totonac, and
Tarahumar tongues, "we may suspect some mixture, some foreign
influence; for the faculties of man, which are, as we may say,
reflected in the structure of languages, and in their grammatical
forms, act constantly in a regular and uniform manner."
CHAPTER 2.22.
SAN FERNANDO DE ATABAPO.
SAN BALTHASAR.
THE RIVERS TEMI AND TUAMINI.
JAVITA.
PORTAGE FROM THE TUAMINI TO THE RIO NEGRO.
During the night, we had left, almost unperceived, the waters of the
Orinoco; and at sunrise found ourselves as if transported to a new
country, on the banks of a river the name of which we had scarcely
ever heard pronounced, and which was to conduct us, by the portage of
Pimichin, to the Rio Negro, on the frontiers of Brazil.
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