Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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These Various Changes, The Problem We Are Going To Solve Has Become
Much More Complicated Than Is Generally Supposed.
The number of
geographers who discuss the basis of a map, with regard to the three
points of measures, of the comparison of descriptive works, and of the
etymological study* of names, is extremely small.
(* I use this
expression, perhaps an improper one, to mark a species of philological
examination, to which the names of rivers, lakes, mountains, and
tribes, must be subjected, in order to discover their identity in a
great number of maps. The apparent diversity of names arises partly
from the difference of the dialects spoken by one and the same family
of people, partly from the imperfection of our European orthography,
and from the extreme negligence with which geographers copy one
another. We recognize with difficulty the Rio Uaupe in the Guaupe or
Guape; the Xie, in the Guaicia; the Raudal de Atures, in Athule; the
Caribbees, in the Calinas and Galibis; the Guaraunos or Uarau, in the
Oaraw-its; etc. It is, however, by similar mutations of letters, that
the Spaniards have made hijo of filius; hambre, of fames; and Felipo
de Urre, and even Utre, of the Conquistador Philip von Huten; that the
Tamanacs in America have substituted choraro for soldado; and the Jews
in China, Ialemeiohang for Jeremiah. Analogy and a certain
etymological tact must guide geographers in researches of this kind,
in which they would be exposed to serious errors, if they were not to
study at the same time the respective situations of the upper and
lower tributary streams of the same river.
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