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 502 of 779 - First - Home
Since Neither Father Gili, Nor The Abbe Hervas, Has
Mentioned This Language, I Shall Here Explain Succinctly The Result
Of My Researches.
On the right bank of the Orinoco, south-east of the Mission of
Encaramada, and at the distance of more than a hundred leagues from
the Chaymas, live the Tamanacs (Tamanacu), whose language is
divided into several dialects.
This nation, formerly very powerful,
is separated from the mountains of Caripe by the Orinoco, by the
vast steppes of Caracas and of Cumana; and by a barrier far more
difficult to surmount, the nations of Caribbean origin. But
notwithstanding distance, and the numerous obstacles in the way of
intercourse, the language of the Chayma Indians is a branch of the
Tamanac tongue. The oldest missionaries of Caripe are ignorant of
this curious fact, because the Capuchins of Aragon seldom visit the
southern banks of the Orinoco, and scarcely know of the existence
of the Tamanacs. I recognized the analogy between the idiom of this
nation, and that of the Chayma Indians long after my return to
Europe, in comparing the materials which I had collected with the
sketch of a grammar published in Italy by an old missionary of the
Orinoco. Without knowing the Chaymas, the Abbe Gili conjectured
that the language of the inhabitants of Paria must have some
relation to the Tamanac.* (* Vater has also advanced some
well-founded conjectures on the connexion between the Tamanac and
Caribbean tongues and those spoken on the north-east coast of South
America.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 502 of 779
Words from 136159 to 136411
of 211363
