Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/128

116 geny would naturally grow up speaking a mixture of both languages, as the English has grown up a combination of Saxon and Norman French. The main ingredient in such a case would probably be the language of the mothers, as that which is earliest learned on the mother's knee may be supposed to leave the deepest impression on the mind. This would form the staple and framework of the new language, for instance, the form of the verbs; as we find in the English language a vast majority of the verbs are derived from the Saxon, while the nouns may be perhaps mainly taken from the French or Latin. The terminations, however, of the nouns would be altered, in one case or the other, according to the speakers, and thus the grammarians would be enabled to designate them as masculine or feminine. It would depend much on the relative numbers of the conquerors and conquered as to what proportion of their respective languages should be retained, but they must soon be expected to amalgamate; and if they did not, as in the case of the Caribs, amalgamate for upwards of two hundred years, it was probably, in their case, owing to their peculiar ferocity of manners. The earliest writers inform us that there were several islands inhabited only by women, whom the men used to visit at stated times, having, it seems, devoured the men. On those visits they took away the boys as they grew up along with them, leaving the girls with their mothers. Besides these, we are told that the men treated the women they had with them with singular contempt, as if on account of their being of a different race, not allowing them to eat with them or to sit even in their presence. They were, in fact, their slaves, forming a society of their own among themselves; and if, as was probably the case, the boys were brought up with the fathers and the girls with their mothers, the two original languages might be kept distinct for an indefinite period. Though an extraordinary and curious circumstance, we may thus account for this distinct peculiarity continuing among the Caribs for so long a time as we have shewn — for upward of 200 years, until the time of Labat. That it arose from a band of foreign invaders having come, killing the men and enslaving the women, is very evident. It has been already suggested that this occurred not long before the arrival of the Spaniards, as they were already there when Columbus reached the islands, which they were devastating, driving the more peaceful Indians into the interior of the larger islands for safety. Between their arrival, therefore, and the time of Le Breton and Rochefort about 200 years