Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/443

 AMERICAN INDIANS (LANGUAGES) 411 these are samples : IcJicatl, a sheep, icJicame, sheep; coatl, a snake, cocoa, snakes; tatli, father, tatin, fathers. All nouns may unite with four particles: tsin or tzintli, signifying respect; ton or tonth, depreciating; pol, signify- ing excess; pil, diminutive implying affection: as icJicapil, a lamb (dear little sheep). Pos- sessive affixes are no, mo, i, to, anmo, in. Cal- li, house ; nocal, my house ; nomill, my sowed ground; ical, his house; icxitl, foot; nocxi, my foot ; teotl, God ; noteouh, my God ; drop- ping a termination, and sometimes substituting another. The inseparable pronouns for conju- gations are: 1st person singular, ni ; 2d, ti ; plural, 1st, ti (strongly accented); 2d, an, am. Ninemi, I live or walk; tinemi, thou; nemi, he ; tinemi, we ; annemi, you ; nemi, they. In the imperative, ti and an, of the 2d person, change to xi, and ma is prefixed to all persons. Ma or macuela is prefixed for the optative. Participles are wanting. It has the usual transitions. Ni tlazotla, I love ; nine tlazotla, I love myself; ni pia, I guard, e.g., John; ni tlapia, I guard him ; ni tepia, I guard it, &c. The Mexican has given us two common words, tomato (tomatl, waterberry) and ocelot (ocelotl). The next family is the Otomi or Hiahiu (pronounced Hianghiung), a monosyllabic lan- guage resembling the Chinese. Its dialect is the Mazahui. The Qtomi is spoken in Mexico, Michoacan, San Luis Potosi, Quere- taro, most of Guanajuato, and parts of Puebla and Vera Cruz. Its grammar is peculiar from the fact that the verb remains unchanged, the pronoun being conjugated. It has many words of the same letters distinguished by the intona- tion. It lacks f, I, r, and s, and abounds in guttural and nasal sounds; has a peculiar c (cc=qq), pronounced with the root of the tongue and palate ; a dental t (tt) ; and a variety of vowel sounds quite unusual, a having four, e four, i three, u four ; and z has three sounds. Distinctions are made by prefixing na, ma, xa : nho or manho, good; xanho, a good thing; mddi, to love ; nahmddi, love. The Huaxteco- Maya-Quiche is a remarkable language, extend- ing over a very wide range, of which the Huax- teco seems a northern offshoot. It is spoken with the Totonac in Puebla, Vera Cruz, and San Luis Potosi. The Maya proper and its dialects, the Lacandon, Peten, Caribe, Chaflu- bal, and Punctunc, are spoken in Yucatan, Chiapas, and Tabasco ; while its kindred tongue, the Chontal, prevails in Tabasco, Oajaca, Guerrero, and Guatemala; the Quiche and Mam in Chiapas and Guatemala ; the Tzendal and Tzotzil in Chiapas ; the Col in Chiapas and Guatemala, with the Totzlem. Gage made the Poconcho, a dialect of the Mam, known to Eng- lish readers two centuries ago. In our time extensive studies have been made as to it by Squier, Behrendt, and Brasseur de Bourbourg. It resembles the Otomi in monosyllabism and tones ; it has six gutturals which are extremely rough; it lacks the sounds of d,f, g, r, *; its words are not inflected. The plural is formed by 05, the comparative by il; thus: che-ob, woods; tib-il, better. There are four conjuga- tions. The language abounds in elisions. As spoken in a district of Valladolid, it is praised for elegance and conciseness. By many the Chontal is supposed to have been the language of Cuba and Hayti, the tongue which has given us the earliest words that were adopted into European languages, tobacco, canoe, &c. The Mixteca-Zapoteca language has several dialects : the Chocho in Puebla, Oajaca, and Guerrero ; the Yope in the two latter states ; the Popo- loco or Teca in Michoacan, Jalisco, and Guate- mala ; the Amuchco in Guerrero ; the Zapoteca and Cuicateco in Oajaca. A Mixteca grammar by Antonio de los Reyes and a vocabulary by Alvarado were printed at Mexico in 1593 ; a grammar of the Zapoteca by Cordova was printed there in 1564, and a vocabulary by the same author in 1578. The Matlaltzinca or Pirinda is spoken in Michoacan ; the Ocuilteca in the state of Mexico seerns related to it. Of this grammars were written, but none have been published. The Tarasco prevails in Michoacan, Guerrero, Guanajuato, and Jalisco. In this language /.and I are wanting; and I, d, g, i, and r never begin a word. Nouns are divided into rational, irrational, and inanimate. There are absolute and inseparable pronouns. In conjugating the inseparables are suffixed : Pa, to carry ; pa Jiaca, I carry ; pangahaca, I am carried ; panstahaca, I am always carrying ; pacata, that which is carried, a burthen. There is a Tarasca grammar by Baselenque (Mexico, 1714), of which a sketch is given in the " Trans- actions of the American Ethnological Society," vol. i., pp. 245, &c. The Opata-Tarahumara- Pima family embraced a number of dialects spoken by tribes in Sonora, California, and Arizona ; the Opata and Eudeve in Sonora ; the Jova in Sonora and Chihuahua ; the Pima with its dialects, the Papago, Sobaipuris, Yuma, and Cahuenche, in Sonora ; the Tarahumara in Chihuahua, with dialects in Durango and. Sonora; and the kindred Tepehuan in Du- rango, Jalisco, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Sina- loa. This family also includes the Cahita, Cora, and Colotlan. A grammar of the Pima or Nevome (New York, 1862) shows it to lack the sound of a in fate, /, I, and z ; 5 and p, d and t, c and g are easily confounded ; contrac- tions are numerous. There is but one conjuga- tion of the verbs, and the verbal form in each remains the same in each tense, the pronoun and prefixes varying with the persons. The active verb is simple compared to the passive : ani haquiarida, I count; ani Jiaquiaridcada, I counted; ni vusi vointad' l am' l igui, I was assisted. Verbs of possession are made from nouns : hunu, maize ; Jiunuga, to have maize. See too "A Sketch of the Heve (Eudeve) Lan- guage," by Buckingham Smith (New York, 1861). The Seris, including the Upanguaima and Guaima, were in Sonora. In Lower Cali- fornia were two families : the Guaicuru, with five dialects, the Cora, Uchita, Concho, and