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 ed different words, and, sometimes, were replaced by synonyms of remote relation.

All this was, indeed, very natural.

« One must not, says W. von Humboldt, consider a language, as a dead product formed, once for all: it is an animate being and ever creative. Human thought elaborates itself with the progress of intelligence; and language is a manifestation of this thought.

« An idiom cannot, therefore, remain stationary.

« It changes, it develops, it grows up, it fortifies itself, it becomes old, and it reaches decrepitude. »

11.—According to these principles, it is reasonable to admit, that there must be many words, used among each class of the Brasilian nomadic tribes, which were not understood by the rest.

Besides this, simpler causes, such, for instance, as result from the use of synonymous terms, would be sufficient to produce radical word-changes.

We know that, when there are several equivalent terms in a language to express the same idea or object, it is very common, that the dialects,—issuing from this language, select diversely,