9^^ 



1892.] ^•-' [Brinton. 



upon it, which have also been of some service to me, although they 

 are quite fragmentary. 



The tongue is not included in Pimentel's Cuadro Descriptivo de 

 las Lens^uas Indigenas de Mexico, and there is no specimen of it 

 accessible to students of linguistics. It appears, therefore, worth 

 while to present a short description of its character; the more so as 

 this seems different from many American tongues on account of the 

 singular simplicity of its construction. In fact, I entertain some 

 doubts whether Barreda's version represents correctly the idiom in 

 its pure form. It certainly reveals no such difficulties as he speaks 

 of, and resembles strongly a jargon in which inflections and syn- 

 tactic relations have been reduced to their lowest terms. Several 

 of ihe translations of the early missionaries have proved, on exami- 

 nation, to be in a jargon or trade language of a tribe, and not in 

 its real speech. This may be the case here. 



The Language. — The Chinantec tongue appears to have no 

 affinity with any of its neighbors. It is described as guttural, 

 rough in enunciation and difficult to learn. Barreda says in his 

 Prologue that many of the priests assigned to parishes in the nation 

 tried in vain to acquire it, and, failing in this, attempted to intro- 

 duce the Nahuatl among the Chinantecs ; and that this proving a 

 failure, had asked for other fields of labor. He himself, after 

 twenty years of study, had succeeded but moderately in mastering 

 it, but adds that he had exercised the utmost care in translating 

 the Doctrina, submitting every word in it to the most intelligent 

 natives of his parish. The dialect he employed was that of Yolos, 

 which differed, but not greatly, from that of other portions of the 

 nation. 



The pronouns are but slightly developed — a fact in marked con- 

 trast to most American tongues. The same form serves for both 

 the personal and the possessive pronouns, and it is probable that 

 there is no distinction between their singular and plural number, 

 although a slight difference is sometimes indicated. 



Pronominal Forms — Personal and Possessive. 



I, na. We, noli. 



Thou, no. You, no. 



He, quia. They, quiaJia. 



It is noteworthy that the pronoun of the third person, quia, may 

 be used for either the second or the first in its possessive sense ; thus, 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXX. 187. D. PRINTED MARCH 1, 1892. 



