Brinton.] 414 [Dec^ ^ 



to go down, kaanaba. to lift up, uputijali. 



to grind, guita. to play, kutijali. 



to have (tener), dainati. to sing, buta taguali. 



to join, nacadilajali. to sleep, ydbunajali. 



to kill, cuUndjali. to take, sigjali. 



to kindle, pdytijali. to wash, sdcajali. 



to laugh, isnaguate. to weep, gvdlbajali. 



to leave, dastaira. to M'ish, na^i. 



Observations on the Vocabulary. 



J:/^;? a«^ Woman. — The distinction between homo, vir and waj, 

 seems to be represented respectively by bmba or /^z/// misa or 

 misil ; and ^//^. Corresponding both to femiiia and mulier are 

 yorra and mayrro ; the former conveying also the notion of youth 

 {Jovefi). All these words have numerous similarities in sound to 

 others of the same meaning in the dialects of central and north- 

 western South America, the Choco especially, in which "man" 

 is ome or umu ; "woman" inuera, etc. Evidently mayrro is 

 nothing more than omba-yorra, the general word for the human 

 species with the feminine termination. That the m sound, in this 

 as in so many other languages, is associated with the human, is to 

 be explained by one of those physiological correlations of articu- 

 late speech, which I have discussed elsewhere*. 



Dog and Cat. — The word for " dog" in the Central American 

 dialects seems to be generally from the Nahuatl chichi. The fol- 

 lowing list shows the progressive variations : 



If these correspondences show derivation, the knowledge of the 

 dog, along with its name, probably was derived from the Aztecan 

 stock to the north. The pure Mayas had a wholly different word, 

 pek. 



* 111 the Proceedings of the American Oriental Society for March, 1894. 

 t Cf. Stoll, Ethnographie der Rcpublik Guatemala, p. Si. 



