AN ESSAY 



ON THE *. 



CHILIAN LANGUAGE. 



The original language of Chili, generallj 

 called the Araucanian, is denominated by the 

 natives Chili diigu, the Chilian tongue. Th 

 alphabet contains the same letters as the Latin, 

 except the x, which is in truth nothing more 

 than a compound letter. The s, which ha 

 been bj some grammarians very, properly called 

 a hissing rather than a letter, is only ^o be found 

 in about twenty of their words, and never occuri 

 at the termination, which gives to their pronun- 

 ciation a great degree of fulness. The z is still 

 m6re seldom to be met with. Besides these 

 common letters, the Chilian has a mute e and a 

 peculiar u, like the Greeks and the French : the 

 former is designated by the acute, and the latter 

 by the grave accent, to distinguish them from 

 the common e and w. This u is also frequently 

 changed into i, in the manner of the modorti 

 Greeks. It has besides a nasal g and a th, which 



