SS2 



is pronounced by pressing the tongue against the 

 roof of the mouth ; the latter is frequently 

 changed into ch, as chegua for thegiia ( the dog ) . 

 In the whole of the Chilian alphabet there is not 

 a single guttural letter or vocal aspirate, a very 

 singular circumstance with uncivilized people. 

 It is proper to note, that in giving the Chilian 

 words the Italian orthography has been adopted. 

 All the words of the language terminate in the 

 six vowels heretofore noticed, and in ihe con- 

 sonants b, d,f, g, I, m, n^ r, and v. There are, of 

 course, fifteen distinct terminations, which, with 

 their variety, render the language sweet and so- 

 norous. The accent is usually placed upon the 

 penultimate vowel, sometimes on the last, but 

 never on the antepenult. The radicals, as far as 

 can bo collected from the vocabularies, which 

 have been hitherto very imperfect, amount to one 

 thousand nine hundred and seventy-three, and 

 are for the greater part cither monosyllables or 

 dissyllables, I have made use of the above term 

 in a much more limited sense than many, who 

 improperly call all those words radicals that'iu 

 any mode produce others. Proceeding upon so 

 false a principle, they make some languages con- 

 tain thirty or forty thousand roots, which must 

 be considered a grammatical paradox. The 

 roots of a 'anguage are those simple primitive 

 expressions, which, neither directly nor indirectly 

 derived from any other, produce various words. 



