352 



ancient and modern European. It is obvioil* 

 fi'om its very structure that it is an original lan- 

 guage, and it is a circumstance not a little re- 

 markable, that it should have produced no par- 

 ticular dialect, notwithstanding it has extended 

 itself over a space of one thousand two hundred 

 miles, among so many insubordinate tribes, 

 wholly destitute of all kind of literary inter- 

 course. The Chilians who live in the 24th de- 

 gree of latitude, speak the same language as 

 the natives of the 45th ; nor is there any essential 

 difference between that spoken by the islanders, 

 the mountaineers, or the inhabitants of the 

 plains : the Boroans and Ilicurans alone some- 

 times change the r into s. . The Chilotes have 

 adopted several Spanish words, but it has been 

 more owing to a wish to flatter ther masters^ 

 than to any preference of them to their own. 

 Were the Chilian a meagre language, its immu- 

 tability might be attributed to its paucity of 

 words, which in such cases, being intended to 

 express only the most simple and common ideas, 

 do not readily admit of change ; but as, on the 

 contrary, it abounds with words, it is wonderful 

 that it has not been divided into a number of 

 subordinate dialects, as has been the case with 

 other primitive languages that have been in any 

 considerable degree extended. 



