200 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



it cannot be referred to any language of the Indo- 

 Germanic family. In the first place, it is entirely 

 distinct from all the Celtic dialects, and indeed the 

 only languages to which it in any way approximates 

 by its grammatical construction, are, according to 

 Humboldt, a few of the American dialects. On the 

 other hand, the Abbe d'Hiarce has detected in a vo- 

 cabulary that was brought by Peron from Van Die- 

 men's Land, several words which he asserts to be 

 strictly Basque. It is somewhat strange that we 

 should have to go so far for the only analogies 

 connecting this dialect with other known languages. 

 It is, moreover, almost impossible for foreigners 

 ever to learn to speak the Basque language. Some of 

 the grammatical theorems of the Abbe d'Hiarce may 

 serve to give an idea of its difficulties. In Basque, 

 nouns, pronouns, and adjectives may be changed 

 into verbs, whilst verbs become metamorphosed into 

 nouns and adjectives. Prepositions, adverbs, con- 

 junctions, interjections, and even the letters of the 

 alphabet are de Jmed like Latin nouns or adjectives, 

 and conjugate like verbs. Every noun has six 

 nominatives and twelve different cases, whilst adjec- 

 tives have as many as twenty cases. The noun often 

 changes in accordance with the condition of the 

 individual or thing which it serves to designate. 

 Every French verb is represented by twenty-six 

 verbs, each of which expresses a special modification 

 either of the person or thing on which the action of 

 the verb is exerted. There are moreover four diffe- 

 rent conjugations, which are used according as the 

 speaker addresses a child or woman, an equal or a 



