1875.] <^^' [Gabl>. 



Chapter IL 



the languages of southern costa rica, 



Section I. — the bri-bri language. 



In the following notes, I have endeavored to embody such ideas and 

 conclusions as I have arrived at while studying the language and com- 

 piling the vocabulary. From the difficulty of obtaining information from 

 ignorant people, and from my own, by no means perfect knowledge of 

 the language, possibly errors may have crept in, but while I do not think 

 any important ones will be found, I do not venture to claim infallible 

 accuracy. For a year I labored to find some rule for conjugation, and was 

 obliged, as it were, to educate my informers up to the point of being able 

 to give me information about a subject they had never thought of, and 

 could see no use for. Not content to accept their statements categorically, 

 I watched carefully the use of the verbs in their inflexions, and by dint 

 of cross-questioning a number of people, and rejecting everythii g that 

 was contradictory, I think the few verbs I have selected are correctly 

 given. I have had the advantage not only of a year and a half in the 

 country, in daily contact with a fellow-countryman who spoke the lan- 

 guage fluently, enabling me thereby to leai-n it ; but for two months, iu 

 the meantime, while absent, I had several iatelligent Indians with me 

 who understood Spanish, and finally, after returning to civilization, I had 

 with me for eight months a native, with whom I talked habitually in his 

 own language, and from whom I obtained many corrections of the errors 

 that a stranger must necessarily make. This boy became an apt teacher 

 and voluntarily set me right whenever he heard me use an incorrect ex- 

 pression. 



Counting the few abstract words vphich have doubtless escaped me, 

 and all the specific names of animals and plants, and many of the latter 

 are made up of an adjective, or the name of some plant, combined with 

 wak (tribe), I do not think the language can contain two thousand 

 words, and perhaps not fifteen hundred. In preparing the vocabulary 

 I have rejected most of these specific names, because there is no corres- 

 ponding English word, and a c )niplete natural history collection, careful- 

 ly studied by competent students, would be required, so as to obtain an 

 equivalent. Even then it would have been useless, because the names 

 vary locally as much as similar words do in English. 



In compound words, I have in most cases pointed out the roots, and 

 separated the component parts by a + sign. Although so much detail 

 may have been unnecessary, the study was interesting to myself, and 

 some of the curious results may also interest others. 



There can be no doubt but tliat this and its allied dialects, like all 

 unwritten languages, are undergoing gi'eat changes. The language 

 spoken in Terraba was formerly, and probably not long ago, the s.ane as 

 that of Tiribi. There are marked diffei'ences between the Cabecar of 

 Coeu and that of the Estrella or North River, and even local differences 

 in the use of r, I, and d, can be observed between the half of the Bri-bri 



