Gabb.l ^^^ [Aug. 20, 



Plantains, bananas, maize, and beans must have been in use by tbe In- 

 dians before the arrival of Europeans, since they have specific names for' 

 all of them , but all domestic animals have only the names that came 

 with them. 



I have found very few words that I can trace clearly to foreign sources. 

 The names of introduced animals, mentioned above, articles of clothing, and 

 foreign utensils makeup almost the entire list. We have ar'-roz, Spanish 

 arros' ; sombre'no, Sp. sombrero; zapato, pure Spanish; pana, English 

 pan, all hollow vessels of thin metal, of whatever form ; cucliara, 

 Spanish ; M-ioo, English bead, wo native word for anything round ; tigera, 

 Spanish; pussy, English ; cM-cM, Aztec tecMcM, the edible dog of Mexico 

 {fide Belt), a word used all over Spanish America, and adopted by the 

 Bri-bri and adjoining tribes in the Spanish form; cacldmba, vulgar 

 Spanish ; da-wa', probably corrupted from tabaco; ko-no', corrupted from 

 canoe ; vaca, cahallo, and coclie, Spanish. Alma, a corpse, bears a suspi- 

 cious resemblance to the Spanish alma, the soul. Doko-ro', a chicken, 

 seems to be derived from the crow of the cock ; i-e'-na, is probably not 

 the Spanish llena, with which it corresponds in meaning, but is derived 

 from e'-na, finished. Ese, that, and es-es (= Spanish eso es) are probably 

 derived from the Spanish. 



The enumeration is decimal, and is simple in structure. Few pretend 

 to count beyond ten, and in counting loose objects if the number is con- 

 siderable, they are set apart in groups of ten; thus forty -six would be four 

 tens and six. In speaking of numbers the fingers come into play. It is as 

 common to see three, four, or more fingers held up, with the remark "so 

 many" as to hear the numeral mentioned. Beyond ten, the toes are called 

 into service, and the surplus over the ten toes is counted on the fingers, held 

 downwards in this ca^e. The word for five, skang, is clearly [u-ra) ska, 

 the fingers. Beyond ten we have "ten more one," &c., but from twenty 

 ujjwards I found so much coufusion of ideas and contradiction that I 

 strongly suspected my informers of politely trying to invent compounds 

 to i)lease me. By careful questioning, and still better, by watching con- 

 versations, I found that twenty is "ten two times," &c., after which the 

 form of the " teens" is repeated; so that twenty-one is "ten two times 

 more one," d'bob but juk M et. There is no word for one hundred unless 

 we use d'bob d^bob juk, which would be legitimate and intelligible, al- 

 though I confess I never heard it used. 



Wa, ka, ke, and ta added as suffixes are equivalent to the English ed. 

 Thnsl-da-wo', to die; i-da-woiig'-wa, dead; Z««,'-a, crazy; yalin'-a-ka, he is 

 crazed ; pat'ye, to paint ; pat-yet' -ke, painted; su-taP, flat ; sut-tat'-ke, flat- 

 tened ; boi, good ; boir'-ke, healed ; be-ta', a point; be-ta'-ta, pointed, &c. 



Kli used as suffix is equivalent to our isli; thus boi, good; boi-kli, goodish 

 (J,, e. pretty good or well); tyng, large; tyng'-kli, largish; mat'-ke, red;ma<'- 

 kli, reddish. Ting and ong, which in Terraba and Tiribi are almost the 

 universal signs of the active verbs, are represented by the termination 



