CARIB OR KARIF LANGUAGE. 363 



OK A GRAMMAR AND BICTIONARI OP THE CARIB OR KARIf LANGUAGE, 

 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PEOPLE BY WHOM IT IS SPOKEN. 



By Dr. C. H. Bekbndt. 



The Eev. Alexander Henderson (Belize, British Honduras) has sent 

 me the grammar and dictionary of the Oarib, or Karif, language, of 

 which I have written you before, and I have the pleasure to present it, 

 in the author's name, to the Institution, requesting that your acknowledg- 

 ment of receipt may be sent to him. He expects to receive a hundred 

 copies for himself, if it is published by the Smithsonian. 



This language is spoken by the descendants of the Indians and half- 

 breeds brought by the British government in 1796 from the island of 

 Saint Vincent to Eaatan, whence they soon spread over the coast of 

 Honduras and the British settlement in Yucatan. Their actual number 

 is estimated at about ten thousand, living in larger or smaller commu- 

 nities, and working generally in the wood-cuttings of that coast. Though 

 nominally Christians, they still retain some of their ancient customs, and 

 are particularly adverse to monogamy. 



These Caribs, or Karifs, as Mr. Henderson spells the name, and accord- 

 ing to the mode in which they themselves pronounce it, (Karifune,) were 

 of the original West Indian Carib stock, but had become mixed with 

 negroes from an African slaver, wrecked on the coast of Saint Vincent. 

 They afterward were distinguished as red (or yellow) and black Caribs, 

 according to their similarity in color to one or the other parental race. 

 Their island having been alternately under French and British dominion, 

 ihe language of the natives became mixed with many French and some 

 English elements. It is asserted that it contains also some African 

 admixture. After their arrival on the Honduras coast, these Caribs have 

 further adopted a number of Spanish words, and it is likely that a few 

 words of their actual language, corresponding with their equivalents in 

 Central- American languages, have been introduced in the same manner. 



Of this language, very little has become known. Colonel Galindo has 

 given a brief vocabulary (seventeen words, and the numerals from one 

 to ten) in the Journal of the Eoyal Geographical Society, (1833,) and the 

 author of the present work has printed in Edinburgh (1847) a transla- 

 tion of the Gospel of Matthew. His missionary life among those people 

 enabled him to compose the grammar and dictionary of that language, 

 which is of interest, not only because it is spoken by a useful and numer- 

 ous tribe of our continent, but particularly as an object for the study of 

 the transitions in languages which are influenced by admixture from 

 other languages of an entirely different character. For these reasons 

 I believe that the publication of this work will be found advisable, 

 though in its present shape it is not exactly fit for that purpose. It is 

 but natural that forty years of life in the tropics show their influence in 

 a septegenarian. A certain prolixity and some want of order in the 

 arrangement must be attributed to this cause, but it does not impair 



