22 On the Aborigines of Brazil. 



represent in their numerous syllables the richest change of 

 vowels, and the quickest transition of one vowel into another, 

 but also bring forth consonants of the most different natures, 

 by the application of all organic means, such as hissing, 

 smacking the lips, speaking through the nose, rattling in 

 the throat, blowing, and whistling, and by their long-drawn- 

 out tone give their language a sing-song sound, which is 

 very strange to the ear of an European. I may say, that 

 these languages bear the same relation to those of Europe, 

 as an enharmonic scale does to the chromatic and diatonic, 

 in which we perform. They make use of many more organic 

 elements of speech than we do, but owing to their peculiar 

 combinations, and extensive modulations, they do not at- 

 tain in individual sounds, that appreciable distinctness and 

 strength, which we are accustomed to in our languages, 

 which are formed on a wider basis. On this account their 

 expressions appear to us void of all harmony, ami we find it 

 so difficult to imitate them. According to the ideas of a 

 European, there is a childish helplessness in the peculiar 

 syntax of the Indian, but in his own mouth it gains a free- 

 dom and strength, (which the grammarian cannot fail to ad- 

 mire,) by means of its great richness in short, seemingly 

 broken, but easily combining elements of speech; by its 

 sharpness of intonation, by the changes in the modulation of 

 the voice, and by the sudden elevations and depressions 

 of its intensity and rhythm. The ease with which, in a 

 language so constituted, transpositions and transmutations 

 and running together of vowels and syllables, take place, is 

 no doubt the main cause of the mutability and incomplete- 

 ness when standing alone, of particular words, and of the 

 enormous number of dialects into which the languages of 

 America have become divided.* 



* The variety of languages among the hill-tribes of India is very great. Thus, 

 the languages of the Goands, the Bheels, the Coles, the Khonds and the Sourahs, 

 are said to be quite different from each other, and to have no roots in common 

 with those of the plains.— Tr. 





