í 



I 



AN ESSAY 



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ON THE 



CHILIAN LANGUAGE. 



The original language of Chili, generally called 

 ihe Araucanian, is denominated by the natives Chili 

 dugUj the Chilian tongue. The alphabet contains 

 the same letters as the Latin, except the x, which is 

 in truth nothing more than a compound letter. The 

 s, which has been by some grammarians very pro- 

 perly called a hissing rather than a letter, is only to 

 be found in about twenty of their words, and never 

 occurs at the termination, which gives to their pro- 

 nunciation a great degree of fulness* The z is still 

 more seldom to be met with. Besides these com- 

 mon letters, the Chilian has a mute e and a peculiar 

 u, like the Greeks and the French : the former is 

 designated by the acute, and the latter by the 

 grave accent, to distinguish them from the common 

 e and u. This u is also frequently changed into i in 

 the manner of the modern Greeks. It has besides a 

 nasal g and a th which is pronounced by pressing 

 the tongue against the roof of the mouth ; the latter 

 is frequently changed into chy as chegua for thegua 

 (the dog). In the whole of the Chilian alphabet 



