21 



killing* their male prisoners, and carrying the 

 wives of the vanquished into captivity. When 

 the Caribbees made an irruption into the archi- 

 pelago of the West India islands, they arrived 

 there as a band of warriors, not as planters 

 accompanied by their families. The language 

 of the female sex was formed by degrees, as the 

 conquerors contracted alliances with the foreign 

 women ; it was composed of new elements, 

 words distinct from the Caribbee words*, which 

 in the interior of the gynaeceums were trans- 

 mitted from generation to generation, but on 

 which the structure, the combinations, the gram- 

 matical forms of the language of the men exerted 

 their influence. What then took place in a 

 small community we now find in the whole 

 group of the nations of the New Continent. 

 The American languages, from Hudson's bay 

 to the straits of Magellan, are in general cha- 

 racterized by a total disparity of words joined 

 with a great analogy in their structure. They 

 are like different substances clothed in analo- 

 gous forms. If we recollect, that this pheno- 

 menon comprehends one whole side of our pla- 

 net, almost from pole to pole ; if we consider 

 the assimilations, that exist in the grammatical 



* The following are examples of the difference between 

 the language of the men (m), and the women (w) ; isle, 

 onbao m., acaera w. ; man, ouekelli m., eyeri w. 5 6ut f irhen 

 ni., atica w, 



