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simple names of nations something monumental, which, 

 as the learned researches of MM. Abel Remusat, Wilhelm 

 de Humboldt, Klaproth, Marsden, Ritter, and Vater, have 

 proved, may become of high importance to the history of 

 distant migrations. The analogy of roots, and etymological 

 artifices have, no doubt, given rise for ages to absurd reve- 

 ries, and historical romances. We shall not recognize the 

 Quaquas of New Andalusia, in a tribe of that name who 

 dwell on the coast of Guinea ; or the Caraccas Indians, of 

 Carib race, inhabiting the high vallies, in the name of 

 an Iberian spot, cited by Ptolemy (Geogr. ii, 6, p. 46), and 

 which appears connected with the Basque root, car, signify- 

 ing height, summit, or elevation. (Wilhelm von Humboldt, 

 Urbewohner HispmienSy p. 68). The mutability of vowels, 

 and the permutation of consonants, which take place in con- 

 sequence of organic laws, produce, without counting the 

 words that have imitative sounds (onomatopoeia), fortuitous 

 resemblances in thousands of tongues and dialects, of which, 

 the number might be submitted to the calculation of proba- 

 bilities. If we compare one single language, not to those 

 from one root, for instance, a Semitic root, (Indo-Germanic 

 or Welsh (Celtic), but to the whole mass of known idioms, 

 the chance of those accidental analogies becomes the greatest 

 possible, and from that appearance, the prodigious variety 

 of languages of the two hemispheres seem linked together, 

 nexu reteformi. Analogies of sound cannot always be con- 

 sidered as being analogies of roots ; and although the learned 

 who study these analogies, have a claim to encouragement 

 and gratitude, in thus awakening the attention of linguists, 

 it is not less true that the study of words should always be 

 accompanied by that of the structure of languages, and a 

 complete knowledge of grammatical forms. It were to be 

 ignorant of the state of modern philosophy, not to recognize 

 the eminent services which the etymological researches of a 

 small number of men of solid erudition have rendered within 

 VOL. VI. 2 A 



