THE WOHEH’a LANGUAGE. 
/9 
position in society they are less exposed to those vicis- 
‘ itudes of life, changes of place and occupation, which tend 
in primitive purity of language among men. But 
the Carlb nations the contrast between the dialect of the 
Wo sexes is so great, that to explain it satisfactorily we must 
6 er to another cause ; and this may perhaps be found in the 
arbarons custom, practised by those nations, of killing their 
int ^ P^^oners, and carrying the wives of the vanquished 
? .^^Ptivity. Wlien the Oaribs made an irruption into the 
a of the West India Islands, they arrived there as 
and of warriors, not as colonists accompanied by their 
^ nniies. The language of the female sex was formed by 
grees, as the conquerors contracted alliances with the 
tiu^l^? " ; it was composed of new elements, words dis* 
net trom the Carib words,* which in the interior of the 
feynaeceums were transmitted from generation to generation, 
tip i°c structure, the combinations, the gramma- 
torms of the language of the men exercised an influence, 
lia manifested in a small community the pecu- 
ot^ii we now find in the whole group of the nations 
Hu 1 j^bw Continent. The American languages, from 
cha^^T Straits of IklageUan, are in general 
racterized by a total disparity of words combined with a 
sub f ®^blogy in their structure. They are like diiferent 
that invested with analogous forms. If we recollect 
"lb pkenemenon extends over one-half of our planet, 
„ from pole to pole ; it we consider the shades in the 
Qf,?™®tical forms (the genders applied to the three persons 
it reduplications, the froquentatives, the duals) ; 
tVp^P®®rs highly astonishing to find a uniform tendency in 
shl “®7f^°P“ient of inteUigence and language among so con- 
A ^ Pei’tion of the human race, 
inth^w ® dialect of the Carib women j 
that ^ Islands, contains the vestiges of a language 
extiuT^* extinct. Some writers have imagined that this 
ct language might be that of the Tgneris, or primitive 
SfftnfiiV aatiquitatem conservaat, quod, multoram 
* Th* tenent Bemper, quse prima didicerunt.’ 
the tne / “ ®>® examples of the difference between the language of 
euekpir / V ’ Ite women {w ) ; isle, oubao (m), acaera (lo) ; 
‘ I”*), eyeri (le); inf, irhen (m), atica (w). 
