32-1 
CIASSIEICATION Or LANGUAGES 
already mentioned several times under the name of agglu- 
tination or incorporation. Many things, which appear to 
us at present inflexions of a radical, have perhaps been in 
their origin affixes, of which there have barely remained one 
or two consonants. In languages, as in everything in 
nature that is organized, nothing is entirely isolated or 
unlike. The farther we penetrate into their internal struc- 
ture, the more do contrasts and decided characters vanish. 
It may he said that they are like clouds, the outlines of 
which do not appear well defined, except when viewed at 
a distance. 
But though we may not admit one simple and absolute 
principle in the classification of languages, yet it cannot be 
decided, that in their present state some manifest a greater 
tendency to inflexion, others to external aggregation. It is 
well known, that the languages of the Indian, Pclasgic, and 
German branch, belong to the first division ; the American 
idioms, the Coptic or ancient Egyptian, and to a certain 
degree, the Semitic languages and the Biscayan, to the 
second. The little we have made known of the idiom of the 
Chaymas of Caripe, sufficiently proves that constant ten- 
dency towards the incorporation or aggregation of certain 
forms, which it is easy to separate ; though from a somewhat 
refiued sentiment of euphony some letters have been dropped 
and others have been added. Those affixes, by lengthening 
words, indicate the most varied relations of number, time, 
and motion. 
When we reflect on the peculiar structure of the American 
languages, we imagine we discover the source of the opinion 
'generally entertained from the most remote time in the 
.Missions, that these languages have an analogy with the 
Hebrew and the Biscayan. At the convent of Caripe as 
well as at the Orinoco, in Peru as well as in Mexico. 1 heard 
this opinion expressed, particularly by monks who had some 
matical system of languages which are justly cited as models of an 
interior development by inflexion. In the grammatical system of the 
American tongues, for example in the Tamanac, tarecschi, * I will carry.* 
is equally composed of the radical ar (infin. jareri, ‘ to carry’) and of the 
verb ecschi (Intin. nocschiri, ' to be’). There hardly exists in the Ame- 
rican languages a triple mode of aggregation, of which we cannot find a 
similar and analogous example in some other language that is supposed 
‘■o develops itself only by inflexion. 
