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In the Tamanac tongue, acurivane means beautiful, and acurivanepra, ugly not beautiful; outapra, there is no fish, properly fish none; uteripipra, I will not go, properly I to go will not, composed of uteri,* to go, ipiri, to choose, and pra, not. In utechire we find the Tamanac verb to go, uteri, of which ute is also the radical, and ri the termination of the Infinitive.
With respect to the other nations whose affinities of language with the Tamanac and Caribbee have been mentioned, they are not necessarily to be considered as of the same race. In Asia, the nations of Mongol origin differ totally in their physical organisation from those of Tartar origin.
I will prove this connection by two means which serve to show the analogy of idioms; namely, the grammatical construction, and the identity of words and roots. The following are the personal pronouns of the Chaymas, which are at the same time possessive pronouns; u-re, I, me; eu-re, thou, thee; teu-re, he, him. In the Tamanac, u-re, I; amare or anja, thou; iteu-ja, he.
Ursua, in going down the Caqueta to enter the river of the Amazons, heard of the province of Caricuri. This denomination clearly indicates the country of gold; for I find that this metal is called caricuri in the Tamanac, and carucuru in the Caribbee. Is it a foreign word that denotes gold among the nations of the Orinoco, as the words sugar and cotton are in our European languages?
In Terra Firma and on the Orinoco, the Caribbean and the Tamanac alone would now be spoken; and in the south and south-west, the Quichua, the Guarano, the Omagua, and the Araucan.
What the Tamanacs, and the tribes whose languages are analogous to the Tamanac tongue, now relate to us, they have no doubt learned from other people, who inhabited before them the same regions.
This nation, formerly very powerful, is separated from the mountains of Caripe by the Orinoco, by the vast steppes of Caracas and of Cumana; and by a barrier far more difficult to surmount, the nations of Caribbean origin. But notwithstanding distance, and the numerous obstacles in the way of intercourse, the language of the Chayma Indians is a branch of the Tamanac tongue.
It seems surprising that a vegetable production so universally spread should have different names among neighbouring people. The following are the synonyms in thirteen languages. North America. Aztec or Mexican; yetl: Algonkin; sema: Huron; oyngoua. South America. Peruvian or Quichua; sayri: Chiquito; pais. Omagua; petema. Tamanac; cavas. Maypure; jema.
The name of arabata, which Gumilla gives to the howling apes of the Lower Orinoco, and which Geoffroy thinks belongs to the S. straminea of Great Paria, is the same Tamanac word aravata. This identity of names need not surprise us.
The verb to be, is expressed in Chayma by az. The possessive pronouns precede the substantive; upatay, in my house, properly my house in. All the prepositions and the negation pra are incorporated at the end, as in the Tamanac.
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