not exist in others, and, in most, there is a difference of sound, which strikes even the most unpractised ear. The low guttural pronunciation of the Mexican, or Aztec, contrasts singularly with the sonorous Otomi,[1] which prevails in the neighbouring state of Valladolid; and this again is said to be totally unlike the dialect of some of the northern tribes. There is not, perhaps, a question better worthy of the consideration of philosophers, than the elucidation of this extraordinary anomaly, in the history of the Indian race: nothing is known of the mode in which America was peopled, except the fact, that the tide of population has set, constantly, from north to south. Analogies are said to have been discovered between the language of some of the Indians in the southern parts of Chile, and that used by the Aztec race in Mexico; but the intermediate space is filled up by dialects of an entirely distinct character; nor is there the slightest connexion between the Peruvian and the Mexican tongue, notwithstanding the preeminence, in point of civilization, which each of these nations had attained. It would be interesting, indeed, to discover some mode of explaining these singular facts, and pointing out the region, from which these successive swarms of emigrants must have issued, and the Babel, where their confusion of tongues originated. I do not believe that even a probable conjecture upon this subject has yet been made.
It was the policy of Spain to promote a constant rivality between the different classes of inhabitants in her colonies, by
- ↑ Wherever the Aztec tongue is in use, the letter e is unknown, while in the Otomi dialect, it occurs almost in every word. Thus we have Pŏpŏcătēpĕtl, Istăccihuătl, Tĕnōchtītlăn, and that unpronounceable word given by Humboldt, and signifying " venerable priest, whom I cherish as a father," Notlazomahuizteopixcatatzin,—all Aztec, and all without an R; while in Valladolid, the prevailing names are Ocāmbărŏ, Puruundiro, Zitacuaro, and Cinapecuaro, in all of which R bears a prominent part.
