The American Nations, Vol. I.: Or, Outlines of a National History of the Ancient and Modern Nations of North and South AmericaRafinesque, C. S. (Constantine Samuel)
History
The American Nations, Vol. I.: Or, Outlines of a National History of the Ancient and Modern Nations of North and South America
Rafinesque, C. S. (Constantine Samuel)
Indians; Indians -- Origin; Taino Indians; Taino language
Examples of regular position.
_Hay-ti_ Land-high.
_Ana-caona_ Flower (of) gold.
_Buhui-tihu_ Priest high or eminent.
Examples of inverse positions.
_Bo-hito_ Old man or priest.
_Jaya-el_ Earth-son.
_N’abor-itas_ The working men.
The adjectives are chiefly formed from nouns, and often by a simple O
added, thus _Ziba_ stone, _Zibao_ stony, _Zibayo_ mount.
_Turei_ heaven, _Tureigua_ heavenly or heaven-like.
_Duhos_ wealth, _Duihzi_ wealthy or wealth-is.
The superlatives are commonly formed by duplication. _Ua_ old, _Uaua_ very
old. _Co_ fruitful, _Coco_ very fruitful, the coco nut.
Or else by the affix _Ma_ which amplifies every thing.
The pronouns appear very simple.
MI, M’ first person for I, me, my, mine; but _our_ is _Ahia_?
TI, T’ Second person for thee, thou, thy, thine.
LI, L’ Third person for he, she, his, her.
NI, N’ Common like _It_ or rather _On_ of the French.
How their plurals are formed, is doubtful; but perhaps the inflexions
alone formed them. These pronouns are pure Italian! or rather primitive.
They were often dispensed with as in Italian.
Of the verbs we know little or nothing. By a few examples of the verb _to
be_, it was quite irregular as with us.
_Ei_ To be—_Tei_ be thou—_Bei_ being.
_Beira_ a being—_Dacha_ I am.
_El_ he is—_Zi_ it is, this is.
In these _Ei_ appears the root, derives from _Eil_, and was then similar
to _El_ son, as _Zi_ to _Izi_ eyes.
This verb joined to others was added to words. _Guarocoel_ we know he is,
may be analyzed _Gua-roco-el_ such-know-he-is.
We have an example of negative verbs in _Macabuca_ I do not care, which is
_Macabuca_ not-care, or never-mind; in French _n’importe_, in Italian _non
curo_.
Of the syntax we may form an idea by the few preserved phrases; which I
have analyzed as follow, and compared with the Italian.
1. _Teitoca_ thou be quiet. _Tacitu_ Italian.
_tocheta_ much. _molto._
_zinato_ angry. _irato._
_Guame-chyna_ this great God. _gran-Nume._
2. _Gua-ibba_ that go. _Vai_ It.
_zinato_ angry. _irato._
_macabuca_ not care. _non curo._
3. _Dios_ Spanish God. _Dio_ It.
_Aboria_ Servant. _Servo._
_dacha_ I am. _Sono._
This idiom or position of words is perfect in Italian which admits of many
transpositions; but in English syntax and idiom these phrases mean
1. Be quiet, God will be very angry.
2. Begone, I do not care if he is angry.
3. I am the servant of the Spanish God.
The Haytian numbers have not been transmitted to us, and I could only
collect the following secondary numbers—_Ata_ first, _Bem_ second, _Abem_
third: which however are primitive and indicate a binary numeration:
although the language had probably the decimals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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