The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations

The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations

THE ARAWACK LANGUAGE OF GUIANA IN ITS LINGUISTIC AND ETHNOLOGICAL RELATIONS.

BY D. G. BRINTON, M. D

The Arawacks are a tribe of Indians who at present dwell in British and Dutch Guiana, between the Corentyn and Pomeroon rivers. They call themselves simply lukkunu, men, and only their neighbors apply to them the contemptuous name aruac (corrupted by Europeans into Aroaquis, Arawaaks, Aroacos, Arawacks, etc.), meal-eaters, from their peaceful habit of gaining an important article of diet from the amylaceous pith of the Mauritia flexuosa palm, and the edible root of the cassava plant.

They number only about two thousand souls, and may seem to claim no more attention at the hands of the ethnologist than any other obscure Indian tribe. But if it can be shown that in former centuries they occupied the whole of the West Indian archipelago to within a few miles of the shore of the northern continent, then on the question whether their affiliations are with the tribes of the northern or southern mainland, depends our opinion of the course of migration of the primitive inhabitants of the western world. And if this is the tribe whose charming simplicity Columbus and Peter Martyr described in such poetic language, then the historian will acknowledge a desire to acquaint himself more closely with its past and its present. It is my intention to show that such was their former geographical position.

While in general features there is nothing to distinguish them from the red race elsewhere, they have strong national traits. Physically they are rather undersized, averaging not over five feet four inches in height, but strong-limbed, agile, and symmetrical. Their foreheads are low, their noses more allied to the Aryan types than usual with their race, and their skulls of that form defined by craniologists as orthognathic brachycephalic.

From the earliest times they have borne an excellent character. Hospitable, peace-loving, quick to accept the humbler arts of civilization and the simpler precepts of Christianity, they have ever offered a strong contrast to their neighbors, the cruel and warlike Caribs. They are not at all prone to steal, lie, or drink, and their worst faults are an addiction to blood-revenge, and a superstitious veneration for their priests.

They are divided into a number of families, over fifty in all, the genealogies of which are carefully kept in the female line, and the members of any one of which are forbidden to intermarry. In this singular institution they resemble many other native tribes.

LANGUAGE

The earliest specimen of their language under its present name is given by Johannes de Laet in his Novus Orbis, seu Descriptio Indiæ Occidentalis (Lugd. Bat. 1633). It was obtained in 1598. In 1738 the Moravian brethren founded several missionary stations in the country, but owing to various misfortunes, the last of their posts was given up in 1808. To them we owe the only valuable monuments of the language in existence.

Their first instructor was a mulatto boy, who assisted them in translating into the Arawack a life of Christ. I cannot learn that this is extant. Between 1748 and 1755 one of the missionaries, Theophilus Schumann, composed a dictionary, Deutsch-Arawakisches Wœrterbuch, and a grammar, Deutsch-Arawakische Sprachlehre, which have remained in manuscript in the library of the Moravian community at Paramaribo. Schumann died in 1760, and as he was the first to compose such works, the manuscript dictionary in the possession of Bishop Wullschlägel, erroneously referred by the late Professor von Martius to the first decade of the last century, is no doubt a copy of Schumann’s.

In 1807 another missionary, C. Quandt, published a Nachricht von Surinam, the appendix to which contains the best published grammatical notice of the tongue. The author resided in Surinam from 1769 to 1780.

Unquestionably, however, the most complete and accurate information in existence concerning both the verbal wealth and grammatical structure of the language, is contained in the manuscripts of the Rev. Theodore Schultz, now in the library of the American Philosophical Society. Mr. Shultz was a Moravian missionary, who was stationed among the Arawacks from 1790 to 1802, or thereabout. The manuscripts referred to are a dictionary and a grammar. The former is a quarto volume of 622 pages. The first 535 pages comprise an Arawack-German lexicon, the remainder is an appendix containing the names of trees, stars, birds, insects, grasses, minerals, places, and tribes. The grammar, Grammattikalische Sätze von der Aruwakkischen Sprache, is a 12mo volume of 173 pages, left in an unfinished condition. Besides these he left at his death a translation of the Acts of the Apostles, which was published in 1850 by the American Bible Society under the title Act Apostelnu. It is from these hitherto unused sources that I design to illustrate the character of the language, and study its former extension.1

PHONETICS

The Arawack is described as “the softest of all the Indian tongues.”2 It is rich in vowels, and free from gutturals. The enunciation is distinct and melodious. As it has been reduced to writing by Germans, the German value must be given to the letters employed, a fact which must always be borne in mind in comparing it with the neighboring tongues, nearly all of which are written with the Spanish orthography.

The Arawack alphabet has twenty letters: a, b, d, e, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, w.

Besides these, they have a semi-vowel written lr the sound of which in words of the masculine gender approaches l, in those of the neuter gender r. The o and u, and the t and d, are also frequently blended. The w has not the German but the soft English sound, as in we. The German dipthongs æ, œ, eu, ei, ü, are employed. The accents are the long ^, the acute `, and that indicating the emphasis ´. The latter is usually placed near the commencement of the word, and must be carefully observed.

NOUNS

Like most Indians, the Arawack rarely uses a noun in the abstract. An object in his mind is always connected with some person or thing, and this connection is signified by an affix, a suffix, or some change in the original form of the word. To this rule there are some exceptions, as bahü a house, siba a stone, hiäru a woman. Dáddikân hiäru, I see a woman. Such nouns are usually roots. Those derived from verbal roots are still more rarely employed independently.

Numbers. The plural has no regular termination. Often the same form serves for both numbers, as is the case in many English words. Thus, itime fish and fishes, siba stone and stones, känsiti a lover and lovers. The most common plural endings are ati, uti, and anu, connected to the root by a euphonic letter; as uju mother, ujunuti mothers, itti father, ittinati fathers, kansissia a loved one, kansissiannu loved ones.

Of a dual there is no trace, nor does there seem to be of what is called the American plural (exclusive or inclusive of those present). But there is a peculiar plural form with a singular signification in the language, which is worthy of note. An example will illustrate it; itti is father, plural ittinati; wattinati is our father, not our fathers, as the form would seem to signify. In other words, singular nouns used with plural pronouns, or construed with several other nouns, take a plural form. Petrus Johannes mutti ujúnatu, the mother of Peter and John.

Genders. A peculiarity, which the Arawack shares with the Iroquois3 and other aboriginal languages of the Western continent, is that it only has two genders, and these not the masculine and feminine, as in French, but the masculine and neuter. Man or nothing was the motto of these barbarians. Regarded as an index of their mental and social condition, this is an ominous fact. It hints how utterly destitute they are of those high, chivalric feelings, which with us centre around woman.

The termination of the masculine is i, of the neuter u, and, as I have already observed, a permutation of the semi-vowels l and r takes place, the letter becoming l in the masculine, r in the neuter. A slight difference in many words is noticeable when pronounced by women or by men. The former would say keretin, to marry; the latter kerejun. The gender also appears by more than one of these changes: ipillin, great, strong, masculine; ipirrun, feminine and neuter.

There is no article, either definite or indefinite, and no declension of nouns.

PRONOUNS

The demonstrative and possessive personal pronouns are alike in form, and, as in other American languages, are intimately incorporated with the words with which they are construed. A single letter is the root of each: d I, mine, b thou, thine, l he, his, t she, her, it, its, w we, our, h you, your, n they, their; to these radical letters the indefinite pronoun ükküahü, somebody, is added, and by abbreviation the following forms are obtained, which are those usually current:

dakia, dai, I.

bokkia, bui, thou.

likia, he.

turreha, she, it.

wakia, wai, we.

hukia, hui, you.

nakia, nai, they.

Except the third person, singular, they are of both genders. In speaking, the abbreviated form is used, except where for emphasis the longer is chosen.

In composition they usually retain their first vowel, but this is entirely a question of euphony. The methods of their employment with nouns will be seen in the following examples:

üssiquahü, a house.

dássiqua, my house.

bússiqua, thy house.

lüssiqua, his house.

tüssiqua, her, its house.

wássiqua, our house.

hüssiqua, your house.

nássiqua, their house.

uju, mother.

daiju, my mother.

buju, thy mother.

luju, his mother.

tuju, her mother.

waijunattu, our mother.

hujuattu, your mother.

naijattu, their mother.

waijunuti, our mothers.

hujunuti, your mothers.

naijunuti, their mothers.

Many of these forms suffer elision in speaking. Itti father, datti my father, wattínatti our father, contracted to wattínti (watti rarely used).

When thus construed with pronouns, most nouns undergo some change of form, usually by adding an affix; báru an axe, dábarun my axe, iulí tobacco, dajulite my tobacco.

ADJECTIVES

The verb is the primitive part of speech in American tongues. To the aboriginal man every person and object presents itself as either doing or suffering something, every quality and attribute as something which is taking place or existing. His philosophy is that of the extreme idealists or the extreme materialists, who alike maintain that nothing is, beyond the cognizance of our senses. Therefore his adjectives are all verbal participles, indicating a state of existence. Thus üssatu good, is from üssân to be good, and means the condition of being good, a good woman or thing, üssati a good man.

Some adjectives, principally those from present participles, have the masculine and neuter terminations i and u in the singular, and in the plural i for both genders. Adjectives from the past participles end in the singular in issia or üssia, in the plural in annu. When the masculine ends in illi, the neuter takes urru, as wadikilli, wadikurru, long.

Comparison is expressed by adding bén or kén or adin (a verb meaning to be above) for the comparative, and apüdi for the diminutive. Ubura, from the verb uburau to be before in time, and adiki, from adikin to be after in time, are also used for the same purpose. The superlative has to be expressed by a circumlocution; as tumaqua aditu ipirrun turreha, what is great beyond all else; bokkia üssá dáuria, thou art better than I, where the last word is a compound of dai uwúria of, from, than. The comparative degree of the adjectives corresponds to the intensive and frequentative forms of the verbs; thus ipirrun to be strong, ipirru strong, ipirrubîn and ipirrubessabun to be stronger, ipirrubetu and ipirrubessabutu stronger, that which is stronger.

The numerals are wonderfully simple, and well illustrate how the primitive man began his arithmetic. They are: —

1 abba.

2 biama, plural biamannu.

3 kabbuhin, plural kubbuhinínnu.

4 bibiti, plural bibitinu.

5 abbatekkábe, plural abbatekabbunu.

6 abbatiman, plural abbatimannínu.

7 biamattiman, plural biamattimannínu.

8 kabbuhintiman, plural kabbuhintimannínu.

9 bibitiman, plural bibititumannínu.

10 biamantekábbe, plural biamantekábunu.

Now if we analyze these words, we discover that abbatekkábe five, is simply abba one, and akkabu, hand; that the word for six is literally “one [finger] of the other [hand],” for seven “two [fingers] of the other [hand],” and so on to ten, which is compounded of biama two, and akkabu hands. Would they count eleven, they say abba kutihibena one [toe] from the feet, and for twenty the expression is abba lukku one man, both hands and feet. Thus, in truth, they have only four numerals, and it is even a question whether these are primitive, for kabbuhin seems a strengthened form of abba, and bibuti to bear the same relation to biama. Therefore we may look back to a time when this nation knew not how to express any numbers beyond one and two.

Although these numbers do not take peculiar terminations when applied to different objects, as in the languages of Central America and Mexico, they have a great variety of forms to express the relationship in which they are used. The ordinals are:

atenennuati, first.

ibiamattéti, second.

wakábbuhinteti, our third, etc.

To the question, How many at a time? the answer is:

likinnekewai, one alone.

biamanuman, two at a time, etc.

If simply, How many? it is:

abbahu, one.

biamahu, two.

If, For which time? it is:

tibíakuja, for the first time.

tibíamattétu, for the second time.

and so on.

VERBS

The verbs are sometimes derived from nouns, sometimes from participles, sometimes from other verbs, and have reflexive, passive, frequentative, and other forms. Thus from lana, the name of a certain black dye, comes lannatün to color with this dye, alannatunna to color oneself with it, alannattukuttun to let oneself be colored with it, alanattukuttunnua to be colored with it.

The infinitive ends in in, ün, ùn, ân, unnua, ên, and ûn. Those in in, ün, ùn, and ân are transitive, in unnua are passive and neuter, the others are transitive, intransitive, or neuter.

The passive voice is formed by the medium of a verb of permission, thus:

amalitin, to make.

amalitikittin, to let make.

amalitikittunnua, to be made.

assimakin, to call.

assimakuttün, to let call,

assimakuttùnnua, to be called.

The personal pronouns are united to the verbs as they are to the nouns. They precede all verbs except those whose infinitives terminate in ên, in, and ân, to which they are suffixed as a rule, but not always. When they follow the verb, the forms of the pronouns are either de, bu, i he, n she, it, u, hu, je or da, ba, la, ta, wa, ha, na. The latter are used chiefly where the negative prefix m, ma or maya is employed. Examples:

hallikebben, to rejoice

hallikebbéde, I rejoice.

hallikebbébu, thou rejoicest.

hallikebbéi, he rejoices.

hallikebbên, she rejoices.

hallikebbéu, we rejoice.

hallikebbéhü, you rejoice.

hallikebbéje, they rejoice.

majauquan, to remain

majáuquada, I remain.

majáuquaba, thou remainest.

majáuquala, he remains.

majáuquata, she remains.

majáuquawa, we remain.

majáuquaha, you remain.

majáuquana, they remain.

Moods and Tenses. Their verbs have four moods, the indicative, optative, imperative, and infinitive, and five tenses, one present, three preterites, and one future. The rules of their formation are simple. By changing the termination of the infinitive into a, we have the indicative present, into bi the first preterite, into buna the second preterite, into kuba the third preterite, and into pa the future. The conjugations are six in number, and many of the verbs are irregular. The following verb of the first conjugation illustrates the general rules for conjugation:

ayahaddin, to walk.

Indicative Mood

Present tense:

dayahadda, I walk.

bujahadda, thou walkest.

lujahadda, he walks.

tüjahadda, she walks.

wayahádda, we walk.

hujahádda, you walk.

nayuhádda, they walk.

First preterite – of to-day:

dayaháddibi, I walked to-day.

bujaháddibi, thou walked to-day.

lijaháddibi, he walked to-day.

tujaháddibi, she walked to-day.

wayaháddibi, we walked to-day.

hujaháddibi, you walked to-day.

nayaháddibi, they walked to-day.

Second preterite – of yesterday or the day before.

dayahaddibüna, I walked yesterday or the day before.

bujaháddibüna, thou walked yesterday or the day before.

lijaháddibuna, he walked yesterday or the day before.

tujaháddibüna, she walked yesterday or the day before.

wayaháddibüna, we walked yesterday or the day before.

hujaháddibüna, you walked yesterday or the day before.

nayaháddibüna, they walked yesterday or the day before.

Third preterite – at some indefinite past time:

dayaháddakuba, I walked.

bujaháddakuba, thou walked.

lijaháddakuba, he walked.

tujaháddakuba, she walked.

wayaháddakuka, we walked.

hujaháddakuba, you walked.

nayaháddakuba, they walked.

Future:

dayaháddipa, I shall walk.

bujaháddipa, thou wilt walk.

lijaháddipa, he will walk.

tujaháddipa, she will walk.

wayaháddipa, we shall walk.

hujahaddipa, you will walk.

nayahaddipa, they will walk.

Optative Mood

Present:

dayahaddama or dayahaddinnika, I may walk.

First preterite:

dayahaddinnikábima

Second preterite

dayahaddinbünáma

Third preterite:

dayahaddinnikubámaImperative Mood

bujahaddáte or bujahaddalte, walk thou.

hüjahaddáte or hujahaddalte, walk ye.

nayahaddáte, let them walk.

wayahaddali, let us walk.

Participles

ayahaddinnibi, to have walked to-day.

ayahaddinnibüna, to have walked yesterday.

ayahaddínnikuba, to have walked.

ayahaddínnipa, to be about to walk.

Gerund

ayahaddinti.

ayahaddinnibia.

The following forms also belong to this verb:

ayahaddinnibiakubáma, to may or can walk.

ayahaddahálin, one who walks there (infinitive form).

As in all polysynthetic languages, other words and particles can be incorporated in the verb to modify its meaning, thus:

dayahaddáruka, as I was walking.

dayahaddakanika, I walk a little.

dayahaddahittika, I walk willingly.

In this way sometimes words of formidable length are manufactured, as:

massukussukuttunnuanikaebibu, you should not have been washed to-day.

Negation may be expressed either by the prefix m or ma, as mayahaddinikade, I do not walk (where the prefix throws the pronoun to the end of the word, and gives it the form appropriate for that position), or else by the adverb kurru, not. But if both these negatives are used, they make an affirmative, as madittinda kurru Gott, I am not unacquainted with God.

COMPOSITION OF WORDS AND SENTENCES

“In general,” remarks Prof. Von Martius, “this language betrays the poverty and cumbrousness of other South American languages; yet in many expressions a glimpse is caught of a far reaching, ideal background.”4 We see it in the composition and derivation of some words; from haikan to pass by, comes haikahu death, the passing away, and aiihakü marriage, in which, as in death, the girl is lost to her parents; from kassan to be pregnant, comes kassaku the firmament, big with all things which are, and kassahu behü, the house of the firmament, the sky, the day; from ükkü the heart, comes ükkürahü the family, the tribe, those of one blood, whose hearts beat in unison, and üküahü a person, one whose heart beats and who therefore lives, and also, singularly enough, ükkürahü pus, no doubt from that strange analogy which in so many other aboriginal languages and myths identified the product of suppuration with the semen masculinum, the physiological germ of life.

The syntax of the language is not clearly set forth by any authorities. Adjectives generally, but not always, follow the words they qualify, and prepositions are usually placed after the noun, and often at the end of a sentence; thus, peru (Spanish perro) assimakaku naha à, the dog barks her at. To display more fully the character of the tongue, I shall quote and analyze a verse from the Act Apostelnu, the 11th verse of the 14th chapter, which in the English Protestant version reads:

And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.

In Arawack it is:

Addikitti uijuhu Paulus anissiäbiru, kakannaküku na assimakâka hürküren Lÿcaonia adiân ullukku hiddin: Amallitakoananutti lukkunu dia na buté wakkarruhu, nattukuda aijumüneria wibiti hinna.

Literally:

They – seeing (addin to see, gerund) the – people Paulus what – had been done (anin to do, anissia to have been done), loudly they called altogether the – Lycaonia speech in, thus, The – gods (present participle of amallitin to make; the same appellation which the ancient Greeks gave to poets, [Greek: poiêtai] makers, the Arawacks applied to the divine powers) men like, us to now (buté nota præsentis) are – come – down from – above – down – here ourselves because – of.

AFFILIATIONS OF THE ARAWACK

The Arawacks are essentially of South American origin and affiliations. The earliest explorers of the mainland report them as living on the rivers of Guiana, and having settlements even south of the Equator.5 De Laet in his map of Guiana locates a large tribe of “Arowaceas” three degrees south of the line, on the right bank of the Amazon. Dr. Spix during his travels in Brazil met with fixed villages of them near Fonteboa, on the river Solimoes and near Tabatinga and Castro d’Avelaes.6 They extended westward beyond the mouth of the Orinoco, and we even hear of them in the province of Santa Marta, in the mountains south of Lake Maracaybo.7

While their language has great verbal differences from the Tupi of Brazil and the Carib, it has also many verbal similarities with both. “The Arawack and the Tupi,” observes Professor Von Martius, “are alike in their syntax, in their use of the possessive and personal pronouns, and in their frequent adverbial construction;”8 and in a letter written me shortly before his death, he remarks, in speaking of the similarity of these three tongues: “Ich bin überzeugt dass diese [die Cariben] eine Elite der Tupis waren, welche erst spät auf die Antillen gekommen sind, wo die alte Tupi – Sprache in kaum erkennbaren Resten übrig war, als man sie dort aufzeichnete.” I take pleasure in bringing forward this opinion of the great naturalist, not only because it is not expressed so clearly in any of his published writings, but because his authority on this question is of the greatest weight, and because it supports the view which I have elsewhere advanced of the migrations of the Arawack and Carib tribes.9 These “hardly recognizable remains of the Tupi tongue,” we shall see belonged also to the ancient Arawack at an epoch when it was less divergent than it now is from its primitive form. While these South American affinities are obvious, no relationship whatever, either verbal or syntactical, exists between the Arawack and the Maya of Yucatan, or the Chahta-Mvskoki of Florida and the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico.