Note 761 — Chapter X

Such disintegration is clearly seen in the Carib still surviving in Dominica, of which J. Numa Rat contributed a somewhat full account to the Journ. Anthr. Inst. for Nov. 1897, p. 293 sq. Here the broken form arametakuahátina buka appears to represent the polysynthetic arametakuanientibubuka (root arameta, to hide), as in Père Breton's Grammaire Caraibe, p. 45, where we have also the form arametakualubatibubasubutuiruni = know that he will conceal thee (p. 48). It may at the same time be allowed that great inroads have been made on the principle of polysynthesis even in the continental (South American) Carib, as well as in the Colombian Chibcha, the Mexican Otomi and Pima, and no doubt in some other linguistic groups. But that the system must have formerly been continuous over the whole of America seems proved by the persistence of extremely polysynthetic tongues in such widely separated regions as Greenland (Eskimo), Mexico (Aztec), Peru (Quichuan), and Chili (Araucanian).