Note 819 — Chapter III

In support of the California location, Buschmann, in his Ueber die Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im nördlichen Mexico und höheren Amerikanischen Norden (Berlin, 1854), finds traces of the Mexican tongue in those of the recent California Indians. Linguistic resemblances to the Aztec, even so far north as Nootka, have been traced, but later philologists deny the inferences of relationship drawn from such similarity (Bancroft, iii. p. 612). The linguistic confusion in aboriginal California is so great that there is a wide field for tracing likenesses (Ibid. iii. 635). In the California State Mining Bureau, Bulletin no. 1 (Sacramento, 1888), Winslow Anderson gives a description of some desiccated human remains found in a sealed cave, which are supposed to be Aztec. There are slight resemblances to the Aztec in the Shoshone group of languages (Bancroft, iii. 660), and the same author arranges all that has been said to connect the Mexican tongue with those of New Mexico and neighboring regions (iii. 664). Buschmann, who has given particular attention to tracing the Aztec connections at the north, finds nothing to warrant anything more than casual admixtures with other stocks (Die Lautveränderung Aztekischer Wörter, Berlin, 1855, and Die Spuren der Aztekischen Sprachen, Berlin, 1859). See Short (p. 487) for a summary.