Note 1892 — Chapter VI · (continued 3)

Some authorities give fourteen dialects of the Maya. Cf. the table in Bancroft, iii. 562, etc., and the statements in Garcia y Cubas, translated by Geo. F. Henderson as The Republic of Mexico. It is still spoken in the greatest purity about the Balize, as is commonly said; but Le Plongeon goes somewhat inland and says he found it “in all its pristine purity” in the neighborhood of Lake Peten. Le Plongeon, with that extravagance which has in the end deprived him of the sympathy and encouragement due to his noteworthy labors, says, “One third of this Maya tongue is pure Greek,” following Brasseur in one of his vagaries, who thought he found in 15,000 Maya vocables at least 7,000 that bore a striking resemblance to the language of Homer.