Note X'-5 — Chapter X · LANGUAGES OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN MEXICO.
Reading edition
Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., p. 552. 'Tarascum, quod hujus gentis proprium erat et vulgare, concisum atque elegans.' Laet, Novus Orbis, p. 267. 'La Tarasca, que corre generalmente en las Prouincias de Mechoacan, esta es muy facil por tener la mesma pronunciacion que la nuestra: yassi se escriue con el mesmo abecedario. Es muy copiosa, y elegante.' Grijalua, Crón. Augustin, fol. 75; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. ix.; Alegre, Hist. Comp. de Jesus, tom. i., pp. 90-1; Acosta, Hist. Nat. Ind., p. 506. 'La loro lingua è abbondante, dolce, e sonora. Adoperano spesso la R soave: le loro sillabe constano per lo più d'una sola consonante e d'una vocale.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. i., p. 149. 'Les Tarasques ... célèbres ... par l'harmonie de leur langue riche en voyelles.' Humboldt, Essai Pol., tom. i., p. 255; Beaumont, Crón. de Mechoacan, p. 43; Mühlenpfordt, Mejico, tom. ii., pt ii., p. 364; Romero, Noticias Michoacan, p. 5; Heredia y Sarmiento, Sermon, p. 83; Anales del Ministerio de Fomento, 1854, p. 185, et seq.; Wappäus, Geog. u. Stat., p. 35; Hassel, Mex. Guat., p. 152. 'Die Sprache in dieser Provinz wird für die reineste und zierlichste von ganz Neu-Spanien gehalten.' Delaporte, Reisen, pp. 313-4; Vater, Mithridates, tom. iii., pt iii., p. 125. 'Tarasca een nette en korte spraek, die eigentlijk alhier te huis hoort.' Montanus, Nieuwe Weereld, p. 256. Ward, speaking of the Tarasco, has made the serious mistake of confounding it with the Otomí, and seems to think that they are both one and the same. Two languages could hardly be farther apart than these two. Mexico, vol. ii., p. 681. Raffinesque, the indefatigable searcher for foreign relationships with Mexican languages, claims to have discovered an affinity between the Tarasco, Italian, Atlantic, Coptic, Pelasgic, Greek, and Latin languages. He writes that he was 'struck with its evident analogy' with the above and with the 'languages of Africa and Europe both in words and structure, in spite of a separation of some thousand years.' In Priest's Amer. Antiq., p. 314.