"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.