Wilhelm von Humboldt left us a short manuscript grammar of the Cora and Tarahumara, in which he remarks that for languages which are related, the Cora and the Mexican have great differences in their sound-systems, and although these two languages certainly appear to be related, yet he is unwilling to assert that either is derived from the other. "There are more ways than one," says the great philologist Wilhelm von Humboldt, "by which languages are connected. The impression left upon me by the Cora, is that it is a mixture of two different languages: one the Mexican, and the other some older and richer language, but rougher. In the grammar of the Cora there are found very many forms which strikingly call to mind the Mexican, yet at the same time there are many forms wholly different, made by rules directly opposite, among which are the pronouns." He further remarks two other important differences between the Cora and the Mexican which are the absence of the reduplication of syllables and of the reverential forms.
Such was the attitude of the subject when Mr Buschmann took it up. From the prevailing impression of an Aztec origin in the north, but more particularly from certain remarks of Alexander von Humboldt concerning the probable passing of the ancient Mexicans through the regions of the north, he set himself to work to find this line of migration, and the exact relations of their language in various parts. Commencing at the Valley of Mexico he made a careful analysis of every western language north of that place of which he could obtain any material. The result of Mr Buschmann's researches was the discovery of Aztec traces in certain parts, but nowhere did he find the Aztec language as a base.
AZTEC TRACES IN NORTHERN MEXICO.
More particularly were these Aztec words and word-analogies perceptible in four certain languages of north-western Mexico; in the Cora, spoken in the Nayarit district of Jalisco, commencing about fifteen leagues from the coast at the mouth of the Rio Tololotlan, and extending between the parallels 21°30' and 20° back irregularly into the interior about twenty leagues; in the Tepehuana of northern Sinaloa, northern Durango, and southern Chihuahua, or as laid down on the map of Orozco y Berra, commencing near the twenty-third parallel about twenty leagues from the eastern shore of the Gulf of California, and extending over a horse-shoe shaped territory to about the twenty-seventh parallel; in the Tarahumara spoken immediately north of the Tepehuana in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora, in the centre of the Sierra Madre; and lastly in the Cahita spoken by the people inhabiting the eastern shore of the Gulf of California, between latitude 26° and 28° north, and extending back from the coast irregularly about forty leagues, being almost directly west of the Tarahumara, though not exactly contiguous. The name Cahita is applied by the missionaries only to the language, and not to the people speaking it. In the license prefixed to the Manual para administrar à los Indios del idioma Cahita los santos sacramentos compuesto por un Sacerdote de la Compañia de Jesus, printed in Mexico in 1740, it is called the common language of the missions of the province of Sinaloa, spoken by the Yaquis and the Mayos, the latter extending far into southern Sonora. In a vocabulary of the Cahita given by Ternaux-Compans, in the Nouvelles Annales, there are likewise found many Aztec words. Neither of these languages are related to the others, yet in all of them is a sprinkling of Aztec word-material. The Aztec substantive ending tl and tli, in the Cora are found changed in ti, te, and t; in the Tepehuana into de, re, and sci; in the Tarahumara into ki, ke, ca, and la; and in the Cahita, into ri. In all four of the languages substantive endings are dropped, first, in composition when the substantive is united with the possessive pronoun; secondly, before an affix; thirdly, in the Cora alone, before the ending of the plural; and before affixes in the formation of words. They are not dropped in verbs derived from substantives; and when two substantives are combined to form a word the Aztec terminal is dropped in the first, and also in the combination of a substantive and verb.
In the Cora, the ending tyahta has the same meaning as the Aztec local ending tla, or tlan, which signifies the locality of a thing; as, acotn, a fir-tree; (Aztec, ocotl) ocotyahta, a fir-forest; (Aztec, ocotlan). Another striking similarity between these four languages and the Aztec consists in the use of a postfix in the formation of substantives of locality and names of places. Then come the numerals, in which are found similarities in all their formations. The Aztec verb ca, to be, and even its irregular branch, catqui, is found disseminated throughout all these languages. In the Tarahumara dictionary of Steffel, and in the Cora dictionary of Ortega, Buschmann found the Aztec element even stronger than he had supposed, and he wondered how Gallatin, who had Tellechea's grammar, could have allowed these similarities to escape his observations.
AZTEC MATERIAL IN THE AZTEC-SONORA FAMILY.
Of these four languages Buschmann makes what he calls his Sonora family; which term is somewhat a misnomer as applied to languages not related, and spoken more without than within the province of Sonora. Their only bond of union is this Aztec element, which may have found its way into them at different times and under different circumstances. The most peculiar feature of it all, is the departure which is made by these Aztec-Sonora languages, as from an original centre, and their several appearance, each stamped alike with Aztec marks while at the same time sustaining its own individuality, in different parts of the great northern regions. It is as though a handful of Aztec words had been thrown, at intervals, into the languages of each of these four peoples, and, after partial amalgamations of these foreign words with those of the aboriginal tongues, by some means the words so modified had found their way in greater or less quantities into the languages of other and remote tribes. It is at such times, when we obtain a glance from a distance at their shadowy history, that there arise in the mind visions of their illimitable unwritten past, and of the mighty turmoils and revolutions which must forever remain as they are, shrouded in the deepest mystery.
In these four Aztec-Sonora languages there are nearly two hundred Aztec words, and the words derived from them by the respective native idioms into which they were projected, swell the list to four times that number; and these, with other pure Aztec words in every stage of mutilation and transformation are found re-scattered throughout the before-mentioned Pueblo, Shoshone, and other languages of the north. But again, let me say, nowhere does the Aztec, or any of its affiliations appear as a base north of central Mexico.[V'-5]
Taking into consideration that some Aztec and Shoshone words are almost identical, and that the endings of others are almost exactly alike, it is not surprising if the acute ear of the natives detected phonetic resemblances. The connection between these languages may not be in one respect as positive as that between the languages which compose the great Aryan family on the Asiatic and European continents, but, on the other hand, it presents a somewhat analogous system, by means of which it becomes possible to establish a connection. I allude to Mr Grimm's discovery of what has been termed 'Lautverschiebung,' or 'Lautveränderung,' anglicé 'Sound-shunting.'[V'-6]