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the structure of such savage speech, and making rigorous analysis of its forms, used regularly in the expression of thoughts; it results, to envidence, that it has passed the monosyllabic period, and has kept itself, long since, in the agglutinative stage, which is owing, perhaps, to the want of indispensable culture, which enables it to reach the richest stage of a language,—that of inflection.
It is a fact sufficiently proved by experience and by the existing writings on the subject, that the morphology and the syntax of the Brazilian language have been kept unaltered, since the discovery of the country up to the present days. The grammatical elements and forms in usage, which, in this respect, were soon noted by the missionaries, at the time of their catechising among the savage tribes, so far back as the 16o century, are still almost identical with these, which may be observed in the speech of the remaining people of the same race.
It is certain, that the greatest alteration is noted in its phonetic forms, and, consequently, in its vocabulary which is, now, very different from that of the times of the discovery and the conquest of the country.
Besides the natural phonological laws, which govern the frequent changes of every vocable;
