ristic dialects of their progenitors, and
have adopted new ones, varying one from another in the different South
American provinces. The Spanish language, as spoken by the natives of
Peru, differs widely from the correct and pure model of pronunciation.
The inhabitants of the coast have too soft an accent, and they
frequently confound, one with another, letters which have a mutual
resemblance in sound. On the other hand, the people who dwell in the
mountainous districts speak with a harsh accent, and very
ungrammatically. As the Swiss force out their guttural tones from the
lowest depth of their throats, and with the strongest possible
aspiration, so do the Peruvians of the Cordillera. The inhabitants of
the sand flats of North Germany, on the contrary, impart a ludicrously
soft sound to the harsher consonants; and the same peculiarity is
observable in the people who inhabit the coast of Peru.

Of all the inhabitants of Lima, the white Creoles speak the best
Spanish; but still their language is far from pure. The ladies in
particular have the habit of substituting one letter for another in
certain words; for example, instead of _pulso_ (pulse) they say
_purso_, and instead of _salsa_ (sauce) they say _sarsa_. In other
words they substitute _d_ for _r_, saying _amod_ for _amor_,
_cavalledo_ for _cavallero_. The _ll_ is frequently sounded by the
Peruvians like _y_, a blunder which foreigners are also very apt to
commit; for example, in the word _pollo_ (chicken), which they
pronounce as if it were spelled _poyo_, and _gallina_ (hen) they
pronounce as if spelled _gayina_. Not only do they confound single
letters, but they frequently change whole syllables; as for instance,
in the word _pared_ (wall), which they transform into _pader_. The
name of the well-known ex-President Orbegoso was, by two-thirds of the
natives of Lima, pronounced as if written _Obregoso_. There is no word
in the Spanish language beginning with an _s_ followed by a consonant,
and the Limenos, when they attempt to pronounce foreign words or
proper names commencing in the manner just described, never fail to
prefix to them the letter _e_. I know not whether in the schools and
colleges of old Spain this method of prefixing the letter _e_ is
adopted in teaching Latin; but the practice is universal among the
students of all the colleges in Lima. For studium they say _estudium_;
for spurius, _espurius_; for sceleratus, _esceleratus_, &c.

To the Limenos t