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INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE
BANTU LANGUAGES

ALICE WERNER

Reader in Swahili, etc., School of Oriental Studies,

London Institution.

Author of Language'Familiea of Africa^ Native Races

of British Central Africa^ etc.

LONDON :

KEGAN PAUL. TRENCH. TRUBNER & CO.. Ltd.

NEW YORK : E. P. DUTTON & CO.

1919

^ 5 s.3>

' APR 27 1 920

MAGISTRO ET AMICO

CM.

Inter arma silent artes et amicitice :
ne sileant in ceternum !

IX. Kal. Sept. MC MX VIII

CONTENTS.

PAQI

X RKFACE ••• ••• ••• ••• IV

CHAPTER

I. Introductory ... ... ... i

II. The Alliterative Concord ... ... 20

III. The Noun-Classes ... .r. ... 51

IV. The Noun-Classes (continued) ... ... 54

V. Cases : The Locative ... ... 70

VI. The Pronoun ... ... ... 86

VII. The Copula and the Verb VTo Be * ... xog

VIII. The Adjective ... ... ... 118

IX. The Numerals ... ... ... 133

X. The Verb ... ... ... 143

XI. The Verb {continued) — Moods and Tenses 156

XII. Adverbs and Particles ... ... 182

XIII. Word Building ... ... ... 199

XIV. Some Phonetic Laws ... ... 218

Appendix I. Texts — i. Zulu ... ... 232

„ 2. Herero ... ... 248

3. Ila ... ... 264

4. Nyanja ... ... 272

„ 5. Swahili ... ... 276

6. Ganda ... ... 295

Appendix II. Bibliography — i. General ... 307

„ „ „ n. Special Languages 309

^thjmLa ... ... ... ... ... 3 ¥3

j» >» ij

»» »> >»

»» »»

>i »» »»

PREFACE.

It is well to state at the outset that this little book
makes no pretensions to originality. It has not, in all
cases, been possible to give detailed references for
statements which may be recognised as derived from one
or other of the standard authorities (they are not
numerous) on the subject. Sometimes, in the course of
studies covering, intermittently, a period of some thirty
years, one assimilates an idea so thoroughly as to forget
where one first piqjced it up ; sometimes, too, doing
first-hand work at a language, one may, unknowingly,
arrive at facts or deductions already recorded. In all
such cases, the original owners are requested to believe
that no misappropriation was intended.

It may be as well to state that the languages at which
I have worked in situ, that is to say, in the countries
where they are spoken, are Nyanja, Swahili, Zulu, and,
in a lesser degree, Giryama and Pokomo. Some others
I have, to a certain extent, studied from the inside, with
the helprof books.

It will, I hope, be sufficiently clear from the title that
the present work is only an * Introduction ** and does
not in any respect seek to enter into competition with
those of Bleek, Professor Meinhof, Father Torrend and
Sir Harry Johnston. I am under great obligations,
more or less, to all four, though compelled to differ,
occasionally, with all respect, from each ; but I venture
to think I have occupied some ground not completely
covered by any of them, yet important from the beginner's
point of view.

If I might venture to appeal to my own experience I
should say that my feeling on first introduction to Bleek's
Comparative Grammar was one of mere bewilderment,

PREFACE V

caused, I think, partly by the highly technical character of
the first part, which presupposes a considerable acquaint-
ance with phonetics, and partly by the use of Lepsius's
alphabet, which, though not very difficult, involves a little
preliminary training if one is to use the book profitably.
Moreover, this alphabet has been considerably modified
(and, in my view, improved) by Meinhof, so that there
is a slight additional difficulty involved for those who
have already made the acquaintance of the latter.

It is superfluous to say anything in commendation of
the Lautlehre and the Grundziige einer vergleichenden
Grammatik der Bantusprachen ; they are as yet
practically the only works of their kind,* with the
exception of Mile. L. Homburger's highly specialised
study, which is of comparatively limited scope. But
experience has taught me that they are of very little use
to at least three-quarters of the students, whom it has
been my lot to induct into one or other of the Bantu
languages. For one thing, there is as yet no English
edition of either, and — in spite of recent improvements
in this respect — the number of English people who can
study a subject by means of a French, German or
Italian book (which is a diflferent thing from gathering
the drift of a novel or a newspaper article) is still
deplorably small. For another, like Bleek, they pre-
suppose a kind and degree of philological knowledge
which few of the people who take up some Bantu
language at short noticff have had time or opportunity to
acquire.

Here, parenthetically, at the risk of seeming to attempt
the impossible feat ascribed to " Old Man Hyena," who
split in two with the effort— I want to say a word about
two opposite errors.

I have repeatedly insisted, in the following pages, on

1 Father Torrend's book, valuable enough in some ways, has
to be used with caution, not only because of the irrata unavoidable
in a pioneer work, but because the learned author has not been
proof against that temptation to unbalanced theorising which is apt
to beset the African philologist. De Gregorio's Cenni di Glottologia
Bantu , so i^t as I have examined it, does not seem to go beyond the
material furnished by Bleek and Torrend.

ti PREFACE

the (feiiger of being misled by preconceived notions of
gramnaar into erroneous treatment of Bantu speech.
Therefore it would seem as if a knowledge of Latin and
Greek were no help towards the acquisition of African
bmg^ages, and indeed, as we shall see, such knowledge
ftas in some cases given rise to positive stumbling-blocks.
But the fact remains that those who have enjoyed a
sound classical training are best fitted to cope with the
unfamiliar prefixes, affixes and infixes of the " Lingua
Bkntu."

The truth is that — at any rate till quite recently — the
classics have been the only subject taught in our schools
and universities which provided a thorough grounding in
the principles of comparative philology. Neithef Latin
ftor Greek will by itself throw any light on the structure
of, say, Zulu or Ganda — nor, for that matter (except for
its greater approximation, in some points, to primitive
characteristics) will Hebrew. No very great amount of
classical scholarship is needed to discriminate between
roots and formative elements, to distinguish and compare
the functions of the latter and to ascertain and apply the
faws of sound-shifting. But it is the method and the
principle which make all the difference, and those who
follow them will never go astray over fruitless compari-
sons with Akkadian, Tibetan or what not. So that, if
some parts of my book should seem to be needlessly
elementary, I may be allowed to point out that I have
found them by no means superfluous in practice.

I have not dealt with theories of origins or conjectures
as to the successive Bantu migrations. Neither have I
attempted a classification of the Bantu languages into
" branches " (Bleek) or " clusters " (Torrend). I cannot
help thinking that it would be premature at present and
will be for some time to come. Father Torrend
perceived that new facts had (to some extent) disturbed
Bleek's arrangement; and there are still so many languages
of which little or nothing is known, that we can
scarcely regard his own as other than provisional.
The queerest isolated links of affinity are continually
cropping up in unexpected places and upsetting one's

PREFACE W

most cherished prepossessions ; and, for my part, i am
perfectly content, to take the languages as we find themj
leaving the questions of how they came to be whai»
they are, and whether they have a right to be there, to
more competent heads and a future stage of inquiry.

Neither have I attempted to treat of Bantu phonetics
from the strictly scientific point of view. This branch
of the science^ which is still more or less in the pioneer
stage, is safe in the liands of Mr. Daniel Jones and
Professors Meinhof and Westermann — I would only
take this opportunity of emphasising its importance.
The time has passed when the practical linguist or the
research student could afford to rely on his ear and a
certain amount of theoretic knowledge gained from the
older works on the subject. It is one which can never
be satisfactorily studied from books alone, and everyone
intending to proceed to Africa ought to avail him or
herself of the excellent practical courses now open.

I have tried to explain in the text the various shifts
and compromises I have been forced to adopt in order to
arrive at a working orthography for my own immediate
purpose. Both Meinhof's diacritic marks and the
alphabet of the LA. P. have raised endless typographical
difficulties, and I have found it -best in the end to fall
back on Steere's rule-of-thumb, explaining, where they
occur, such symbols as he failed to provide for. It may
be necessary to repeat that kh, th, ph, stand for the
aspirated consonant and not (except where specially
pointed out, as in the case of Herero th) for the sounds
which we associate with those symbols.

The aim of the book is not to furnish all details with
regard to any particular language, but to depict the
broad principles underlying the structure of all belonging
to the Bantu family, in such a form as to facilitate the
subsequent study of the one specially chosen. Their
grammar is of so homogeneous a character that it is
unusually easy to construct such a general outline. Nor
need the student be afraid with any amazement when
he finds that his own chosen idiom fails to conform in
one or more particulars to the outline here sketched.

Vlll PREFACE

By the time he has advanced so far as to discover this,
he will know enough to fit the differences as well as the
resemblances into the framework.

It has, of course, been impossible to provide for every
contingency, for instance, I have just become aware that
Chaga possesses an infixed adverbial (intensive) particle
for which I know no parallel elsewhere. I shall be
grateful to anyone who can give me any information
throwing light on the distribution of this particle, if it is
not an isolated phenomenon — but no doubt we shall be
able to read all about it in Sir Harry Johnston's great
book, when the present distress permits of its publication.
Very likely it contains the answers to many other puzzles
here suggested ; but, all the same, I venture to repeat that
there are some who will read it to better purpose, when
it comes, after making use of the humble stepping-stone
here offered them.

It only remains to thank those who, by word or letter,
have contributed information, advice and encouragement,
both in former years apd recently. Chief among these
I wouldmention Professor Meinhof ; Sir H. H. Johnston;
Dr. Cook, Miss Allen (of Gayaza), and the Rev. H. K.
and Mrs. Banks (of Mbale), all of Uganda ; the mission-
aries of the C.M.S. at Mombasa ; the Rev. Dr. H ether-
wick, Blantyre ; Mrs. Lloyd of St. Faith's, Rusape,
and the Rev. H. Buck (Rhodesia), the Rev. H. B.
Barnes (Penhalonga, Rhodesia) ; Miss Nixon-Smith,
U.M.C.A., Likoma; the Ven. Archdeacon Woodward
and Miss Woodward ; the Rev. W. A. Crabtree (late of
Uganda) and others. I hope anyone accidentally
omitted will not think me ungrateful.

Any criticisms or comments — especially coming direct
from Africa, will be heartily welcomed.

Wasalaam !

A. Werner.

School of Oriental Studies,
Finsbury Circus,

London, E.C. 2.

(

INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE
BANTU LANGUAGES

CHAPTER I

Introductory

The Bantu family of languages is spoken
•throughout Southern and Central Africa, as
far as the Gulf of Cameroons on the north-
west, and the Tana river on the north-east.
This area is interrupted by the following
islands or * enclaves ' of speech belonging to
other families :

The Galla : between the Sabaki and Tana.

The Masai: to the east and south-east of Lake
Victoria.

The Jaluo (* Nilotic Kavirondo ') : at the north-
eastern corner of Lake Victoria.

The Hottentots and Bushmen : in South Africa.

Also several small and little known tribes (Mbugu,
Sandawi, etc.), in the depression south-east of
Kilimanjaro, whom we need not specify more
particularly.

2 INTRODUCTORY

In the Cameroons and along the southern
edge of the Congo basin, the Hne of demarca-
tion between Bantu and non- Bantu (in this
case Sudan or ' Nigritian ') languages is not
very easy to draw. In the former territory
we find several languages classed as * Semi-
Bantu/ or * Bantoid,' which share certain
characteristics with the family, though not
apparently belonging to it. But these, and
the exact delimitation of the frontier, need
not concern us for the purposes of this book.

The number of known Bantu languages is
well over 200 ; but as there are probably
others yet to be recorded, and as some names
may have to be omitted (being synonyms, or
denoting mere dialects — if not altogether
erroneous), this figure must be regarded as
merely provisional.

The principal features of the Bantu lan-
guages are so clearly marked in all, that, as
far as .grammar goes, a knowledge of one
materially facilitates the acquisition of the
rest. Most of them diflfer from each other no
further than do French, Spanish and Italian ;
in some, the resemblance is even closer.
Natives of one tribe cannot, in general,
understand the language of another, without

INTRODUCTORY 3

learning it (though they pick it up very easily),
nor can the European expect to do so ; but
the second language should cost him far less
labour than the first. And an acquaintance
with the framework of Bantu grammar,
comprising, at least, those features which all
the languages have in common (and which, to
those who know only the idioms of Europe,
are so striking and novel as to impress them-
selves readily on the memory) is a useful
preparation for taking up the study of any
particular language in Africa.

The name Bantu was first introduced by
Bleek (1827-1875), who may be called the
father of African philology. It is simply
one form of the word for * people,' wliich is
used throughout the languages of this family.
Various objections have been raised to this
name, but no better one has been 4)roposed,
and it has now so far gained currency that it
would be extremely difficult to displace.
As its meaning is perfectly clear, and as it
is easily pronounced, there seems to be no
sufficient reason for rejecting it. We shall
therefore continue to speak of the Bantu
family.

Though the name was not introduced till

4 IKTRODUCTORY

the middle of the nineteenth century, the
existence of 'this language- family was at any
rate conjectured as early as 1808, when the
German naturalist, Lichtenstein (who had
spent four years travelling in South Africa),
published a paper entitled Remarks on the
Languages of the savage tribes of South Africa^
with a short vocabulary of the most usual dialects
of the Hottentots and Kafirs. The two Bantu
languages of which he collected specimens
were * Kafir ' (Xosa) and Chwana. Many of
his words are recognisable, in spite of a curious
orthography ; but he does not seem to ' have
grasped the system of prefixes, and sometimes
confuses the singular and the plural of a word.
However, he }iad no doubt as to the relation-
ship of these languages to each other and the
fundamental difference between them and that
of the Hottentots He says : * All the idioms
of the South African savages must be regarded
as dialects of one or the other of these two
principal forms ' ; and the information he was
able to obtain respecting the more northerly
tribes led him to the conclusion that * we are
justified in considering all the inhabitants of
the East Coast of Africa, from 10** or 12** S.
to the frontiers of the Dutch Colony, as one

INTRODUCTORY 5

nation to which further research

may perhaps compel us to add the inhabitants
of the South-west Coast.'

A similar conclusion was reached inde-
pendently, a few years later, by our own
orientalist, William .Marsden (1754-1836).
In 1816, he drew up a paper of instructions
for collecting words and sentences, to be used
by the members of Captain Tuckey's ill-fated
expedition to the Congo, in which he remarks
on the similarity between the vocabularies
previously obtained in Angola and Loango and
the specimens of the Mozambique language
dictated by a native of that country who had
been Marsden's servant in. India. But the
study of the Bantu languages singly, and
without reference to their place in a system,
goes back to the middle of the seventeenth
century. In the library of the British Museum
is a curious little book — with Southey's
autograph, dated * Keswick, 18 10,' on the
title-page — printed in 1642 and containing a
short exposition of elementary Christian
doctrine, under the form of a dialogue, in the
language of Angola, with a Portuguese version"
on the opposite page, and a few introductory
hints (in Portuguese) on pronunciation and

6 INTRODUCTORY

grammar. It was the work of a Jesuit
missionary, P. Francisco Pacconio, but was
revised and edited after his death by P.
Antonio Do Couto, to whom it is generally
attributed. The language is that now called
Mbundu, and, though somewhat disguised by
the Portuguese spelling, appears not to differ
appreciably from that spoken to-day. Some
years later, in 1659, an Italian friar, Giacinto
Brusciotto, published in Latin a grammar of
the Congo language, to which we shall have
occasion to refer more than once in subsequent
pages. Cust remarks: * The book is very small,
and the author was not a linguist ' ; which
seems to me unduly severe. He certainly
grasped the characteristic features of the
language in a way some later writers failed to
do : Cust himself says, * he remarks the use
of prefixes, and he classes the nouns.' We
have just seen that Lichtenstein did not
understand the system of prefixes ; — it is, of
course, not surprising that a passing traveller,
picking up, in the short time at his disposal,
what linguistic information he can, should be
unable to do more than record words and
phrases without penetrating very far into their
grammatical relations. But it does seem

INTRODUCTORY 7

Strange that Dr. Van der Kemp, whose help
he acknowledges with regard to the Xosa
language, should not have called his attention
to peculiarities so striking and so unlike
anything that could previously have come in
his way.

But the great advance in the knowledge of
African languages followed the remarkable
development of missionary activity which
characterized the end of the -i 8th and the
beginning of the igth century. Moffat's
translation of the Bible into Sechwana was
begun in 1831 ; Archbell's grammar of the
same language appeared in 1837, Boyce's
Xosa grammar in 1844 ; while at the same
time Casalis, Arbousset and the other French
missionaries were active among the Basuto
and marking their progress by valuable
linguistic work. About the same time, Krapf,
on the eastern coast of Africa, was practically
tife first to make the Swahili language known
to European scholars : — for, though tw(3 or
three vocabularies had been collected (chiefly
by the praiseworthy exertions of British naval
officers) they do not seem to have attracted
much attention. It was the material sent
home by Krapf which first made possible

8 INTRODUCTORY

anything like a scientific study of the subject,
and the beginnings of this may be seen in
three remarkable essays contributed by Ewald,
Pott, and Von der Gabelentz to the first and
second volume of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenldndischen Gescllschaft — work produced
in the golden age of German scholarship,
before it had begun tQ lose itself in over-
specialisation. These essays were the pre-
cursors of Bleek's Comparative Grammar^ the
first part of which appeared in 1862.

Bleek's book, though of course it has been
supplemented by later research, and, as might
be expected, requires some correction in detail,
remains the foundation of everything that has
been done since. I shall not attempt to give
any account of this more recent work, though
I shall frequently have occasion to refer to
the outstanding names of the last thirty or
forty years — men who have not merely given
us grammars and dictionaries of separate
languages, but examined their structure from
a scientific point ^f view and done something
towards determining their relationship to each
other and to the other speech-groups of the
world. Such have been Miiller, Lepsius,
Meinhof, De Gregorio, and others. In this

ISTRODUCTORY 9

country, Sir Harry Johnston is, sad to say,
almost the only writer who has occupied
himself with the Bantu languages not merely
in detail but also from the comparative point
of view.

Bleek confirmed Lichtenstein's view (which,
considering the data he had to go upon,
almost deserves the name of a brilliant intui-
tion) that all the languages of South Africa
fall into two groups,* and he was able, as
Lichtenstein was not, to account for the
differences on philological grounds. The one
crucial distinction between them, he considered,
lay in the fact that the one group — the
Hottentot — has grammatical gender ; the
other — the Bantu — has not.

This difference, Bleek thought, was based
on a fundamental difference of organization,
and from it he deduced an ingenious argument,
proving that people whose speech has no
grammatical gender were not merely at present

* Bleek was uncertain whether to reckon two groups
or three. He felt that not enough was known about the
Bushman language to pronounce definitely as to its
classifiQation, but was inclined to think it of a distinct
type from the Hottentot. Recent research goes to show
that he was probably right and that it is allied to the
Sudan family.

10 INTRODUCTORY

incapable of personifying nature, but that they
could never in the future advance beyond a
certain limited range of ideas. However, as
fuller knowledge has shown many of his
premises to be untenable (he thought, for
instance, that the kind of animal-stories so
well known to us through Uncle Remus was
confined to the Hottentots and unknown to
the Bantu), we need not occupy ourselves
with his conclusion.

It is certainly remarkable that the three
great inflected families of language — the
Aryan, Semitic and Hamitic — corresponding
to the three divisions of the ancient world and
the civilizations (broadly speaking) of Europe,
Assyria and Egypt, should possess gram-
matical gender and the rest be without it.
But we need not think that the possession of
this characteristic draws a hard andjast line
on one side of which no progress is possible,
for (setting aside the case of Japan and China),
recent research has thrown a goo"3 deal of
light on the way in which gender arose, and
we find that some languages, classed with the
Hamitic ^ sex-denoting ' family, only have it in
a rudimentary form ; some Bantu languages
show signs of a tendency to acquire it ; and

INTRODUCTORY 1 1

languages at a very advanced stage, as
English, tend to lose it.

* Absence of grammatical gender,' it may
hardly be necessary to say, means, not that no
account is taken of sex-distinctions, but that
they are not in any way shown by the form of
words. All languages have words for * man '
and * woman,' * male ' and * female ' ; but those
of which we are speaking hjave nothing corre-
sponding to * he,' * she,' * his,' * her' ; nor can
they indicate a feminine noun by any change
in the word : if it is absolutely necessary to
distinguish the sex a word is added, as in our
* he-goat,' * she-goat,' ' buck-rabbit,' ' doe-
rabbit,' etc. Still less do they attribute sex,
by a grammatical convention, to inanimate
objects, as is done in Latin, French, German,
etc.

The Sudan languages (which include Twi,
Ga, Ewe and others, spoken in Western and
Central Africa) have no grammatical gender ;
but neither have they, properly speaking, any
grammatical inflections at all. The Bantu
languages, however,rfo indicate number, person,
and, in a limited sense, casQ; and, for verbs,
in addition, voice, mood and tense.

They are usually reckoned as belonging to

12 INTRODUCTORY

the class of Agglutinative languages. These
are^istinguished from the Isolating languages
on the one hand and the Inflected on the other
by the fact that, while they indicate gram-
matical relations by particles prefixed or
suffixed to the root, these particles are
recognizable as independent words and can be
used as such. This, as we shall see, does not
quite apply to the Bantu languages, where
some of the ^ formative elements ' (prefixes and
suffixes) can no longer be used separately,
and sometimes we even find internal changes
in a word, comparable to those by which in
English we form the plural of a noun like foot
of the pkst of a verb like run.

So that it would be nearer the truth to call
them * partially inflected languages,' or * lan-
guages in course of acquiring inflection.' For
we must rernember that the three classes just
mentioned are not hard and fast divisions, like
water-tight compartments ; but a live language
is continually growing and changing* and will
* sooner or later pass from one class to another.

The first point which strikes one on
beginning to examine these languages is the
employment of prefixes where we should
expect to find suffixes — e.g.^ to indicate the

INTRODUCTORY 13

plural of nouns, the agreement of adjectives,
etc. We shall find that suffixes are also used
in certain cases ^ but the system of prefixes is
so characteristic and peculiar that Bleek rightly
regarded it as a distinguishing feature of this
family, which — before finally adopting the
designation * Bantu * — he called the * prefix-
I^ronominal languages/

It was also noticed by Brusciotto who, at
the very outset of his Grammar, says : * In
the first place it must be observed, in general,
that in this language we have to attend, not to
Declensions {i.e.^ terminations), but rather to
Principiations {i.e.j Prefixes).'

For want of acquaintance with this principle
we sometimes give a double plural to an
African word, as when we speak of * the
Basutos,' * the Mashonas,' or use a.plural for a
singular, as * a Basuto,' ^ a Bechwana ' — the
singular in these cases being Mo-suto, Mo-
ckwana. Besides these prefixes indicating
singular and plural, there are others indicating
the language (as Ki'SwahiliyLu-ganda^ Se-chwana,
Chi-nyanja) and the country (as U-kami, Bu-
gandaj etc.) — varying, of course, with different
tribes. It may be well to note in this place
that we shall uniformly throughout this book

14 INTRODUCTORY

use the names of languages without prefix, as
Chwana, Ganda, Svvahili, etc.

Though Bantu nouns have no gender and
so cannot be classified as masculine, feminine
and neuter, they are divided into several
classes — usually eight or nine, distinguished
by their prefixes. These prefixes are repeated,
in one form or another, before every >^ord in
agreement with the noun ; and this method of
indicating agreement (which will be fully
explained and illustrated in the next chapter)
is called the Alliterative Concord.

These three points : the absence of gram-
matical gender, the system of prefixes, and
the Alliterative Concord, may be called the
principal characteristic features of the Bantu
family.

We may mention a few others, piut on
record long ago by Lepsius, as distinguishing
the Bantu family from the Sudan languages
on the one hand and the Hamitic (Berber,
Galla, Somali, etc.) on the other.

(1) Personal Pronouns are always prefixed to

verbs, never suffixed — as they are in Hebrew,
Arabic and the Semitic languages,

(2) The Genitive always follows its governing

INTRODUCTORY 15

word. That is, they always say * the house of
the man,* never (as in the Sudan languages)
* the man's house.'

(3) The usual (but not invariable) order t)f words

in the sentence is : Subject + Verb + (Noun)
Object.

(4) The object-pronoun is inserted C infixed *)

between the subject pronoun and the verb-root.
Thus, in Zulu, ngiya-m-bona, * I see him,*
is made up of ngi = * I,* ya (tense particle),
m = * he,* bona = * see.*

(5) Syllables always qnd in a vowel.

Here it is well to say a word about stress
(accent) and intonation.

In many Bantu languages it is an invariable
rule that the accent — at any rate the accent
most readily noticed — falls on the penultimate
syllable, and, if a syllable is added, the accent
moves forward. Thus, in Zulu, we have
bona, ' see,' whicTi becomes, in the causative,
bonisaj * make to see.' In Swahili, nyumba is
* house,' but, the locative, ' in the house,' is
nyumbdni. This is called the ' rhytlimic
stress,' but there is also an ^etymological
stress,' — viz.y one on the root syllable. In
words like bonay nyumba, these coincide ; but

16 INTRODUCTORY

otherwise, in Zulu and Swahili, the rhythmic
stress seems to be much more strongly marked.
In Ganda, it is the stress on the root-syllable
which is noticed. There are a few languages
which have the rhythmic stress on the ante-
penultimate.

Intonation J or pitch, is a very important
feature in some languages, as in Chwana,
where it serves to -distinguish many words
otherwise similar. It exists in Zulu, Xosa,
Nyanja, etc., — probably to a much larger
extent than has hitherto been observed. All
learners are advised to attend to this point
very carefully .^

This book being devoted to the grammatical
structure of the Bantu languages, it does not
enter into my plan to discuss their sounds from
a scientific point of view. Indeed many of
them have not been examined at all in this
respect, and others very imperfectly. Almost
the only comprehensive work on Bantu
phonetics at present in existence, Professor
Meinhof's Lautlehre der Bantu-Sprachen^ is
not yet published in an EngHsh edition,

^ It is possible that in some cases, pitch and stress
have been confused. This, also, requires particular
attention.

IKTR0DUCf5RY • 17

though a translation is being prepared. Some
of the Bantu languages are being phonetically
analysed by Mr. Daniel Jones, Reader in
Phonetics in the University of London, who
has published some provisional results of his
studies in Le Maltre Phonetique^ in his pamphlet
The Pronunciation and Orthography of the
Chifidau Language {Rhodesia) y^nd more recently
in the Sechuana Reader (see Bibliography ♦in
Appendix).

The sounds of the Bantu languages are,
superficially, not very difficult, except in a
few cases which at once strike the newcomer
by their strangeness, such as the clicks in
Zulu (which, however, do not properly belong
to Bantu), the 'laterals' in this and some
other South African languages ; the Thonga
and Venda * labio-dental,' the very common
* bilabial ' f and v, etc. But there are subtler
gradations, both of vowels and consonants,
which are at once perceiyjed by a trained
phonetician, and which an untrained linguist
with a good ear will consciously or uncon-
sciously adopt without being able to define
them, but which frequently escape the notice
of the average person. Thus, perhaps, in
Nyanja, the learner will be in doubt whether

18 INTRODUCTORY

the word for ' five (people) ' is asanu or asano ;
and an old resident who knows the language
fairly well will tell him that ' these endings
are very uncertain, and the people themselves
sometimes say one and sometimes the other.'
The truth is that the sound is intermediate
between u and o, the mouth-opening being
wider than for the first and narrower th^ for
the second. As this is not a treatise on
phonetics, I shall make no attempt to spell
the words quoted as examples according to
the system of the International Phonetic
Association, more especially since the sounds
of so few Bantu languages have been sufficiently
analysed to make this possible. For my
purpose, the spelling introduced by Bishop^
Steere for Swahili and generally used in
Swahili books is, in general, sufficient. Its
principle may be stated thus : the vowels are
pronounced with the sound they 'have in
Italian, the consonants (including the com-
pound s)'^mbols ch, sh, th) as in English — each
symbol standing for one sound and no more,
and no sound having more than one symbol.
On this system, c, q, and x are superfluous, so
are sometimes used to denote sounds not
provided for in the Roman alphabet, as the

INTRODUCTORY 19

clicks in Zulv.^ (C is often used for the sound
of ch in " church " but may also stand for the
somewhat different " palatal plosive."

As, however, some languages have sounds
not found in Zanzibar Swahili, on which
Steere's Handbook is based, a few extra
symbols will be needed in our examples, and
these will be explained where they occur.
But it must be repeated that this can give
only e very general idea of the sounds, and
that anyone who has to acquire a Bantu
language for practical use cannot do better
than take a course of general phonetics, which
will enable him to accomplish very useful
work in recording correctly the sounds of
unwritten, or, as is sometimes the case,
hitherto atrociously mis-spelt, languages.^

* Dinuzulu (late Chief of the ZuWs) used to say that
the English alphabet needed * several more letters' in
order to write Zulu satisfactorily. The Europeans who
first recorded the language have in some cases expressed
two entirely distinct sounds by the same symbol.

^ See D. Jones, The Pronunciation of English and
Noel-Armfield, General Phonetics, A table of the Inter-
national Phonetic Association's Alphabet, and also of a
script largely used on the Continent (Meinhof's moderni-
zation of Lepsius's Standard Alphabet) will be found
n Language-Families of Africa,

• ^

CHAPTER II

The Alliterative Concord.

In Latin we say, * Equus albus currit ' — * the
white horse runs ' ; in the plural, * Equi albi
currunL* The termination of the noun
indicates the declension, case, and number;
of the adjective, the gender, case, and number
in agreement with the noun ; of the verb, the
tense, number, and person. The terminations
of the noun and adjective are the same ; that
of the verb is different and has no relation to
them.

This arrangement is somewhat different
from that of the AlHterative Concord in the
Bantu languages, but will help us to understand
it, if we try to imagine the endings all alike^
and transferred to the beginning of the word.
Let us take a specimen sentence in Zulu.

They are not really as much alike as the word
* alliterative * might imply, but they are all recognizable
as derived from the prefix. ^

THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD 21

Untfana omubi uyatshaya inkomo yomfundisi
wami, ngiyakumlungisa. * The bad boy is
beating the ox of my teacher : I will punish
him.'

This sentence contains nouns of two different
classes and words agreeing with them, t/m-
fana is a noun of the first or * person '-class :
the root is /ana, the prefix «m-, "shortened from
umu' (as se^n in umu-ntUy * person '). Omu-bi^
'bad,' is an adjective agreeing yfMi umf ana
the prefix assumes the form omu because it
was formerly preceded by a demonstrative
particle a, and a+u coalesce into o {i.e.^ the
broad o, pronounced like ou in * ought*)/
This mearls that, when the adjective is used
attributivily (that is, as in * the bad boy ' — not
predicatively, as in ' the boy is bad '), it Is
really a relative construction that is employed :
— ' the boy who is bad.' We shall be able to
make this clearer in the chapter on relative
pronouns. In the same way ' good* is omu-hle
(a+umU'hle).

The equivalent for an adjective can never
be given in its complete form, unless the noun

* When it is necessary, in,^his book, to distinguish
this o from the narrow o (as in ' stone ')> it is printed
with a line under it, as in Meinhof *s notation.

22 THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD

with which it agrees is known. * A good ' (or

* handsome ') * person/ is umu-ntu omu-hle; * a
fine ox/ inkabi en-hle ; * a beautiful country '
ili'Zwe eli'hle ; ' a fine cattle-kraal/ isi-baya esu
hie; 'a beautiful face/ ubu-so obu-hle;

* beautiful language/ uku-kuluma oku-hle. For
this reason, adjectives must be given in the
dictionary under their root only : -hie, -bi^
-kulu (large), etc. But these roots are never
found standing by themselves in any Bantu
language. They are always used with the
prefix of the class to which they belong — viz.^
that of the noun with which they are in
agreement.

U-ya-tshaya. Tshaya is a verb meaning

* beat.' The bare root in this form is never
found alone, except in the second person
singular of the imperative. Everywhere else
it has some addition. Even the second person
plural of the imperative takes a suffix, -w ;
tshaya-ni = ' beat ye.' The other moods and
tenses all take prefixes.

U' is the personal pronoun of the first (or

* person ') class. It will be recognised at once
as part of the prefix timu. (The prefix, except
in some languages which have departed
considerably from the original type, is not in

THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD 23

all cases identical with the pronoun.) This
is the subject-pronoun : the second part of the
prefix, -mu (usually contracted to -m) is used
as the object-pronoun, as we shall see presently.
It should be noted that this subject-pronoun,
«, can never "be used apart from a verb or its
equivalent. There is a separable, or inde-
pendent, pronoun, of quite a different form,
which will be considered in the chapter oir
Pronouns.

-ya- is a tense-particle : originally the
auxiliary verb ja, *to go.' It imparts a kind
of habitual continuative "force : uyatshaya is
rather * he is beating,' or * he is in the habit of
beating,' than simply ' he beats.' In Zulu,
the -ya- tense is the present most commonly
used, though it cannot always -be translated
as above.

In-komOy * a cow,' is of the class which has
the prefix i, or in- originally ini-. Nouns
have no indication of case (except that they
suffix -ni for the locative), so that they have
no distinct form for the objective, though
some pronouns do.

Yomfundisi is for ya um/undisi, Ya is the
particle corresponding to * of,' which expresses
the genitive case and varies its initial according

24 THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD

to the noun with wliich it agrees — which is
always the thing possessed, not the possessor.
/, the initial vowel of inkabij becomes y before
a vowel : i+a=ya. In Zulu, p> before u
amalgamates with it to form o, which is an
intermediate position of the mouth between
the two. In many other languages this
amalgamation does not take place, because
the initial vowel has been lost; thus, in
Nyanja, .we say ya muntUj not yomuntu —
ya+timuntu.

Um-fundisij a noun of the person-class
meaning * teacher,' derived from the verb
fundisa, ' teach.*

W-ami — ' my.' The roots of the possessive
pronouns are : -ami^ ' my ' ; -ako^ ' thy ' ; -ake^
•^ his, her ' ; -etUy * our ' ; -enu^ * your ' ; -abo^
* their.' They take as prefixes the pronoun of
the class with which they are in agreement :
in this case the thing possessed is of the person
class {tiinfundisi) , and the pronoun will be u.
But u before a vowel becomes Wj u+ami=:wamf.
Similarly, * thy teacher ' is umfundisi wako
{u+ako), and so on.

Ngi-ya-ku-nt'lungisa. Lungisa (causative
of lunga) is properly ' make right,' ' straighten,'
and so * correct,' * punish.' Ngu is the

THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD 25

inseparable subject-pronoun of the first person
singular. Ya- is the tense-particle already
mentioned, but, in combination with the
following particle — ku — it indicates the future,
-m- is the object-pronoun of the third person
singulars:' him/

All these prefixes change for the plural.
Supposing we take as our English sentence :

' The bad boys are beating the cows of our
teachers ; we will punish them.'*

The Zulu will be :

A ba-fana aba-bi ba-ya-tshaya izin-komo zaba-
fundisi betUy si-ya-ku-ba-lungisa.

This needs ^no further analysis ; but we
may call attention to two points : the plural
pronoun (inseparable) of the first person, si-/
and the double plurality, if one may say so,
of the possessive betu. It must be *our,'
plural of * my,' in order to agree with the
possessors, Cwe,' understood), but the initial
must be 6-, not w- in order to agree with the
things (or persons) possessed {abafundisi) .
This double concord of the possessive is an
important point, to which we must recur later
on.

The same sentence would read in Ganda
as follows :

26 THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD

OmU'lenzi omu-bi a-kuba en-te yomu-igiriza
wa-nge ; n-na-mu-kangavula.

Aba-lenzi aba-bi ba-kuba en-te zaba-igiriza
ba-nge tu-na-ba-kangavula.

Here^ though the roots are mostly different,
the identity of the formative elements will be
evident on examination. The chief differences
are : a instead of u for the pronoun of the
third person singular (which will be noticed
in the chapter on the pronouns), and e instead
of i as the initial vowel for the in- class. The
possessive of the first person is -nge instead
of -mij but this is evidently connected with
the Zulu subject-pronoun of the first person,
ngi'y which, in Ganda, has been reduced to n-.

This sentence affords a very good illustration
of the fact that, in comparing languages, one
should take into account the grammatical
structure father than the vocabulary. All the
noun-roots are entirely different from the Zulu
ones ; so are the two verbs, kuba and kanguvula.
If wd^ looked to these alone, disregarding the
prefixes, we might come to the conclusion
that there was no sort of relationship between
the two languages. But we should not be
justified in doing so, for a comparison of
single words may very easily lead us astrajf.

THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD 27

Take the case of four European languages,
which we know to be closely related : English,
German, Dutch, and Danish. Here are four
words which cannot possibly be derived from
the same root :

Boy ; Knabe ; jonge ; Dreng.

Yet the Dutch word exists in English as
the adjective * young,' and is used in German
(Junge) side by side with Knabe, which is our
* knave ' — an instance of the way in which the
same root may assume different meanings.
Dreng is found in Anglo-Saxon in the sense
of * warrior,' and the old Icelandic use of it to
mean * a valiant youth,' supplies the connection
between the two.

^ Queen ' is the same word as the Danish
Kvinde^ * a woman,' and therefore has nothing
to do with the German Konigin, which is the
regularly-formed feminine from Konigj or the
Danish Droitningy which, though used as the
feminine of Konge (' king ') is really that of an
obsolete word Drott, meaning ' lord.'

Or take the French word cheval : it has
nothing in common with the Latin^ equus, but
is derived from a different word, caballus, not
used by the classical writers, but existing in
the language, of the people. Again, the

28 THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD

Spanish comer , ' eat,' cannot possibly come
from the same root as the French manger;
and the classical Latin is edere, which, at first
sight, does not seem to be connected with
either. But comer is derived from comedere,
properly * to eat up ' — a more colloquial and
popular word than edere — and manger comes
from manducare, properly ' to chew ' ; ^whence
also the Italian mangiare.

Why one language should choose the first of
these two words, and another the second, is a
question which, in the present state of our
knowledge, cannot be answered — or only in
the same way as Moliere's doctor explained
why opium sends people to sleep by saying
that * it has a dormitive virtue.'

So the roots, lenzij kuba, iga (* learn,' from
which are derived igiriza^ * teach, and omu-
igiriza, * teacher ') and kanga (frown,' of which
kangavula, ' rebuke ' or * punish ' is a derivative)
are probably to be found in other Bantu
languages, though I have as yet been unable
to trace them. Ente^ I believe, is not Bantu,
though I cannot say whence it has been
adopted. -6i, 'bad,' will be recognised as
identical : it is found in most Bantu languages.

Let us now take, from Swahili, an example

THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD 29

of the concord in another class, which has the
prefix ki'^ in the plural vi-.

Ki'ti cha-ngu cha m4i ki-me-vundika^ ni-me-
ki'Ona ki'ki-anguka.

' My wboden chair is broken ; I saw it when
it fell.'

Ki'ti, ' chair,' is originally ' a wooden thing '
— ti being a root which, with the prefix w-,
means ^ tree.' (The most primitive form of
seat, after the mere stump or fallen log, is the
stool cut out of a solid block, the cross-section
of a tree.) * Of ' in this class is cha, because
ki becomes ch- before a vowel. The possessive
pronoun consists of cha prefixed to the pro-
noun-root, which is for the first person -ngu
(cf. Ganda, -nge : the subject-pronoun for the '
first person is ni). Cha mti, * wooden,' — •
literally * of wood,' or * of tree.' Ki-me-vundika^
* it is broken ' : ki-, subject-pronoun of the ki-
class, agreeing with kiti ; 'tne-, a particle
denoting the perfect tense of the verb ;
vundika is the neuter-passive of the verb vimda,
' break.' Nimekiona : ni- subject-pronoun of
the first person singular ; -me-y tense-particle ;
'ki', object-pronoun agreeing with kiti;
ona, verb, meaning * see ' (in Zulu, bona) ;
anguka is a verb, meaning * fall ' ; the first

30 THE ALLITERATIVE CONCORD

ki is the subject-pronoun agreeing with
kiti ; the second a tense-particle equivalent to
* if ' or * when/ often giving the verb a kind of
participial force.

The plural of the above is :

Vi'ti vy-etu vyamti vi'me-vundikajtu-me'Vi-ona
vi'ki-anguka.

This needs no further explanation.

We thus see that the prefix of the noun is
repeated, in a form more or less recognizable
before every word in grammatical agreement
with it. The way in which it enters into the
composition of pronouns other than the simple
subject and object prefixes, will be explained
later. •

CHAPTER III

The Noun-Classes

We have already referred to Giacinto
Brusciotto as the author of the first attempt
at a Bantu GrjLmmar. He was an ItaUan
Capuchin, Prefect of the Apostolic Mission to
the Kingdom of Congo, about the middle of
the seventeenth century. Judging from his
book (published at Rome in 1659), his
linguistic aptitudes were of no mean order,
and no doubt he had profited by many years'
residence in the country. It is remarkable, at
least, that he succeeded in grasping the
principle of the noun-classes, which eluded
more than one of his successors. We have
seen that Lichtenstein missed it ; and — even
more unaccountably — Burton, writing about
i860, with the work of Krapf and Rebmann
before him, could speak of * the artful and
intricated system of irregular plurals ' in

32 THE NOUN-CLASSES

Swahili.i In Cavazzi's History of the Kingdom
of Congo ^^ first published in 1671, it is stated
that a missionary, after six years spent in
trying to learn the rules of the language,
only found out that there were none ! It is
strange that this book takes no notice whatever
of Btusciotto or his grammar.

The first section of Brusciotto's manuaP
has the following heading : ' Of the Declen-

* sion of Nouns, or, as it is better expressed,

* their Principiation, and their Rules ; wherein

* it is shown what articles are to be attributed

* to each noun, both in direct and oblique

* cases, for their correct construction in them-

* selves, or when they are joined to other

* words ; and generally this is first to be noted

* th'it in the present tongue we must not look

* for declensions but rather principiations, for

* which we have the following Rules.' . • .

^ Zanzibar, I, 443.

* Istorica Descrizione de* tre Regni, Congo, Mlatamha
et Angola^ situati nell 'Etiopia Inferiore Occidentale
e delle Missioni Apostoliche esercitatevi da Religiosi
Capuccini, accuratamente compilata del P. Gio. Antonio
Cavazzi da Montecuccolo. (Milan, 1671.)

* Regulae quaedam pro difficillimi Congensiutn
idiomatis faciliori captu, ad Grammatical nprmatn
redact ae, (I^me, 1659.)

THE NOUN-CLASSES 33

Later on, having reached the end of the

* Principiations,' he says, once more :

* As has been said above, the language of

* the Congos and others of Negro lands is not

* founded, nor forms its rules upon the

* declension of words, but on their principiation;

* therefore the rules which are distinguished

* and marked in this idiom are chiefly taken
*from the various principiations of the sub-
*stantives and varied accordingly.' From
this it appears that he duly appreciated the
importance of the noun-classes as a feature of
the language.

The first thing we have to do in studying
Latin is to master the declensions — the classes
into which nouns are divided according to
their terminations and genders. Such classes
exist, though to a less extent, in German ;
they have almost disappeared in Dutch, and
entirely so in English. When we think of
declensions, we also think of cases, each
having its own case-endings.

It was quite natural that anyone educated,
Hke Brusciotto, mainly on the classics, and
more especially on the Latin grammar, should,
in trying to discover the laws of an entirely
strange language, look first for the declensions.

34 THE noun-clAsses

He soon recognized that the plural of nouns
was formed in different ways, according to
distinct rules, but that the inflection came at
the beginning of the word instead of at the
end, so that he invented, as we have seen,
the name of * principiatipns ' for the different
classes so distinguished. Of these he enu-
merates eight, which can he identified without
difficulty in present-day Kongo,* allowing for
diflerences of dialect and for some mistakes
and confusions. It is curious that he does
not notice the person-class, but makes * gentile
nouns ' exceptions to his first and second
principiations. At the end of his chapter, he
quaintly adds :

* Note, with regard to the preceding, that
' there is no rule so strictly observed as to be

* without many exceptions, all which by

* practice and the Spirit of God inspiring, wiU-

* be easily understood and by continuous and

* unwearied labour overcome/

Exceptions are the refuge of the imperfect
grammarian, and a knowledge of the Bantu

^ This spelling is preferred in modern books when
referring to the particular language treated by Brusciotto,
while * Congo ' is retained as the name of the river or
its adjacent territories.

THE KOUN-CLASSES 35

languages, unattainable by our pioneer (though
not, in his case, for want of * continuous and
unwearied labour ') would have shown that
they usually exemplify rules not immediately
obvious.

Brusciotto may have been led astray partly
by his belief in the existence of an article — a
part of speech which, as we understand it in
English, is not found in Bantu. He is not
alone in giving this name to the initial vowel
of the prefix — a point as to which we shall
have more to say presently; — but it is less
easy to see why he should have extended
it to the possessive particle {wa^ ba, ya, etc.).
We shall return to this point in the fifth
chapter.

The number of noun-classes, as the * prin-
cipiations ' are now generally called, varies in
different languages, but is mostly eight or ten.
There is some uncertainty about the* original
number, and Meinhof s theoretical table is, as
he points out, not complete, since some
languages have anomalous forms only to be
interpreted as survivals of lost classes, and
more of these may yet be discovered.

Meinhof, following Bleek, counts singular
and plural classes separately, thus arriving at

36 THE NOUN-CLASSES

'a total of twenty-one. Some singular prefixes
have no corresponding plural, while some
plural prefixes are attached to two or more
classes having different prefixes in the singular.
As the order in which these classes are
arranged is hardly the same in the grammars
of any two Bantu languages, it seems most
convenient in this book to follow Meinhof s
arrangement and refer to the prefixes by his
numbers. Some advantages are secured by
placing singular and plural in the same class,
and in drawing up a practical grammar it
might be better to folfow that arrangement ;
but the want of uniformity makes reference very
difficult in a comprehensive survey. When we
find, c,g.^ most Zulu grammars giving as the
second class what Steere, in Swahili, calls the
fifth, the French Fathers in Ganda the sixth,
and Madan in Lala-Lamba the ninth, one is
ready to ask why we cannot adopt some
uniform system. But, when we remember
how many classes have been dropped by one
language and another (Duala, ^.5^., having only
.seven in all) we see that it is impossible to
number them always in the same way, though
we may keep in every case the same relative
order. Some writers, conscious of the difficulty,

THE NOUN-CLASSES 37

have frankly given up the numbers and simply
designate the classes by their prefixes (* the
^mU'ba class,' * the tnu-tni class,' and so on).
But as the prefixes assume different forms,
and are sometimes lost, this arrangement is
useless for comparative purposes unless some
standard form is agreed upon. The following
table contains the forms which Meinhof has
arrived at as probably the original ones-
Even if this view should be erroneous in some
cases, it is at least possible to see how all the
forms actually in use could have been derived
from them ; and, in any case, this does not
affect their use as a means of reference.

The prefixes are given in Prof. Meinhof s
orthography, as to which the following points
should be noted : v is the sound called
* bilabial v 'which is very common in present-
day Bantu, though in some languages it
has become b or w.^ z may here be
disregarded, merely remembering that in
Meinhofs opinion the vowel of the vU
prefix originally differed from that of the ki-
prefix, also the li of the tenth class from that
of the fifth. The etymological importance of

^ See Noel-Armfield, General Phonetics^ p. 71.

38 THE KOUK-CLASSES

this ' heavy i ' is shown in his book on Bantu
phonetics. 7 stands for the ' voiced sound '
(which does not occur in English) of Scots
ch in 'loch.'^

It may be as well to state* here that the
orthography used in this book for specimens
of^ Bantu languages is that adopted in the
pointed texts available for each particular
language. Where it has been found necessary
to depart from this orthography, or where
any symbol needs special explanatiorf, the
fact is mentioned in a note. No attempt has
been made to unify the various systems : the
only satisfactory uniformity would be that
obtained by transcription into I. A. P. charac-
-ters, and for this the study of Bantu is not
sufficiently advanced. The reader not already
familiar with this script, is referred to Mr.
Noel-Armfield's General Phonetics (1915).

He will also find a table of it facing page 30
of the author's Language-Families of Africa.

mu-

va-

Plural of 1.

mu-

mi-

Plural of 3.

li#

* For which, in this book, we use the Greek character x-

THE NOUN-CLASSES

ma-

Plural of 5 and 14.

ki-

p!-

Plural of 7.

10.

li-ni

i Pluralof 9and 11.

11.

lu-

12.

tu-

Plural of 11, 13 an

13.

14.

15.

No plural.

16.

17.

Locatives. No pli

18.

mu^

19.

20.

20a.

Plural of 20.

21.

Other classes and prefixes of which occa-
sional traces survive, will be discussed later on.

It will- make matters clearer if we subjoin
to the above skeleton table of prefixes, which
are mere abstractions and, as such, difficult to
grasp and remember, specimen nouns from
eight fairly typical languages, showing the
forms in actual use for each class, with their
concords as exhibited in the adjective and the
possessive particle. As far as possible, words
have been chosen which are found in all the
eight languages, so as to facilitate a comparison
of roots.

THE NOUN-CLASSES

No. 1 NOUN-

Zulu

Chwana

Herero

Class

Human Being

umu-nta

mo-tho

omu-ndu

Do. pi.

aba-ntu

va-tho

ova-ndn

Tree

urau-ti

mo-re

omu-ti

Do. pi.

imi-ti

me-re

oroi-ti

Tooth

i(Ii) zinyo

le-ino

e-yo

Do. pi.

ama-zinyo

ma-ino

oma-yo

Chest (thorax)

isi-fuba

te-huba

[otyi-na=
thing]

Do. pi.

izi-fuba

li-huba

[ovi-na]

Elephant

in-dhlova

tlou

on-dyou

Do. pi.

izindhlovu

li-tlou

ozon-dyou

Wand

u(lu)-ti

lo-re

oru-ti

Do. pi.

—

otu-ti

Little stick

—

oka-ti

Human nature

ubu-ntu

vo-tho

o-undu

Death

uku-fa

Xo shwa

oku-ta

Place, at

—

opona

— to

—

okona

— in

—

omona

[Diminutive]

[Found in Duala

, e.g.f i-seru '• d

warf antelope"

Clumsy person

—

20a

Do. pi.

—

Giant

—

2lA

Do.pl.

—

NoTB. — Words in square brackets are inserted when

THE NOUN-CLASSES

:lasses.

Nyanja

Swahili

Ganda

Gisa

Kongo

muntu

m-tu

omn-ntu

umu-ndu

mu-nta

a-ntu

wa-tu

aba-ntu

babandu

a-nta

m-tengo

m-ti

omu-tl

[kumu-ban
sugar-cane]

Cmu-nse«
sugar-cane]

mi-tengo

mi-ti

emi-ti

[kimyuba]

[mi-Dse]

dz-ino

j-ino

eri-nyo

li-sino

d-ina

ma-no

m-eno

ama-nyo

kama-sino

m-ena

chi-fua

ki-fua

eki-fiiba

[kikindu«
thing]

[kinzu^pipt]

zi-fua

vi-fua

ebi-fuba

[bibi-ndu]

[i-DZU]

njobvu

ndovu

en-jovu

i-tsofu

Dzaa

njobvu

ndova

en-jovu

tsi-tsofu

nzan

[u-konde=net]

u-ti

[olu-ga=cane]

[lu-hingos
bow]

[lumbu»

fence]

—

[otudzia
drop of water]

—

[tumbn]

[ka-nta=
little thing]

—

aka-ti

[ka-busi,
little goat]

—

u-untu

u-tu

obu-ntu

bubu-ndu

uwu-ntu

ku-fa

oku-fa

ku-fwa

(ku)fwa

pa malo

[nyumbani (pa)]

wa-ntu

ha-ndu

v-uma

ku malo

[nyumbani

(kwa)]

[ku-mpi, near]

ku-ndu

k-uma

m'malo

[nyumbani

(mwa)]

[munda=
the inside]

mu-ndu

m-uma

— pi. lo-seru 12,

and Ny-wema fi-

nlu "bu-d," pi.

tufulu 12]

[fi-mbcle=
little knife]

—

ogu-ntu

—

aga-ntu

—

ki-ji-tu

—

guga-nda

—

mi-ji-tu

—

gimi-ndu

—

[lat with the same meaning has a different root.

42 THE NOUN-CLASSBS

Zulu and Ganda — both too well-known for
further comment — indicate, approximately, the
two extremities of the Bantu area. Herero —
called by South African colonists Damara — is
spoken in the south-western territory which till
recently^ was German. It is a language, in
many respects, of the highest interest ; but its
speakers are now sadly reduced in numbers.
Nyanja extends, more or less, from the north
end of Lake Nyasa to the Zambezi and is
closely cognate — if not virtually identical —
with the main speech of Southern Rhodesia —
usually, though not very correctly, called
* Mashona ' or * Chiswina.' The range of
Swahili is roughly from Warsheikh on the
Somali coast to Cape Delgado (though the
people themselves limit the name * Swahilini '
to the coast north-east of the Tana mouth), but
it has been carried as a trade language far
into the interior, and eyen to the Congo,
Gisu, sometimes called * Masaba,' is a very
remarkable tongue, whose principal speakers
live round Mount Elgon in the north of the
Uganda Protectorate: it has, perhaps, pre-
served more ancient forms than any othen
Kongo (sometimes called Fiote) is spoken by
large numbers of people on both sides of the

THE NOUN-CLASSES 43

Lower Congo, as far up as Stanley Pool, and
in the old * Kingdom of Congo ' south-east of
the river, where the Portuguese missionaries
laboured.

Originally, we may suppose that some
definite meaning attached to each class, just
as, in languages possessing grammatical
gender, the masculine and feminine termina-
tions corresponded to a real-* distinction of sex.
It would be difficult now to give any reason
why hortus should be masculine, or mensa
feminine ; but no doubt, when it had once
become an accepted fact that nouns in -us
were mostly masculine and nouns in a mostly
feminine, words which happened to end in
these ways were ranged under one category or
the other, without regard to their meaning.

Sometimes it is still possible to say that a
class consists of nouns denoting a certain kind
of objects, such as the first (or * personal ')
class, the fift;eenth, which contains verbal
nouns (infinitives), and the diminutive class
found in some languages. Again, certain sets
of nouns may be found in one class— ^.^.,
trees in the third, though it contains others as
well. Much ingenuity has been expended —
and, I cannot, but think, wasted— in drawing

44 THE NOUN-CLASSES

up definitions of the classes : the attempt
seems to be hopeless at the present day,
because prefixes originally distinct may have
become identical in form, through elision or
contraction, and so two or more classes have
been merged into one. We know this to have
happened in Swahili, where ii (lu) and 14
(vu) have alike been contracted into u and are
now treated as one and the same class.

Class 3-4 {mU'ini) contains, besides trees, a
number of the parts and organs of the body,
which may, at one time, have formed a
distinct class.*

It should also be noted that the same word
is found in two or more languages with
different prefixes, ^.^.,^ year ' ; Zulu, umnyakaj
2 ; Nyanja, chaka, 7, etc.

The Fulfulde language of West Africa has
a most remarkable system of noun-classes,
much fuller and more clearly defined than
anything now to be found in Bantu. Professor

Mt is quite possible that they were originally locatives
with the prefix mu {mu-kono, really * in the - hand *)i
which became confounded with this class owing to the
similarity of the prefix. To understand how this might
have happened, we may refer to Nyanja, where the noun
kamwa, * mouth,* is never used by itself — ovAyPa^amx^a
and m-kamwa, * at * and * in the mouth.'

THE NOUN-CLASSES 45

Meinhofs theory as to this language and its
possible connection with the Bantu family
is set forth in his hitroduction to the Study of
African Languages.^

In some cases, the distinction of mean-
ing implied by the prefix is quite clear.
There is no doubt about the diminutives, nor
the infinitive used as a noun (15) ; i indicates
persons ; 7, (sometimes) collectivity ; 14,
either abstractions, or some substance taken
in the mass, such as grass, wool, flour, etc.
And we find, over and over again, that the
same root may take different prefixes and
have its meaning modified accordingly. In
Zulu umu-nlu J i, is * a person ' ; isi-nlu 7, * the
collectivity of beings ' — * the world ' ; ubu-ntu^
* human nature.' Utnu-ti 3, is * a tree ' ;
u{lu)4i II, * switch' or * wand ' (this has
suggested to some writers that Class 1 1 con-,
sists mainly' of long, thin objects — which is
scarcely borne out by the facts) ;^ ubu4i 14,

* Pp. 99, 100. See also Language-Families of Africa^
Chapter VI.

' It is true that some words in Herero suggest this
idea ; thus omu-ndu^ 1, is * a person,' oru-ndu, 11, * a tall,
thin person ' ; otji-tenda, 7, * iron,* oru-tenday * a long,
thin piece of iron.'

46 THE NOUN-CLASSES

* poison ' ; and in Swahili, we have ki-ti 7,
' chair ' — i.e., * the thing made of a tree/ or
perhaps * the little tree (thing)'* — (see ante
p. 29). ,

Though, as we have seen, Bantu knows no
linguistic distinction of sex, a very definite
line is drawn between the living and the life-
less — or rather, perhaps, between the human
and the non-human. The first (mu) and
second (ba) classes, in every Bantu language,
consist pre-eminently, if not exclusively, of
names denoting human beings.

As a rule, even ghosts and other preter-
natural beings are not placed in the same
class. In Zulu i-ziinu (usually translated
'cannibal,' but in reality a kind of ogre or
goblin), ama-tougo and ama-dhlozi (ancestral
spirits) are of 5 and 6 ; in Nyanja, inzimu, the
most usual word for spirit, is 2, and so is
Multmgu, which sometimes designates an
ancestral ghost, though at others it seems to be
used in a sense almost implying a * High God/
Some languages include animals in the first
clacs, but this is evidently an afterthought.

The African mind, in general, inclines to treat

* Ki- may here be the diminutive prefix — see next
Chapter.

THE NOUN-CLASSES 47

animals as persons ; — we see in their folk- tales
that the distinction is kept up with- difficulty.
(Uncle Remus is sophisticated enough to be
conscious of the' confusion, and reminds his
hearer that, once upon a time, * creatures had
sense same like folks/) While most of them are
usually of the gth (ni) class (cf. in Zulu, imbuzi^

* goat,' inkomOy * cow,' ingwe^ * leopard,' indhlovu
^elephant,' etc.), it seems to have been felt that
this was quite illogical, so some languages (as
Swahili) removed them into the first class with-
out changing their form — i.e., treated them, in
respect of all their agreements, as first-class
nouns ; others gave them a special plural, by
placing the second prefix before their own
phiral one. Tlie few names of animals which
in Zulu and Chwana are included in the first
class are treated in a special way, suggesting
that thsy did not always belong to it. Their
plural prefix is o-, not aba-j which is also
taken by certain nouns denoting degrees of
relationship (as u-yise * father,' pi. o-yise,
u-nina * mother,' pi. o-nina) and all proper
names.^ Perhaps there was once a separate

^ Proper Nouns are often used in the plural, to mean

* a person and those with him.' See Colenso, First Steps
in Zulu-Kafir, § 29.

48 THE NOUN-CLASSES

class for names of relationship (which in most
Bantu languages are treated exceptionally in
some way or other) and it is worth noting
that most (not all) Zulu names of animals
coming under this heading are compounded
with uno-{=: unina) . The corresponding nouns
in Chwana take the prefix bo- (vo-).

This first class has the prefix mu some-
times heard as mo-, sometimes worn down to
w, and sometimes changing to un-j especially
before t or d. In Zulu it is umu- or urn-,
sometimes contracted to u-. One might
be tempted to think that the longer form is the
more primitive one, and that languages like
Chwana and Nyanja have lost the initial
vowel. There seems reason, however, to
think that this initial vowel is not really part
of the prefix, but the remnant of a demonstra-
tive which has become amalgamated with
it. Gisu — a language in a very archaic stage —
supplies the clue : not in this class indeed,
but in the second, third, and fourth, where we
have baba-ndu * people,' ku7nu-kono (elsewhere
umkonOj mukonOj mkono), *hand,' plural
kimi'ko7to.

Meinhof thinks that this demonstrative
originally had the form ya and assimilated its

THE NOUN CLASSES 49

vowel to that of the syllable which followed it,
while the 7 passed, sometimes into vg^ some-
times into k. Thus ya umunhi would become
ngumunttij Gisu kumunduy and, the consonant
being dropped, the prefix would remain as
umii'. This pronoun survives as the * copula *
(to be treated in a later chapter), and in Zulu
we have ng^timtintu, * it is the man,' ng^nmuti^
* it is a tree.' This is pointed out by Bleek
in his Comparative Grammar.^ On this theory
of its origin, it is quite intelligible that he
should call the initial vowel an article,
especially as it is chiefly absent in cases
where the employment of an article would
be inadmissible — always in the vocative,
and in certain negative sentences. However,
as it is impossible by its means to make any
distinction corresponding to that indicated by
the use of * a * and * the,' the initial vowel

can hardly be called an article in our
sense. ^

This original ya probably accounts for the
fact that in some languages {e.g.^ Swahili,
NyanJ5i, etc.) the pronoun of the third person

* Pp. 150, 151. Of course he knew nothing of the
Gisu language, which has so fully justified his
deductions*

50 THE NOUN-CLASSES ^

(see Ch. VI.) is a-. instead of u>. Forms like
omuntUj omuti, perhaps show that sometimes,
instead of the u assimilating the vowel which
followed it, contraction took place :

(7) + aumuntu=omuntu.
Names of tribes may be either of the second
or the^ixth class: Aba sutu, Bechwana, narolongj
Amazulu, Makaranga^ Waswahtli, Agiryama,
Abaganda. Those of the second have corre-
sponding singulars of the first : UmsutUy
Mochwana, Morolong. But sixth class nouns
do not always have a singular of the fifth :
I 'Zulu does not seem to be used for an
individual of the Zulu nation — perhaps because
it is the same as the word for the * sky ' — but
we have i-Bunu, ' a Boer,' i-Lawu, * a
Hottentot,' i-Xosa, * a Cape Kafir.'

The concords of Class 3 are almost identi-
cal with those of Class i. There are, however,
two differences in the pronouns, which we
shall notice in a later chapter. Class 4 has
the same pronouns as Class 10, though its
prefix (and consequently its agreement with the
^ adjective) is different. Besides the names of

^ Also for gu, gi and ga being occasionally found as
pronouns in the third, fourth a?id sixth classes, instead
gf the more usual w, i and a.

THE NOUN-CLASSES 51

trees and parts of the body (usually : ' arm/
' finger,' * leg,' * foot,' * heart,' — sometimes
* head,' etc.) this class contains some words
not easily placed under any special heading,
such as * village ' {i.e., a ' kraal ' or collection
of huts of any size, up to what can be fairly
described as a town) — umu-zij mo4se, mu-dzi^
m-jiy inu-nzhi, mu-ndi} (Herero, curiously
enough, places it in 1 1 : oru-dhe.) Words de-
noting streams or rivers (though differing in
form) very often belong to this class. So
do, many proper names of rivers : Zulu
Utnginiy UmzimkulUf etc. ; others are found in
Class II.

The fifth prefix isi. //-, in Zulu ili-^ usually
contracted into i-, ^.si-tshe (for ili4she)^ * stone,*
i-zwiy *word,' etc. In some languages this
prefix has assumed the form di- ; in some it
is lost altogether, except before roots beginning
with a vowel, where it is sometimes represented
hy dz or j: Nyanja dz-ina, * name,' which is
in Swahili j4na, (Yao l-ina). In Swahili, the
pronoun li and the possessive particle /a, used
with nouns like neno^ * word,' ziwa^ * pool,'
would be something of a puzzle if it were not

' Bleek thinks these may have originated as locatives
in WW-. See his Comparative Grammar^ p. 130,

52 THE NOUN-CLASSES

known from other languages that these words
must originally have begun with li.

Names of fruits are found in this class,
differing only by prefix from the name of the
tree which produces them : Swahili m-buyu,

* baobab/ buyu, ' calabash * (which grows on
it), m-kuytiy * fig-tree,' kuyu, * a fig,' m-chungwa,

* orange-tree,' chungwa^ * orange ' / Zulu
um-kiwanCj * wild fig-tree,' i-kiwane^ etc.

Many words denoting liquids, or substances
handled in bulk, which are not individualised
and therefore have no singular, belong to the
sixth class; e,g.^ 'water': Zulu ama-nzi^
Swahili ma-ji or ma-i^ Nyanja (and other lan-
guages), ma-dzi, Kongo ma-zay Duala ma-dibaj
etc. ; ' milk ' : Swahili ma-ziwa, Ganda ama-ia^
Chwana ma-shi ; * sour milk ' : Zulu ama-siy
Herero oma-ere; 'millet': Zulu ama-bele^
Nyanja ;wa-^r^, ma-pira^ etc., etc.

Here we may mention a feature which at
first sight seems puzzling in Chwana and some
other languages. Nouns of Class 9, besides
their own plural sometimes take a second in

* Nazi, * coco-nut/ tende, * date,* ndizi, * banana,' are
exceptions, being of the ninth class. But none of these
three seem to be original Bantu roots. The names of
the trees are quite regular : tn-nazi, m-tende ; but the
banana-tree is m-gomha^ not m-dizi.

THE NOUN-CLASSES S3

ma-f indicating that there are very many of the
thing in question ; e.g., nku, * a sheep,' — plural
li-nku, but * many sheep ' = ma-nku. These
may be regarded as collectives with no singular,
and they are possibly connected with the lost
augmentative class, to which we shall recur
at the end of the next chapter. _

It will be seen by reference to the Table
that the form assumed by the sixth prefix in
Gisu is kama-j in accordance with the principle
already explained. I have not met with any
other example of this form ; but the original
ya prefixed to the ma explains why the pronoun
in some languages (Giryama, Ganda, etc.)
should be ga. It is usually a or ya.

It is less easy to see why the prefix should
appear in Herero as oma-. But that language,
as the Table shows, has a tendency to make
all the initial vowels o : the only exception is
the fifth prefix, which has assumed the form e-.

CHAPTER IV

The Noun-Classes {continued)

The forms of the seventh and eighth
prefixes vary considerably. Besides those
shown in the Table, we have : —

Duala ...«-, be- : e-koto, * cap,' pi, be-koto.
I la (Middle Zambezi) • . . chi- shi- : chi-bia,

* pot,' pi. shi'bia,
Kikuyu (British East Africa) . . . ^t-, t- :

ki'hatOj * broom,' pi. i-hafo:
Konde (north end of Lake Nyasa) . . . iki-

ifi' : iki'tala^ * bedstead,' pi. ifi-tala.

In Ronga (Delagoa Bay), and in some dia-
lects of the language spoken in Rhodesia the
eighth prefix has a very peculiar sound, written
in the International Phonetic Alphabet a- and
by Meinhof s. It is produced by getting ready
to say th (as in * thin ') and then rounding the
lips, as if for ze;, and somewhat resembles the
whistle which results from blowing into a key.
Venda (North Transvaal) gives this prefix the

THE NOUN-CLASSES 55

voiced sound, which is written p and by
Meinhof z.

This class, like some others, consists of two
or three originally distinct ones, which may
account for the prefix conveying several
different senses. Sometimes it has a kind of
instrumental force and is then used to make a
noun out of a verb, implying the thing by
means of which the action is accomplished, as
isi'hlalo (Zulu) * a seat,' from hlala^ * to sit ' ;
Nyanja chi-psero, * a broom,' from psera, * to
sweep ' ; chi-peta^ * a winnowing- basket,' from
pc^ta. Sometimes it seems to convey a
collective sense, as in Zulu, isi-ntu (already
remarked on), isi-Zulu^ ' the whole of the
Zulus, the Zulu nation,' iM-zwe, * tribe, nation,'
from i'ZWCy ' country.' This is distinct from
the use of the prefix to express language (which
does not occur in Zulu) : Chi-Nyanja, Ki-
Swahili, Se-Sutu ; or, more accurately,

* likeness, fashion, manner,' as its application
is not confined to language. Again, it forms
a kind of abstract noun, expressing, not a
quality, but the action of a verb, as Swahili
ki'lioj * weeping,' from Ha; Nyanja chi-funOj

* wish,' from /una.

In Swahili, a great many nouns in ki- are

56 THE NOUN-CLASSES

diminutives, ki- having taken the place of the
thirteenth prefix ka-^ as it has also done in
Kongo.^ In Nyanja, curiously enough, the old
augmentative class (20) has become merged in
the seventh, exchanging its prefix yu for chi-.

On the other hand, nouns which have
dropped their prefixes, and whose stems begin
with chi^ kij ski, etc.7 are liable to be mistaken
for nouns of the seventh class. These are
fairly numerous in Nyanja, as chingay * fence,'
pi. ma'Chingaj chinduj * roof,' pi. ma-chiitdu.

This class also contains some nouns meaning
persons. In Zulu these are derived from
verbs as isi-hambi, * a traveller,' from hambuy
' go,' isi-gijimi, * runner,' from gijima, * run.' In'
Swahili we find in this class personal nouns
implying some defect, as ki-pofu, * a blind
person,' ki-ziwij * a dumb person,' etc. Pro-
bably these originally belonged to a
Mepreciative class,' which will be mentioned
later on.

The ninth prefix is usually found as in- or n- :
in Rong3. yin-, Ganda, en-, Herero on-, Makua
usually i- without the n, as i-kti^o, * cloth,' which

In Kongo, however, diminutives are distinguished
from the nouns in ki- by reduplication of the root, as
ki'mwanamwana, * a little child.'

•

THE NOUN-CLASSES 57

is equivalent to the Swahili or Yao nguo} n
becomes m before stems beginning with a
labial, as irn-buzi (Zulu), *goat,' for in+buzi.

The tenth class properly has the plural
prefix in addition to the singular (Zulu izi-n-
dhhi, izi-m-buzi), but the former often disap-
pears through contraction, so that singular and
plural are alike, as Kongo nzo, Swahili and
Nyanja, nyuynbaj 'house.' Some dialects of
Nyanja, however, have zi-nyumba lo, and
Herero, ondyuo 9, odho-ndyuo^ 10, ^ongz. yin-dlu
9, tiyin-dlu 10. Ronga sometimes contracts
both prefixes, as ndlebe^ * ear ' (Zulu in-dhlebg)^
plural tin-dlebe, and may drop even the «, as
in huku, * fowl,' plural tihtiku. Chwana Sutu
and Venda have the tenth prefix li : puli, * goat,'
pi. li'piili ; kxomo * cow,' li'kxomo. This
suggests that the primitive form may have
been li-ni-.

^ Both in Chwana and Makua there is a tendency to
substitute the voiceless stop for the voiced stop and
nasal {i.e., p for w6, t for nd^ k for ng). CL puli,
*goat,* Nyanja, mhuzi ; itotwa (Makua) 'star,* Yao,
ndondwa,

* Dy is probably the nearest equivalent to this sound
in ordinary English spelling, but it may be that
represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by
inverted f. Instead of z, Herero has the sound of th in
* there * — here represented by dh.

58 THE NOUN-CLASSES

So far as any rule can be laid down for them,
most names of animals belong to the ninth
class. Many of these are the same through-
out the greater number of the Bantu lan-
guages. We give a few of the most striking
examples :

Cow or ox : Zulu, inkomoy Chwana, k^omo,
Ronga, homu, Herero, ojigombe, Nyanja (and
many other languages), ng'ombej^ Bobangi
(Middle Congo), ngombo. Even where the
root is different, as Ganda ente^ the word still
belongs to the same class.

Goat : Zulu, imbuzi, Ronga, mbutij Chwana,
pulij Nyanja (and many others), fhbuzij
Bobangi, mboli, Duala, mbodi, Herero, ongombo
(a different root), Kongo, nkombo^ and in some
dialects, ntaba.

Sheep : Zulu, imvu^ Chwana, nku^ Nyanja,
nkosa^ Swahili, kondoo, Giryama, ng^ondzi,
Ganda, endiga.

The dog is usually mbwa or imbwa — quite
recognisable as representing his bark, — but in

* Ng^ thus written has the same sound as in * ring,*
* sing,' etc. Meinhof writes it n. Where no apostrophe
follows, the sound is that heard in * finger.' The former
does not seem to occur in Herero or Pokomo. In the
latter language *cow' is ngomhe, which would be
ridiculed as a mispronunciation by Swahilis or Anyanja.

THE NOUN-CLASSES 59

Zulu this has become inja^ because w cannot
in that language follow another nasal.

The eleventh prefix is found'in most present-
day Bantu languages, though its presence is
frequently disguised by the fact that it has
been contracted into ii^- ; as Zulu u4i for ulu-
ti. Here' it is still easily distinguishable by
its concord — when we hear uti olude Iwa leyo
^nkosij * the long staff of that chief/ — we know
that uti cannot be one of the first-class nouns
which have u- for their prefix (u-baba, etc.).
Moreover, when used as proper names, (as
any noun may be in Zulu, keeping its own
prefix, and changing only the initial vowel),
they appear in the uncontracted form ; thus
we have uLuzipo, a man's jiame, from u-zipOj
* a claw,' uLutuli, from u4uli, * dust.'

In Swahili, the distinctive concord is no
longer seen, the pronouns, etc. being identical
with those of 3 : uti m-refti^ u-me-anguka, * the
long stick has fallen.' Moreover, 14 has
undergone a like contraction, so that these two
classes are merged in one. The lu-cldiss still
exist separately in Yao and Ila : in Nyanja
there are a good many nouns beginning with
this prefiJx, but they are treated as belonging
to the fifth. In Ronga, though still distinct, it

60 THE NOUN-CLASSES

has modified its prefix to /i-, while the fifth
prefix is 'n-. As will have been noticed in
Herero, some languages sound this prefix with
r rather than /. Sometimes it is used (instead
of 7) to express language : Lu-ganda^ Lu-nyoro,
Lti-gisu: this seems to be confined to the
northern region of the great lakes.

There is considerable divergence in the
plural prefix appropriated to this class. The
most usual appears to be the tenth, but some-
times we have the sixth. In Herero, Ndonga,
Kongo, it has retained its original one, the
twelfth {tu-)j which also belongs to the diminu-
tive class. Sometimes we find that, as in 10,
the plural prefix is added without rejecting
the singular ; thus in Swahili, titi makes
nyuti = ni + tdi; in Mbundu (Angola), we
have lubango^ * stick,' — pi. ma-lu-bango^.

The twelfth and thirteenth classes have
dropped out in a good many languages. Ka- is
properly the sign of the diminutive, an4 is still
so used in Herero, Nyanja, Yao, Ila, Ganda,
Pokomo, Giryama, Zigula, etc.

As we have seen, Swahili and some others
have substituted the seventh prefix for it.

* Meinhof thinks this was at first the rule with all the
classes and that the second prefix gradually dropped out.

THE NOUN-CLASSES 61

Zulu, Ronga, Chwana, and their cognate
dialects have got rid of it altogether, and
express their diminutive by a suffix — perhaps
under the influence of the Hottentot language.
E. g., Zulu, indhlwana {indhlu-ana), *a little
house ' ; Chwana pitsa^ * pot,' pits-ana^ * little
pot.'

Though tU' seems to be the original plural
prefix attached to the thirteenth class, a variety
of others have taken its place, and the learner
should be prepared to meet With pi- (a form of
8), W-, bii^'j (14, as in Herero), w^-, t;/-, and tin-

{id).

In Ganda, where the plural of aka-ntUj * a
little thing,' is obu-ntu, the twelfth prefix has a
distinct and very curious use — otu-dzi^ ' a
single drop of water,' from a7na-dzi, tu-nyu
* a little salt,' from mtc-nyu} That is, it is
used to individualise a single particle of
something which has to be looked at or
handled in the mass, like liquids, flour, grain,
etc. These, as we have seen, when belonging
to Class 6, have no singular ; when of Class
14, they have no plural — or, it would be more
correct to say, they have neither singular nor
plural. This formation is also found in

* Conversely, lu-nyu * a lot of salt.'

62 THE NOUN-CLASSES

Pogoro, a language spoken east of the northern
end of Lake Nyasa.

In Nyanja, the diminutive plural prefix is
ti- (which, Meinhof thinks, may have been a
distinct class) : ka-mbalame, * little bird,' plural,
ti-mbalame.

Duala has a different diminutive class,
traces of which occur elsewhere, but only in the
western part of the continent : it is the one
numbered 19. Its prefix i- is supposed to
have been originally^/-, and its plural prefix
is the twelfth, which has here assumed the
form lo- : i-seru, a small kind of antelope — pi.
lO'Seru. In Kongo the prefix has assumed
the form fi- and constitutes an additional
diminutive class, which, however, has no
plural of its own. This class is also found in
Nywema and some other languages of the
central regions between the Great Lakes and
the Upper Congo.

The fourteenth class, as already stated,
includes abstract nouns {e,g.j Zulu ubu-ntu,
Swahili u-tti, etc., ' human nature '), and names
of materials which are not properly speaking
either singular or plural : ubu-si (Zulu), u-chi
(Nyanja), * honey,' utshwala for ubwala=:
ubu-ala (Z.), * beer,' utshane for ubu-ane (Z.),

THE NOUN-CLASSES 63

'grass,' ub'Oya (Z.), ubwea (Ny.), * hair of
an animal.' If nouns of this class are ever
put into the plural, they usually take the sixth
prefix {ma): thus * night,' ubu-suku^ has no
plural in Zulu, but the Chwana bo-sixo has the
plural ma-sixo.

But there seems reason to suspect that
most fourteenth class nouns which take a
plural do not originally belong to the class at
all, as they denote concrete objects which
there seems no reason for including here.
Probably the same thing has happened as
with tlue ki' and u- classes in Swahili. f//a,
* bow ' — originally bii-ta or vu4a — is found in
nearly every Bantu language. In Nyanja it
has the concord 6w, which stands almost
alone : uta bu-funa kutyoka, * the bow is likely
to break ' (lit. * wants to break '). The same
is the case with 6oa, * mushrooms,' said in
Scott's Dictionary to be of Class i (no
explanation is offered of the anomalous con-
cord, but the existence of the bu- class in other
languages makes it quite clear) : boa bwanga
bu'li apa {li is here the verb * to be ') — * my
mushrooms are here.'

Then we have bwato, * canoe,' stated to be
of the fifth class, with plural ma^bwato ; but

64 THE NOUN-CLASSES

forms like Pokomo waho {li-aho)^ pi. m-aho,
seem to show that bw- is the prefix {bu-ato).
Nyamwezi has vato 14 and Konde ubwato

(ubti-ato). This last has its plural of Class 4 :
imyato, (imi-ato), which may point to a still
further confusion. The little group of north-
western Bantu languages, of which Duala is
the chief (Benga, Dikele, Isubu), make the
plural of the fourteenth class in mi-: the same
word is in Benga bwalu, mi-alu, in Duala
b'Olo, mi'Olo. Duala has bw-elCj * tree/ pi.
mi-ele : a curious exception, as regards the
singular.

These last can scarcely be explained as
collectives, or nouns of material, though

* mushrooms ' might : being considered in the
first instance as food they would be thought
of by the basketful. Even as to uta I am not
quite clear : tita in Swahili seems to mean a
bow with quiver and arrows all complete (the

* artillery ' that Jonathan carried), while upindi
is a bow pure and simple. The plurals nyuta
and mata are given in the dictionaries, but
they may be later formations. In Nyanja the
plural mauta apparently has the same collective
sense — at least, as applied to the three stars
in Orion's belt, I understand it to mean * The

THE NOUN-CLASSES 65

Bow and Arrows/ not * The Bows.* Ubu-so
(Zulu), * face,' is found almost everywhere and
has the same root as i-so, ^ eye ' — as though it
were a sort of abstraction : the * eyeness,' if
one might coin the word. In fact one does
sometimes hear * eyes ' used to mean ' face,' in
Nyanja and probably elsewhere.

The fifteenth prefix, kti-, denoting infinitives
of nouns, offers little difficulty and has the same
form (except for the occasional presence of an
initial vowel) almost everywhere. In Chwana
it is modified to x^, and several western
languages are without it, though it has left
traces in Kongo.

There are a few nouns in ku with plurals in
ma-, which are certainly not infinitives and
are perhaps remnants of a lost class. They
sometimes retain the ku- in the plural, after
the ma- prefix : Nyanja kutu^ * ear,' pi.
ma-ku'tu ; but Herero oku4wi, oma-twi, Kongo
kU'tu, nia-tu. Several of the western Bantu
languages have the words for * arm ' and * leg '
similarly formed, and Herero has a few more
besides. Meinhof thinks these are locatives,
a theory which will be more fully explained in
the next chapter.

Classes i6, 17, 18 are not found in Zulu or

^66 THE NOUN-CLASSES

Chwana, though slight traces of them exist.
They can better be discussed in the next
chapter, in connection with the locative ; here
it may be sufficient to say that they differ
from most other classes by having a movable
prefix : a preposition is added before the usual
prefix and entirely changes the concord. The
preposition and its noun are treated as a single
word. It is somewhat as though, instead of
saying * The house is near a field/ we said

* Near-the-house n-is a field/ or * By-the-house
6-is/ etc. ' '

The locative prefixes have entirely dis-
appeared in Swahili, but the concord remains,
as we shall see.

The nineteenth class, already referred to,
was not recognized by Bleek.

The remaining two classes — more properly
four — were also unknown to Bleek and only
survive in a rudimentary condition. Ganda
has a prefix ogu-, which seems to convey a
notion (i) of size, (2) of d'epreciation : ogu-ntu,

* a clumsy thing,' pi. aga-ntUj ogu-nyo^ * a large
quantity of salt' (ow^-nyo), as opposed to'* a
small quantity ' of the same, otu-nyo*- In Gi^u
there is a class denoting large things, with the
prefix gti- in the singular, gi-mi- in the plural :

THE NOUN-CLASSES 67

gu-kokOj 'a giant fowl,' pi. gimi-koko, with
a prefix now virtually equivalent to the
fourth, ft might be preferable therefore to
enumerate them thus: 20 yti 21 ya 22yti 23
7Z {yimi).

But as a matter of fact, no language to-day
seems to have kept both 20 and 22 inde-
pendently. Both classes survive in Swahili,
though one is completely merged in the fifth
and sixth, and the other would be but for its
anomalous plural. To express unusual size,
a noun loses its original prefix in the singular
and takes ma in the plural, as dege^ * a large
bird,' (from n'dege)^ pi. ma-dege. If the stem
begins with a vowel it prefixes j, as joka, * large
serpent,' from nyoka. But if it is implied that
a thing is not only large but monstrous, or
ill-conditioned, the form is the same for the
singular, but the plural has the prefix mi-: as
jombo (from ch-ombo)^ 'a big ugly vessel,' pi.
mi'jombo, vua, * heavy rain ' (implying some-
thing abnormal), pi. mi-vua. (Some of these
forms in mi- have no singular corresponding
to them). But these distinctions are becoming
blurred, and a further source of confusion is
the insertion of -ji- between the prefix and
stem of monosyllabic diminutives. We may

68 THE NOUN-CLASSES

add that ki- sometimes has a depreciatory
sense/

It has already been pointed out that some
seventh class nouns in Nyanja (beginning with
chi') are really relics of an old augmentative
class. In Kinga (spoken among the moun-
tains E. of the north end of Lake Nyasa)
there is a class with the prefix ugu- which
does not seem to have a plural and conveys
either an augmentative or a depreciative
sense : it is no doubt an amalgamation of 20
and 22. Traces of the same are also found
in Venda. Ganda use§ both the ki- and lu-
prefixes with augmentative force. There is no
need to follow out the matter any further, but
the student should keep it in mind as a
possible explanation of seemingly exceptional
forms.

Hints of several other classes are found :
(i) We have already said that Meinhof
considers the Nyanja diminutive plural/i- as
a distinct prefix, parallel with tu-, as li- is with

lU'.

(2) There are in Nyanja one or two words,

Steere*s Handbook of Swahili, p. 19, * ki-buzi, a
poor little goat.' We have already referred to the
depreciatory sense of ki- when applied to persons, b^
kipofu, kiziwi, etc.

/•

THE NOUN-CLASSES • 69

tuloj ^ sleep,' tubsij * dung,' which seem to stand
in a class by themselves. The concords
{tulo t-ambiri, * much sleep,' tulo t-achcy ^ his
sleep,') indicate that /w- is the prefix. We
find otu-lOj ' sleep,' in Ganda, but it does not
seem possible to place it, as the French
Fathers^ do, in the tu- class which denotes
* small quantities.' However, they may have
been originally thought of as plurals and, as
such, would belong to CI. 12, like tuvia * fire '
(Kongo) which, though generally used in the
plural, seems to have a singular luvia.

(3) Some languages have personal nouns in
ka- which are not diminutive — this is especially
marked in Herero — and we might compare
Ganda ka-baka, * king,' ka-tikirOy ' prime
minister.' And we might suggest the large
number of animal names in Nyanja, which
begin with na and nanka {nadzikambe, * chame-
leon,' na^orf^zc;^, * water-buck,' nanAafea/, * hawk ').
But enough has been said to show that the
number of classes was once probably far
greater than it is now, and to show that in
languages not yet fully studied we are quite
likely to come upon traces of extra classes.

* Manuel de Langue Luganda. Einsiedeln, 1894,
p. 31.

CHAPTER V

Cases : The Locative

If I begin by saying that Bantu nouns have
nothing which can, properly speaking, be
described as case^ it will appear as if this
chapter, being of the same kind as the famous
one on * Snakes in Iceland,' had better be left
unwritten.

However, as we have already seen, there is
a Possessive — if of a somewhat peculiar
character. * There is no difference in form
between the noun-subject and the noun-
obje(it, but some pronouns have distinct forms
for the accusative, as we shall see in the next
chapter. There is something like a vocative.
Perhaps the dropping of the initial vowel in
Zulu, as ^ Zatshtike,^ when addressing a man
(instead of ' u Zatshtike ') is too slight to be
mentioned in this connection ; but Chwana

CASES: THE LOCATIVE 71

(at least in some dialects) has a different
terminal vowel for a noun, according as the
person referred to is spoken to or spoken of.
And Duala prefixes a to nouns in the Vocative.
Finally, the Locative in -nij though confined
to a comparatively small number of languages,
is a feature which must be taken into account,
and it can hardly, for the purposes of this
sketch, be classed under any other heading
than that of Case.

If we limit the term * case ' to those
relations which are expressed by inflexions of
the noun-stem (declensional endings), we shall
have to admit that English nouns are entirely
without it, except when the possessive is
indicated by 's. Case-endings are becoming
obsolete in Dutch, though they still exist in
German ; they are better exemplified in Latin
and Greek, and still more so in Sanscrit,
which has seven cases.

The Latin declensign, for instance {mensae^
* of the table,' m, ' to the* thing,' hortOj * from
the garden '), indicates by means of the
termination what we express by a preposition,
or by the order of words in the sentence,
which is our only way of distinguishing sub-
ject from object. The same relations are

72 cases: the locative

expressed in the Bantu languages by means of
prepositions/

Indo-European prepositions are invariable.
' From/ * to/ * by/ ^ with/ never change their
shapes, whatever nouns they may precede or
follow ; and neither do the Latin a6,^ de, ex^
prOf super J etc.

This is not the case with Bantu prepositions,
^though the difference is perhaps more apparent
than real. We have already seen, in the
second chapter, that the equivalent for * of '
assumes different forms according to the noun
it follows. It is as though we said in English :
* the house hof the man/ * the child choi the
house,' * the door ^of the room.* This is
because the initial of the noun-prefix is
combined with the root -a, which, whatever
its original force may be — we can for practical
purposes assume to mean * of.*

We can now see why Brusciotto called this
wuj ya, etc., an article. He saw that one part

^ This word is used for convenience. Meinhof points
out that there are, strictly speaking, nQ.-^epositions in
Bantu, the words serving as such being really pronouns
or possessive particles — except na * with,* which might
equally well be rendered * and,' and called a conjunction.

The alternative forms a, ah^ e, ex are not variations
in the sense here intended.

cases; the LOCATIVEt 73

of it meant * of,' and — reminded of the way in
which di (* of ') combines with the article in
Italian {del, delloj della, dei, degli, delUy con-
cluded that the other part of the word mjght
be an article. The combination seemed to
carry out that reversal of European rules
which had' struck him so forcibly in connection
with the prefixes, and the conclusion he came
to was a very natural one under the circum-
stances and does credit to his linguistic
insight. He might have represented the
whole thing in a diagram, thus :

D-EL

— the Italian article il having originally been
the Latin demonstrative pronoun ille, while u
(which becomes w before a) is the prefix-
pronoun of its cla^. With nouns of other
classes, we should have j^a, la, za, etc., just as
in Italian with a feminine singular noun we

^ This combination (the * partitive article ') is better
seen in Italian than in either French or Spanish, where
it is not carried through consistently {dtif de la, des ;
del, de la, de los). In Italian too, not only di and a,
but the other prepositions con, in, per, are combined
with the article and constitute something like a declension

74 cases: the locative

have dellay with a masculine plural dei or
degliy and so on. But wa fulfils no function
of the article as we understand it, the pro-
noun in it being purely representative and
not demonstrative.

This possessive particle is closely connected
with the possessive pronoun^ to be considered in
a later chapter. But I mention it here,
because the next point can only be illustrated
by the help of possessive pronouns in European
languages. In English, as we know, possessive
pronouns are among the few parts of speech
which have grammatical gender — which show
by their form the sex of the nouns they
represent — or the absence of it. Possessive
pronouns agree in this respect with the noun
which stands for the possessor : * his mother,'
' her father,' — while the reverse is the case in
French : son per e^ sa mere, leave* the sex of the
possessor qtiite imcertain, though beginners
insist on translating * her father ' by sa pere.

Bantu nouns follow, with a difference, the
French principle ; * the man's child ' is in
Zulu : um-ntwana wendoda (for wa-indoda) and
not, as it would be if the concord followed the
class of the possessor : um-ntwana yendoda
(ja-iftdoda).

cases: the locative 75

I say ' nouns ' advisedly, for we shall see,
when we come to treat of them in the proper
place, that possessive pronouns agree both
ways : that is, the first part follows the class
of the thing possessed, the last that of the
possessor.

It is scarcely necessary to say, after giving
the above examples, that the thing possessed
always precedes the possessor, as in French
{Venfant de Vhomme). In English, we have it
both ways, according as we use the inflected
possessive or not — * the man's child,' and * the
child of the man/ The Sudan languages^
put the; possessor first and say ^ man child ' —
having nothing corresponding to article or
inflection, though sometimes a particle
indicating ownership is suffixed to the first
word.

There is no way of showing whether a noun
is subject or object except by its position in
the sentence, the subject coming before the
verb and the object after, ^ just as in English.

^ See Language Families of Africa^ p. 40.

^ Arabic, which uses case-inflections, usually puts the
verb first, the subject next, and then the (Object ; but as
the two latter are sufficiently distinguished by their
endings, it really does not matter in what order they are
put.

76 cases: the locative

Sometimes, where there can be no possibility
of mistake, inversion is used for the sake of
emphasis — as by us in rhetoric or poetry ; but
the outsider had better not meddle with
figures of speech such as this, and it is scarcely
necessary to mention them in a general
outline.

We now come to the Locative ; and this
has to be treated under two different headings :
the locative formed by prefixed prepositions
and the suffixed locative in -m, which seems
to be a later development. There are not
many Bantu prepositions, as we shall see in
the chapter on Particles : the principal ones,
which (or, at any rate, traces of them), are
found in cver^ Bantu language, are pa^ ku,
mu.

Pa, roughly speaking, conveys the notion of

* at * or * upon ' ; tnu, of ' in,' and kuj of

* motion to and from,' though it sometimes
has the meaning of ' outside.' It also serves
as the sign of the infinitive ; but here its
function, if not its origin, is different, so that
we are quite right in treating 15 and 16 as
separate classes.^

Meinhof thinks that the use of ku as infinitive prefix
was a later development from its locative function.

cases: the locative 77

Puj kuj mu are the prefixes of Classes
i6, 17, 18 respectively; but they differ in one
important respect from the other prefixes.
These, as a rule (with the exception, in some
cases, of augmentatives and diminutives), are
attached to the bare root, which cannot be
used without them, while pa, ku, mu are
prefixed to the whole noun, root and all, as in
Nyanja pa-chilindOj ^ at the look-out,'^ ku-
chilindOj mu chilindo ; not pa-Undo j ku-lindo^
mu'lindo. But in all other respects they are
true prefixes and take their own concord,
entirely superseding the one properly belonging
to their noun^ when used by itself. For
instance, chilindoy being a noun of the seventh
class, would take the possessive particle, cha
and pronoun chi :

Chi-lindo ch-a Pembereka chi-ri cha-bwino :
(The) watch-hut of Pembereka it is good.

But Pa-chilindo pa Pembireka pa-li pa-bwino
would mean, * At Pembereka's watch-hut it is
(a) good (place).'

So we may have also :

* Chilindo, also called nsanja (* staging ' or ' plat-
form is a imall temporary structure raised on poles,
open or roofed, erected in the fields so that watchers
can overlook the ripening crops and scare away birds,
monkeys or other depredators.

78 cases: the locative

Ku'Chilindo kwa Pembereka ku-li kwa-bwino,
with much the same meaning as the last
sentence, except that the place is thought of
from the standpoint of one who is at a distance
from it and going, or thinking of going, towards
it; while m'chilindo (for mu-chilindo) mwa
Pembereka mu-li mwa-bwino, means : * the
inside of Pembereka's watch-hut is good.'

Some nouns, as kamwa^ * mouth,' are never
found without the locative prefix — we have
pa-kamwa^ ku-kamwa and m-kamwa, but never
kafnwa alone. The word is evidently connected
with 7nwa * drink/ — perhaps ka is the prefix of
a lost class distinct ftrom the diminutive.

Here are some further illustrations, also
from Nyanja:

A-li'ku-nka kumunda kwa Champiti : he is
going to (the) garden of Champiti.

Ku-mudzi kwanu ku-li kwa-bwino : -at our
village it is good.

KU'Mlanje ku4i mpunga, koma ku-Kabula
ktmo ku'libe : at Mlanje there is rice but
at Kabula here there is none.

Kuno, * here,' is really a demonstrative,
agreeing not with * Kabula^* but with * ku-
Kabula j' as though, instead of * here at
Kabula,' one had said *at this at-Kabula.'

cases: the locative 79

A mistake to be found in some of the older
grammars is illustrated in Steere's Handbook
of Swahili (p. 22) by the statement that a class
(the seventh, in his arrangement) contains ' the

* Qne word mahali, place or places, which re-

* quires special forms in all adjectives and pro-
'noun^Z Mahali is really a borrowed Arabic
word, which is sometimes Bantuized (oftener,
I think, at Zanzibar than at Mombasa) by
substituting pa for the first syllable, as if the
latter were a removable prefix, and so making
it into a noun of the sixteenth class. Steere
mentions the locative concord a little later on,
but does not call it a class (though including
it in his * Table of Concords *). The change
undergone by the Swahili locative (which we
shall discuss presently) has so obscured the
relation between it and mahali or pahali that
without a fuller comparative study than was
possible when Steere wrote, it was not likely
to be perceived.

Several languages have a word for ' place '
which is either pa-ntu^ or some cognate form
and may have the same root as mu-ntu. In
Ganda, where primitive Bantu p becomes Wy
we have the nearly obsolete waiitu, which was
at first thought to constitute a class by

80 cases: the locative

itself.^ But wUj as well as mu and ku, is prefixed
to other nouns, which are also used as adverbs :
wa-nsiy * the ground ' or * below ' ; mu-itda,
* the inside/ * or within.' There is also a
prefix e, not generally found among the
locatives, but which may possibly have some
connection with the peculiar Zulu form.

In Pokomo we h^Lvefantu (bilabial/, for/>),
in Giryama hatu, elsewhere hantu, handu^ etc.
(A great many East African languages
substitute h for />, except in certain particular
^cases : e,g.^ Giryama has hendzay * love,' for
Swahili penda.)

Some languages have this word also with
the prefix ku : kuntu, kundu ; but mu-ntUj
ntu-ndtiy if used at all is less common, perhaps
because it would have the same form as the
word for * person.**

1 «
it

The tenth class contains the single word wantUf
place *' ; this word is obsolete except in the single
expression buliwantu, ** everywhere." But its influence
in the language is great, because adjectives, pronouns,
verbs and adverbs are all formed with the prefix wa-,
referring to this disused word, eg,, wano wa-lungu,
" this is a pretty spot." * — Pilkington. Wano walungu
exactly corresponds with Nyanja pano {pa li) pabwino.

In Zigula * the prefix appropriate to the word hantu

place " is ha, and as it belongs exclusively to this word,

its mere presence is sufficient to indicate that i)/a:ce is the

cases: the locative 81 '

Kongo has vuma (v for p), kuma, muma, as
three different forms of the word for * place.'
These take the locative concords as we find
them elsewhere, but other nouns preceded
by .the corresponding prepositions keep their
concords instead of taking a locative concord.
Muma seems sometimes to be treated as the
plural of vuntd : this may arise from a confu-
sion of the m- with the sixth prefix (as though
it were contracted from nta-uma) and possibly
indicates that the whole system is dying out in
some df the western Bantu languages. Bentley
remarks concerning vuma : * In most Bantu

* languages a corresponding word for place
' will be found standing in a separate class of

* its own, and wearing a prefix va, pa, or
' something similar.' This is the same mistake
adverted to just now, and no doubt one reason
for it is that the prefixes of these words are
not, as a rule, removable ; but they really
come under the same heading as the locatives

substantive referred to, so that the word hantu is often
omitted. The same rule refers to the more indefinite
ku-ntu and its appropriate syllable kit-, and also to
fnu-ntu, tnu-.* — Kisbey.

Archdeacon Woodward, though mentioning the mu-
concord, does not refer to the word tnti-ntti, * in a place,'
which, however, certainly occurs in the Likoma dialect
of Nyanja.

82 cases: the locative

which are made up as wanted and simply put
the preposition before the ordinary noun-
prefix. We draw a distinction between the
two — but the Bantu speaker feels none.

We now come to the suffixed locative in
-ni, which seems to be confined to Bleak's
South-Eastern Branch of the Bantu family
and to a few languages in East Africa, of
which Swahili, Bondei, Hehe, and Makua are
the chief, if not the only ones — and in Makua
it is combined with the prefixed locative —
mashi = water ; va-mashi-ni = at the water ;
m-mashi-ni= in the water.

But the prefix has quite disappeared in
Swahili, and the locative is simply formed by
suffixing -ni, which may mean * in,' * at,' * on,'
* from,' * to,' etc.

nyumba-ni = in the house. The accent is always

mji-ni = to the town, shifted forward by the

kiti-ni = on the chair, locative suffix, seep. 15.
etc.

But the concord differs according to what
is impliefl in the suffix. * In my house,' is
nyumbani mwangUj ^ to my house,' nyumbani
kwangu ; * he is sitting on my chair,' anakaa
kitini pangUj and so on.

cases: the locative 83

A-H-anguka tnlangoni pangu.
He fell down at my door.
Atakwenda shambani kwake.
He will go to his plantation.
Amelala nyumhani mwako.
He is lying down in your house.

This concord is not found in Zulu, where,
however, the rules for applying the suffix are
not quite so simple as in Swahili. We may
suppose that it originally had the form -ini :
this is rendered probable by the effect it has
on the final vowel of the noun. A becomes e,
e and i remain unchanged ; (f becomes we, and
w, wi (or sometimes i, eliding the final vowel
instead of chahging it into w). The initial
vowel is changed into e (in a few cases, in ii
and 14, into 0), foF which I can suggest no
reason, though it may possibly have some
connection with the locative prefix which
appears in Ganda as e-.

intaha = mountain makes entaheni,

izwe = country „ ezwent,

isi-hlalo = seat „ esihlalweni,

in-dhlu = house „ endhlwini or endhlini.

In Chwana this locative is found in the
form ng^ as in the well-known place-names
Mafeking and ShoShong. The same termina-
tion is used to form a kind of participle, to

84 cases: the locative

which we shall refer later on, in connection
with the relative pronoun and the verb. In
Ronga and other languages of the Delagoa
Bay district, the locative suffix is -m, though
the final i is frequently dropped : tikwettj ^ in
the country,' from tiko.

The preposition ku still exists in all these
languages (in Chwana under the form xo), but
pa and mu are no longer found independently.
That they did exist in Zulu is shown by the
adverbs pansi^j pezulu {= pa + izulu = * on the
sky' = * above'), pa-katiy * in the midst,'
pa-ndhUj ' outside,' etc. When used as pre-
positions these are followed by kwa, as pakati
kwendhlu {kwa-indhluV 'inside the house,' —
which, properly, should only go with ku- but
has quite usurped the place of pa- and mu-.
The latter, however, survives in Chwana, in
combination with the suffix, as mo motsengy
* in the village ' {motse) .

Some nouns whose presence in the ku- class

'fisi is no longer used in Zulu as a noun, but it is
found in Swahili as nti, nchi^ meaning * land,' * earth.*
Instead of the adverb pa-nsi, * down,* below,* ti-ni or
chi-ni is used. In Chwana the root and prefix {ha-tse)
have bect)me so closely welded together that they are
looked on as inseparable and have been given a fresh
prefix, le-hatse 5.

cases: the locative 85

is difficult to understand and is rendered still
more perplexing by the fact that they have a
plural in ma-j are to be accounted for as
Locatives. The Nyanja kutu, * ear,' pi.
ma-kutUj might be taken if it stood alone as a
fifth-class noun which has dropped its prefix
li' ; but it cannot be dissociated from the
Herero oku-twij pi. oma-twiy and Ndonga
oko'tshwi, pi. oma-kotshwi. Properly, the
word means * to the ear,' * the place of the
ear,' and then, the word being generally used
with the locative prefix, the separate nature of
the latter was forgotten, as was the case with
the Chwana hatse. The same applies to the
Herero oku-oko^ * arm,' pi. oma-oko; Kongo
k-oko, pi. fft'Oko, Other examples in Herero
are oku-rama, * leg ' ; oku4i, * veld, open
country,' oku-rtWj * hearth,' oku-apa, * armpit.'
It is evident that all these may have a locative
sense, and that, wherever similar words are
found, they should be placed in Class 17.
The uncertainty about the prefixes shows
that their original meaning is almost, if not
quite forgotten, and that they tend more and
more to be regarded as part of the stem.

CHAPTER VI

The Pronoun

The Pronoun is one of the most important
features of the Bantu Languages. I do not
even add * next to the Prefixes,' because 'the
two are so intimately associated that it is
difficult to say which should have the priority.

It used to be thought that the Pronouns and
Prefixes were, in the last resort, identical,
whatever their origin — whether they were
nouns which had lost their distinctive
character and become mere formative elements
(like the suffixes of * king-dom,' ^ man-hood,'
* lord-ship,' which have long ceased to have
any independent value) — or whether they
already, even as separate words, had the force
of pronouns. (Bleek's discussion of this
subject — Comparative Grammar, pp. 123-131 —
should be carefully read, though time has
shown that it requires some modification.)

Meinhof {GnmdzUg£, p. 35) points out that

THE PROI^UN 87

the prefix and pronoun are not identical, but
that the latter is really the demonstrative
particle, discussed in Chapter III., which
became incorporated with the prefix and was
then, in many cases, lost, but survives, e.g. in
Zulu, as the * initial vowel.' It was, as we
have seen, originally 7a, but assimilated its
vowel to that of the prefix which followed it.

Thus we have :

3 'Ya+mu = ytifnu = umu, and the pronoun yu=gu, u

4 ya+mi = 'Yitni, =imi „ „ „ yi—git i

6 ya+ma^yama^atna „ „ „ ya=ga,yafa
9 ya+ni=yini = in' „ „ „ yyi=yi,t

Where the prefix does not begin with a
nasal, e.g., in 2, 5, 7, 8, the demonstrative (or
* article ') disappears without leaving a trace,
and the noun-prefix only remains, to serve as
pronoun — so we get the pronouns ba, ki, li,
etc.^

^ Class 1 has been omitted here because, as Meinhof
says, * it contains all sorts of irregularities, as is not
surprising in a class so much used.* One would expect
its pronoun to be yu, like that of Class 3, and in fact u

and o, which are found in Zulu and Chwana, evidently
come from that form. But the Swahili yu cannot have
come from it, so Meinhof thinks there must have been a
second pronoun yyu, of which he explains the formation

on p. 36 of the work cited in the text, whence the
substance of this note, and of the paragraphs imme-

88 THE PRONOUN

This simplest form of the pronoun is never
— or, if at all, very seldom — used by itself,
but is always attached to a verb, or to an
adjective with the verb * to be ' understood.
We shall refer to it, henceforward, as the
' Inseparable Pronoun.' Its use as the
* copula ' — where, in some cases, it assumes a
different form — will be discussed in the next
chapter.

The following Table shows the ' Inseparable
Pronoun ' in our eight typical languages, as
compared with the noun-prefixes. Some
languages — especially Duala and Kongo — tend
to use the unaltered prefixes of all classes
before verbs by a mierely mechanical repetition,
having lost their feeling for the pronoun
as such. This explains the occurrence of
such forms as mi- and ma-, where we should
expect i' and a-.

The pronouns of the first and second

diately preceding it in the text, is taken. As for the
alternative pronoun a, which has almost displaced yu in
Swahili, it is no doubt a remnant of the unaltered ya ;

but it is not clear why it did not assimilate its vowel to
the first prefix, or why, in Herero and Chwana, for
instance, a is sometimes used in dependent sentences,
while in principal sentences we have u or its equivalent.
This last fact may possibly be connected with the
function of a as relative particle.

THE PRONOUN 89

persons have, of course, no noun-prefixes
corresponding to them and stand outside the
framework of tlie classes. They are therefore
placed by themselves at the head of each
column in the Table.

The use of these pronouns is illustrated in
Chapter II. They are used both as subject
and object; the first class and the second
person, singular and plural, are in almost all
cases the only ones with separate objective
forms. And, even of these, the second person
plural is not common. (Swahili has -ze;a-,
Zigula, -mi- J Ganda, -ba-). Whatever other
particles are prefixed to the verb-root, the
obj^t-pronoun must always come next it.

E.g., u-ya-ngi-bona (Zulu), *he sees me';
wa-ku'tshaya (Zulu), ' he beat thee \\ a-li-m^
fundisha (Swahili), *he taught him.'

Duala and Kongo have no object-pronoun
before the verb — though it exists in some
cognate dialects such as Isubu. The object
is expressed by a separable pronoun following
the verb.

The reflexive pronoun, which is alike for all
persons and numbers, is placed in the same
position as the object-pronoun. In Zulu it is
zi^ as in uku-zi-tanda^ * to love one's self ' ; in

tMO

c
o

a ■*

•J- i a

I I

a a

a a •?,

9 9 I

P-4 «« I

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a
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23.A5i li55i I

9
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i CO .M .M

•^ .14 ^ ua

I <il d> 9 i I

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„mu.

•

a
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•

«4H

(i>

9
00

•&

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•

•A

1
'55

1
9

<&
^

Ji6

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iTJ =

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«t

^ 1

d 9

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(/)

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J< o

(/}

•a-

" d

• mm

a d

d
o

(Xi

d (« 9

M • I I • ^^ (V •^

a ^ ^ a I i i i

^ i I d ^ I I

d
o
u

QL4

c« A .A

• I (d 9 9 (d 9
d I i2 43 Jd 0« .M

a* a I a

M .A

fl • • I *

. I 01 . d (d d ;
d I ^ 9 ^ a ^ I

d
o

QL4

A A ^ I d Q) 9 j

9 ^ 9 .A

a 01 a a
0000

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. B ^ '5:1 . ^
d) o o o 00

0000 O O O (

d
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6 01 6 ^

C) • ^ M A m o I I
^ (d M ^ o ns p-4 I I

^, s

i I

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d
o

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11 *

US «d ^ N J. N

i I I ^ 2 I I I

9 l. 9 • A rt . , c

art a S .^ fl .A -A «. .3

9 <5 9 .2 .« cd — •"» •« •—

I I I I I I I I

0) ::

G9 CO

us«Dfe-oo oo^^geg;* J9S5;5S

THE PRONOUN 91

Nyanja, dzi; in Swahiliyf; in Herero ri ;
elsewhere i, yi, etc. Meinhof thinks the
original form was yi.

There are longer forms of the pronouns,
which can stand by themselves and need not
be used with the verb except for emphasis.
The different languages form these in various
ways, and in some of them it\is difficult to
trace any resemblance to the Inseparable
Pronoun. In fact they are built up rather on
what is called the ' prepositional form ' of the
pronouns (though some of them depart
considerably even from this) , which, accordingly,
it will be better to take first.

This is a form which is suffixed to
prepo^tions : expressions like * with me ' ; ' to
him,* etc., being treated as one word. There
is a form for every class — just as there is of
the Inseparable Pronoun— as well as for the
First and Second Persons. Thus we have (in
several languages) nami {= na + mi), * with
me,' 'and I,' kumi, * to me,* etc. These forms
are also used in connection with Relative
Pronouns, as we fehall see presently.

Like the Inseparable Pronoun they are
never found alone — if not attached to preposi-
tions, they are suffixed to the possessive

92 THE PRONOUN

particle, in a way which will be explained
presently.

The separable, or independent, pronouns
are usually — if not always — built up out of
these forms. They exist in most languages
for the three persons. singular and plural, and,
in some, for all the classes. But some, like
Swahili and Nyanja, have none for any
classes after the first and second, using the
demonstrative pronouns instead.

The Possessive Pronoun consists of two
parts and has to be considered under two
aspects.

It is made up of :

(1) The possessive particle of the class to which

the thing possessed belongs {wa, ba, ya, etc.)i
and

(2) Either (a) a special pronoun-root for the first

and second persons, or (6) the * prepositional
form' of pronoun indicating the class of
the Possessor. The first class is usually
exceptional in this respect, having a different
suffix for the Possessive.

We will now take the six possessive pronouns
of the three persons singular and plural in the
same eight languages as before. Chwana
seems to be exceptional in having some of the

Zulu

Cbwana

Herero

Nyanja

Swahili

Ganda

Gisu

IstPcrs.
2nd „

Si. PI.
-mi, -ti
-we, -ni

Si. PI.
-no, -ro
-o, -lo

Si. PI.
-aini,-ete
-ove,-ene

Si. PI.
-ne, -fe
-we, -nu

Si. PI.
-mi, -swi
-we,-nyi

Si. PI.

-nge, -fe

-we,-mwe

Si. PI.

-se, -fe

-wo,-nywe

Class

-ye

-e

-ye

-y

-bo

-vo

-awo

-o

-0

-bo

-we

-wo

-o

-awo

-wo

-wo, -0 '

-gwo

-kwo

-yo

-avyo

-yo

-gyo

-kyo

-lo

-aro

-lo

-lyo

-wo

-o

-ao

-wo

-go

-ko

-so

-so, -sho

-atyo

-cho

-kyo

-ze

-cho

-avyo

-ro

-vyo

-byo

-yo

-ayo

-yo

-zo

-cho

-adho

-ro ^

-zo

•ro

-tso

-lo

-arwo

-wo

-Iwo

•Iwo -

—

-atwo

-to

—

-two

—

-ako

-ko

—

-ko -

-ko

-bo

-vyo, -yo

-awo

-bo

-wo

-bwo

-ko

■Xo

-akwo

-k?>

-ko

-kwo

—

-apo

-po

-wo

-ho

—

-akwo

-ko

-kwo

—

-amo

-mo

-mu

—

This form of pronoun does not appear to be used in Kongo.

SUBSTANTIVE PRONOUNS.

Zulu

Chwana

Herero

Ganda

Kongo

IstPers.
2nd „

Si. PI.
mina, tina

wena nina

Si. PI.
nna rona

wona lona

Si. PI.
owami,

owete
ove,

owena

SI. PI.
nze fwe

gwe mwe

Si. PI.
mono yeto

nge yeno

Class
1

yena

ene

eye

yandi

bona

vone

owo

yau

wona

one

owo

gwe

wau

yona

eone

ovio

gye

miau

lona

yone

oro

lye

dfau

wona

one

owo

mau

sona

shone

otyo

kye

kiau

zona

chone

ovio

bye

yau

yona

eone

oyo

yau

zona

chone

odho

zau

l(w)ona

lone

oruo

Iwe

luau

—

otuo

twe

twau

—

oko

—

bona

yone

owo

bwe

wau

kona

Xone

okuo

kwe

kwau

—

"~ 1

opo

vau

—

' —

oko

kwe

kwau

—

omo

mwe

mwau

—

. —

fiau

Nyanja, Swahili and Gisu use the Demonstratives for all classes but the first.

Nyanja. 1st Pers. Si. ine
Swahili. „ mimi

Gisu. „ ise

Nyanja. 1st Pers. PI. ife
Swahili. „ sisi

Gisu. „ if we

2nd twe
,, we we
„ iwe

2nd inu
„ ninyi
„ ■ inywe

3rd lye
yeye
niye

M
II

3rd
If
II

awo

wao

abo

THE PRONOUN

forms reduplicated (-^x^x^j^stead of -axo^ako).
There are also forms in some dialects which
are simply these separable pronouns with the

possessive particle prefixed to them a rona^

* our ' (lit. * of us ') ; -a lona, * your ' ; -a vottUj

' their/

Zulu

Chwana HercroNyanja

SwahiliGanda Gisu Kongo

-ami

-ame
-aka *

-andye

-an^a

-angu

-ange

-ate

-ame

THY

-ako

-aXaXo

-oye

-ako

-o

-owo

-aku

HIS

-ake

-aXaXwe

-e

-ache

-ake

-€

-ewe

-andi

OUR

-etu

-eshu

-etu

-atu

-etu

-afwe

-efe

-eto

YOUR

-enu

-eno

-cnu

-anu

-enii

-amwe

-enywe

-eno

THEIR

-abo

-avo

-awo

-ao

-awe

-au

These, if the thing possessed is of the
first class, have the possessive particle wa
prefixed to them : wami, ixrame (some Chwana
books print o ame), wandye, wanga, wangtij etc.

In Zulu, * my child' is umntwana wami ; in
Nyanja, mwana wanga, and so on, * My
children,' would be abantwana bamij ana anga;
* my village,' timuzi wami, mudzi wangay * my
country,' izwe lami, dziko langa. There is no
need to multiply examples.

In all these pronouns, the second part of the

96 THE PRONOUN

word does not vary, but if the possessor is of the
third person and of any class except the firsts the
suffix has often to change as well as the
prefix.

In Zulu, ihashi lake is * his horse,' supposing
that * his ' represents a noun of the first class —
say tinm-ntti, um-fana, etc. But it might stand
for a fifth-class noun : i-BanUy ' a Boer,' — or a
seventh : Ssi-hambij * a traveller,' — or a ninth :
in-doda, * a n^n ' ; in-kosiy * a chief.' In these
cases we must say :

His (the Boer's) horse = ihashi lalo.
„ (the traveller's) „ = ihashi laso.
„ (the chief's) „ = ihashi layo.

That is, the first part of the word is the
possessive particle agreeing with the thing
possessed, and the second the pronoun
agreeing with the possessor.

In this way, the number of classes jnulti-
plied by itself will give the number of possible
possessives — or would, if some of the forms
did not coincide, so^ as to make them less
numerous. There is a neat diagram of Gisu
forms on p. 34 of the Rev. J. B. Purvis's
Lumasaba Grammar. We need not give a
table, as, the principle being known, it is quite

THE PRONOUN 97

easy to combine any form wanted 'from the
previous tables.

The double agreement seems to be confined
to the more archaic Bantu languages. It is
found, as we have just seen, in Zulu and Gisu ;
also in Chwana, Herero, Ganda, Kinga and
others ; but not in Swahili, Nyanja or Kongo.

Demonstrative Pronouns. — These are usually
three in number ;' one, equivalent to * this,'
denoting what is near the speaker ; a second,
what is somewhat farther off (in some cases,
what has been referred to before) ; and the
third, what is at a distance. They are built
up, in different ways, from the Inseparable
Pronoun ; a very common modification is that
the first demonstrative ends in ti, which is
changed in the second to o, while the third is
formed by suffixing another syllable to the
first, or to its latter half. This process is
most clearly seen in Swahili and Nyanja.
Sometimes the first half appears to be taken,
as in Kongo {o-yu, and o-na, a-ya, and a-na).
Li (Ganda) and la (Gisu) may be the same
element as le^ which, Meinhof thinks, may be
connected with the root -le, -de, * long,' and so
suggest distance. This and other points
relating to the origin of the demonstrative,

THE PRONOUN

which it is no part of my plan to discuss, may
be found in the second chapter of the Grundziige
einer vergttichenden Gra^nmatik der Banhi-
sprachen.

Zulu

Chwana

Herero

Nyanja

Swahili

Ganda

Gisu

Kong

THIS

e n

ingui

uyu

hu-yu

ono

uno

oyu

THAT

lowo

eouo

ngo

uyo

hu-yo

oyo

uyo

THAT

YONDER
THESE

lowaya
laba

eole
vano

nguini
imba

udya
awa

yu-lc
ha-wa

oli
bano

ula
bano

ona
aya

THOSE

labo

vauo

mbo

awo

ha-wo

abo

owo

THOSE
YONDER

labaya

vale

mbeni

ady^

wa-le

bali

bala

ant

There are other demonstrative forms built
up from these — e,g.j the two * emphatic
demonstratives ' in Kongo, which we need not
notice here.

In Nyanja we have two other demonstrative
roots which may be mentioned here, because
they are used in a way which illustrates the
transition from the demonstrative to the
relative. They are -mwe, * the same,' and
-mene, * this same,' * that same,' * that very
one/ etc., with their compounds, formed' by
suffixes corresponding to the three degrees of
the demonstrative already given. -Mene,

THE PRONOUN 99

when used without these suffixes, simply means
* who,' or ' which,' — as

mu-ntu a-tnent a-na-gwira nchito.
The man who did work.

zi-ntu xi-mene gi-na-ni-sautsa.

The things which grieved me.

But

fftuntu ameneyu = this same man.

muntu amentyo and amene tidya = that same man.

chi-ntu chi-mcnC'Chi = this same thing.

kasu li'tnene'lo = that same hoe, etc., etc.

We shall return to these two pronouns in
the course of the next section.

A special form of demonstrative — sometimes
called ' adverbial demonstratives,' and mean-
ing * Here he is,' * here they are,' — is especially
noticeable in Zulu — nangUj nanku, naba, etc.
They need not be further noticed here.

The Relative Pronoun. — This constitutes
somewhat of a difficulty in many Bantu
languages, though some cannot be said to
have any relative at all. The relative, as we
understand it, hardly belongs to the earlier
stages of speech. It implies a co-ordination
of ideas — a fitting of separate notions together,
whereas children, and primitive people, think
of OQC thing at a time and express it in a

100 THE PRONOUN

sentence by itself. The child will say, * I saw
a man. The man had a dog/ — putting the
two ideas, as it were, side by side. The next
step is — * I saw a man ; he had a dog ' ; and
then we come to — * I saw a man who had a
dog/' In the second case, we have two
co-ordinate sentences, of equal importance ; in
the third, a principal and a subordinate
sentence, which together make up a complex
one. Many Bantu languages cannot form
complex sentences at all, and those which can,
only do so to a limited extent.

In Nyanja there is no true relative. The
typical form of sentence runs thus :

ntuntu a-na-divala dzulo wafa.

The man (who) was ill yesterday is dead :

— literally, * The man, he was ill yesterday :
he died.' But, to make the reference of the
second clause more definite, a demonstrative
is inserted. One could say, uyo wdfa^ or xidya
wafa; but more commonly either -mwt or
-mtnt is employed.

ntuntu yemxve anadwala dzulo wafa. Or
tnuntu amene anadwala dzulo wafa,
mhalame zimene zinadia mbeu za-gwidwa.
* The birds which ate the seeds have been caught.'

The pronoun 101

Pamene (Class i8), * the place which,' is used
for * where ' — and, by an extension of meaning,
for * when/

In other languages the relative is rendered
by a particle prefixed to. the verb and the

* prepositional form ' of a pronoun placed after
it. The simplest form of this is found in
Swahili : a-sema-ye (or, nn Mombasa dialect,
a-sema-e), * he who speaks ' ; li-anguka-loy ' that
(fifth class) which falls ' ; ki-waka-cho^ * that
(seventh class) which burns.' This, when
analysed, is seen to be really equivalent to

* he speaks (that is) he ' ; * it falls (that is) it.*
This seems to be nearer the mark than to
speak of a ' relative pronoun expressed by a
syllable formed of the letter -o, preceded by
the initial consonants proper to its antecedent '
(Steere's Exercises, p. 22) ; but the construc-
tion is exceedingly difficult to make clear,
except in the light of comparative grammar.

When the relative is the object^ it may be
expressed by using the same form, but insert-
ing the proper object-pronoun before the verb
and making the suffixed pronoun agree with
the object, not the subject.

Thus * (the knife)- which I want,' is {kisu)
ni'ki4aka'Cho — literally, * I it want (that is) it.'

102 THE PRONOUN

-Po, 'ko^ and -wo, as relatives, indicate the
notion of * where ' or * when ' — ni'lala-po^

* where (or when) I sleep ' ; a-taka-pOy ' when
he wishes/ As we see, this relative is inti-
mately combined with the verb — so it is in
many other cases ; and this once more
illustrates the difficulty of applying our
received grammatical classification and
arrangement. In Steere's Hafidbook of Swahiliy
the treatment of the verb has in some degree
to be anticipated in the chapter on pronouns,
while that on the verb has to include the
application of the relative pronoun to certain
tenses. ^

While the use of the accepted nomenclature
is, up to a certain point, convenient and even
necessary ; we must never allow ourselves to
think of its definitions as rigid boundaries, as
though words could be isolated in closed
compartments, like specimens in a museuni.
This applies even in English : if children are
taught, for instance, in parsing a sentence like

* Tell him that he must not do that,' to call
the first * that ' a conjunction and the second
a pronoun, they will be apt to lose sight of the
connection between the two. But if we treat
grammar as a kind of unchanging framework

THE PRONOUN 103

into which every language must be fitted, we
get such absurdities as conjugating a verb * to
have ' which does not exist, or * declining ' a
Bantu noun, which, as we have already seen,
cannot be done.

A more elaborate form of the Swahili
relative combines the two pronouns with a
tense-particle as well as the verb and thus
forms three tenses ; in the simpler form no
tense-distinction is possible.

Present : a-na-ye-piga, u-na-o-piga, li-na-lo-piga.

* he (it) who (which) strikes.'

Past : a-li-ye-piga^ u-li-o-piga, li-li-lo-piga.

* he (it) who (which) struck.*

Future : a-taka-ye-piga, u-taka-o-piga, li-taka-lo-
pigci.

* he (it) who (which) will strike.'

NUj lij and taka must be reserved for
discussion in the chapter on verbs.

If the 'relative is the object, the pronouns
are changed as before indicated, the only
difference being displacemfent of the suffix
(since the object-pronoun must always come
next to the verb-root).

* The thing which I like.*

Kitu ni-na'Cho'ki-penda {penda = like).

104 THE PRONOUN

* The house which we bought.*

Nyumba tu-li-yo-i-nunua {nunua = buy).

In neither of these forms do we find anything
like a special relative particle, different from
the pronouns which, as has been said, may be
met with in other connections. In Zulu, we
have two such particles : a-, which is prefixed
and usually combined with the Separable
Pronoun as subject, and -yo, which is suffixed
— in all cases, whatever the class of the ante-
cedent. Perhaps we can trace a similar
tendency at work elsewhere, for in Zanzibar
Swahili 'there is a disposition to make -o
* the general relative ' (Steere), as alio- for
aliye-, lilio- for lililo-., etc.

Examples of the Zulu relative are :

■

umtmtu O'bona-yo (for a-u-bonayo) = *a man who

sees.'

aba-ntu a-ba-kala-yo = * people who cry out.'

indhlela e-lungile-yo (for a-i-lungile-yo) = * the

right path.*

{Lungile is the perfect of the verb lunga, * to
be straight ' or * right ').

The object is inserted in the same way as
already shown :

THE PRONPUN 105

umuntu a-m-honayo^ = * a man whom he sees.*

We shall again have to notice this relative
particle a when we come to the Adjectives.

In Ganda, the principle of the Relative
formation is that of prefixing a- to whatever
other pronoun comes before the verb. Thus
abantu a-ba-laba, * people who see.' (The
singular, omu-ntu a-laba^ is indistinguishable
from that which means * a man sees/ becau'fee
a-f a coalesces with a) This prefix appears as
or ^ according to the class of the subject :
omu4i O'gti'gwaj * the tree which falls ' ; emi-ti
e-gi-gwa^ * the trees which fall.'

Chwana indicates the relative by suffixing
the locative termination to the verb, without
any change in the pronoun.

* He who has come * — eo o tsileng^ {tsile, pcrf of tsa)
this one he has-come.'

Perhaps the most literal rendering of tsileng
would be * is-at-having-come ' : the perfect
indicating a state of completed action. In
fact, this form of the verb is often called a

* When the object is in the relative, with a subject of
Class 1, a- is used without the pronoun {u-) — i.e,, the
relative prefix is a- and not o-.

106 THE PRONOUN

participle, and is used as such : mo xo yeng —
* in eating ' ; and, looked at closely, it is easy
to see that the idea of the participle and that
of the locative may run into one another.

In Ronga the relative construction consists
of:

(1) the demonstrative, followed by the Inseparable
Pronoun.

(2) -ka suffixed to the verb, if present, -ikif if past.
mhunu Iweyi a-famba-ka^ *the man who walks.*

(man that he-walks.)
Tihomu leti ti-famha-ka = * the cattle which walk.'
Tihomu leti hi-ti'Shah-iki = * the cattle which we
bought.*

{shaba = * buy * ; hi = ^ we.*)

M. Junod thinks this ka is originally an
auxiliary verb.

Herero seems to come nearest to our
conception of the relative. There is a special
form of pronoun, different from the demonstra-
tive and used exactly as we use * who ' or
* which ' — though, of course, it varies with the
class of the antecedent.

(1) omundu ngu muna = * the man who sees.'

(2) ovandu mbe muna = * the people who stc.*

(3) omuti mbu ua = * the tree which falls.*

(4) omiti mbi ua = do. (plural).

THE PRONOUN 107

(5) eho ndi muna = * the eye which sees.*

(6) omeho nge muna = do. (plural).

The above is the * participial present ' tense,
which is of simpler formation than the
* present.'

There are variations for other tenses, which
need not be given here. ^

Finally, Kongo has no relative, properly
speaking ; * the relative pronouns are identical
in form and usage with the demonstrative.'

We might enumerate other varieties; but
the above are sufficient to show that various
stages of evolution from the simple to the
complex sentence are illustrated in different
parts of the Bantu language-field.

This is, perhaps, the best place to mention
the Interrogatives, some of which, by function,
are pronouns, some adjectives, and some
adverbs. Some are invariable ; others take
the class-prefixes ; and of the latter, some,
which are used as adjectives (and also the
words for * all ' and * only '), are inflected like
pronouns. (This point will be more easily
madp clear when speaking of adjectives.)

The following Table show^ how the treat-
ment of these words varies, even when the
roots are cognate.

108

THE PRONOUN

Zulu <

Ghwana Herero Nyanja

SwahiliGanda Gisu Kongo

WHO?

ubani?

-mang ?

-ani ?

ndani ?

nani?

-ani ?

nanu?

nani?

WHICH ?

-pi?

-he?

-ne?

-ti?

-pi?

-ki?

—

nkia?

WHAT?
WHERE ?
WHEN?

-ni?
-pi?
nini?

-ng?
kae?
Ipng?

tyike ?

pi?

rune?

chiani?
kuti ?
liti?

nini?

wapi?

lini?

ki?

-wa?

di?

kina?
hena?
lina?

nki?
veyi ?
kweyi?
.mweyi?

HOW
MANY?

-ngaki ?

-kae?

-ngapi ?

-ngati ?

-ngapi ?

-meka?

-enga ?

-kwa?

OF WHAT
KIND?

-njani ?

-ang?

-ka?

-ttni ?

gani?

-tya ?

-rye

—

The forms without hyphens are invariable.

There is a set of pronouns sometimes called
the * Indicative Form,' meaning * It is 1/ * It
is he/ etc. But, as they are a combination of
the Pronoun and the Copala, it will be better
to reserve them for the next chapter.

CHAPTER VII

The Copula and the Verb 'To Be '

In most European grammars, the first thing
learned is the conjugation of the verbs * to
have ' ajid * to be.' In ^Bantu there is no
verb * to have,' and * to be ' is relegated,
comparatively speaking, to the background.

* Have ' is expressed by * be with,' or simply
by * with,' with the * be ' understood. * I have
a house 'is in Swahili nina nyumba: literally

* I with house ' ; in Zulu * we have maize '
is sinombila {si-na-umbila) , This one fact
shows how necessary it is for those who draw
up grammars to take the language as they
find it, instead of trying to fit it into the
framework of any pre-conceived scheme. The
late Dr. Henry began his Chinyanja Grammar
— in many respects an excellent piece of
work — by conjugating the non-existent verb

* to have.'

109

no THE COPUl/aND THE VERB ' TO BE*

Most — if not all — Bantu languages have a
verb ' to be,' but it is not often used in more
than one or two tenses, and, in many cases,
does not appear at all j ust where we should
expect to find it. Thus its place may be
supplied by the inseparable pronoun, as, in
Zulu : Vitanga ' it is a pumpkin,' Vulwandhle
* it is the sea,' sVsitsha * it is a dish,' etc.

Or it may be omitted altogether.

SWAHILI : Hamisi mpagazi : ' Hamisi (is) a porter.'
Zulu : ngi-lapa : * I (am) here * {lapa = here) ;

Ku-njalO'ke ' it (is) so.'
Herero : Owami omuhona : * I (am) a king.*

Sometimes * is,' * are,' are rendered by an
invariable particle : Swahili ni, Nyanja ndi,
Chwana ke.

Nyanja : Nyalugwe ndi chirombo choopsya :

* The leopard is a terrible beast.'

Chwana : Boshwa jwa tau ke letlalo :

* The lion's inheritance is the-skin.'

(Proverb.)
Swahili : Dalili ya mvua ni mawingu :

* The sign of rain is clouds.' (Proverb.)

As stated above, the inseparable pronoun
of the class to which the noun belongs can be
substituted for this invariable copula, as Hii i

THE COPULA AND THE VERB * TO BE * 111

nyumba (instead of kii ni nyuntba) 'this is a
house ' ; hizi zi nyuniba^ * these are houses '
mti u mztcrij * the tree is fine' (Swahili)
ritangaj * it is a pumpkin ' (for lt{li) tango)
rulwandhle {lu{hi)lwandhle) * it is the sea'
Vutywala ^ it is beer ' ; zinkomo (contracted from
z'izinkomo), ^ they are cattle ' (Xosa) ; lo* nttmtu
VidakUy * that man is a sot * ; waba Vukuni^ ' he
was (like) a log ' (Zulu). But we sometimes
find forms which cannot be thus accounted
for, as in Zulu : nguwena, * it is you * ; nguyena^
* it is he * ; yHmina (or umina) * it is I * ;
ftgumuntti, Vit is a person' ; ng'amehloj * they
are eyes,' etc.

The truth seems to be that this copula is
the old demonstrative root supposed by
Meinhof to have been originally 7a, which
being placed before nouns gradually assimi-
lated its vowel to their prefixes, became ngu^
^i^j ^Sh etc., and finally dropped its consonant
or became a mere duplicate of the prefix
(as in Gisu ba-ba-ndu). In Swahili ngu
survives in the form yti as a copula, in such
phrases as yu mzurij * he is handsome ' ;
though before the verb it has generally been
replaced by a. Ila has retained the copula to
a greater extent than many other languages,

112 THE COPULA AND THE VERB * TO BE*

and it may be of interest to give the forms for
the different classes here :

(1
(2
(3
(4

(5
(6
(7
(8
(9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

Ngu muntu : * it is a person/

Mbo bantu : * they are people.*

Ngu munzhi : * it is a village.'

Nji minzhi : * they are villages.'

Nd'isamo ; ^ * it is a tree.*

Ngu masamo : * they are trees.*

nchi chintu : * it is a thing.'

nshi shintu : * they are things.'

nimpongo : * it is a goat.'

nshimpongo : * they are goats.'

ndu lumo or ndumo : * it is a razor.*

ntu tushimhi : * they are girls.*

nku kashitnhi : * it is a girl.*

Mbuzane, or tnbu buzane : * it is meat/

nku kufuna : * it is love.*

(not found). '

nku kutwi : * it is an ear.*

(not found).

Most languages combine the copula with
the personal pronouns (in the * prepositional '
or * enclitic ' form) for such expressions as * it
is 1/ *it is he/ etc. In Swahili ndi is used
instead of ni for this purpose.

^ This is a very exceptional word tor 'tree,* as
puzzling as the Chwana setlare. In the plural it is
hard to see why assimilation has not taken place : one
would have expected nga masamo.

113

Swahili '

Nyanja

Ila Giryama Gisu

• It is I • -

ndimi

ndine

ndime

ndimi
ndiwe

isono

• It is this •

ndiwe

niwe

' It is he '

ndiye

inguwe

ndeye

niye

' It is we •

ndiswi

ndife

ndiswe

lidi^wi

nifwe

' It is you •

ndinyi

ndinu

ndimwe

ndinwi

ninywe

' It is they '

ndio

ndiwo

imbabo

ndo

nibo

Class
3

ndio

ndio
ndiyo

inguo

ndo

nikwo

ndiyo

injiyo

ndoyo

nikyo

5
6

ndilo

indidio

ndoro

nilyo

ndiyo

ndiwo

ingao

ndogo

niko

ndicho

inchicho

ndocho

nlkyo

ndivyo

ndizo

inshisho

ndozho

nibyo

ndiyo

injio

'*%idoyo

niyo

ndizo

iushisho

ndozho

nitso

ndio

—

indulo

ndolo

nilwo

—

ndito

intuto

—

niko

—

ndiko

inkako

ndoko

niko

—

ndiwo

imbubo

ndo

nibwo

ndiko

inkuko

ndoko

nikwo

ndipo

—

ndobo

niho

ndiko

—

ndoko

nikwo

ndimo

—

ndomo

nimu

114 THE COPULA AND THE VERB * TO BE'

This form does not seem to be used in
Ganda, where * it i^ I '* is nze^ * it is we,'/^ —
the same as the pronoun standing alone.

The above must be distinguished from what
is sometimes called the * adverbial demonstra-
tive/ meanfhg ' here he is/ etc., as in Zulu i
nanktCj 2 . nabo, 3 nangUy 4 nansi, etc., with
three forms, corresponding to degrees of
distance, like other demonstratives.

The copula is sometimes prefixed to'
adjectives used predicatively (that is, in
sentences like * the man is good ' as distin-
guished from * the good man *) as in Ila banttc
mbabotu 2 * the people are good.' Most of the
other prefixes, however, have dropped or
absorbed it, as masamo malamfu 6 * the trees are
tall/ or * the tall trees.' This pojxit is worth
noting^ in connection with the difference (to
which we shall refer in the next chapter)
between the treatment of adjectives when used
as predicates and as epithets. Another, and
somewhat unexpected use of the copula is to
introduce the agent after passive verbs. We
find, in Zulu, ^.^., kutshiwo ng'u Ngoza lokOy
* that is said by N'goza ' ; and the obvious
explanation is that ng' is the preposition nga,
which usually indicates instrumentality. Or

THE COPULA AND THE VERB * TO BE ' 115

it would be the obvious explanation, were it
not for the disturbing fact that nga u Ngoza
should normally become ngo Ngoza, instead of
eliding its final vowel and leaving the u intact,
as is done here. Furthermore, if this were so,
why should we find ngilibele yHmisebenzi, * I have
been delayed by works;' and not ngemisebenzi ?
In Swahili, the construction which the foreigner
would expect, and which is sometimes heard,
is nimepigwa na huyUj * I have been struck by
this (man) ' {na, literally * with ' or * and ').
But the more usual and idiomatic form is
nimepigwa ni htiyu ' — i.e., literally : * I have
been struck — it is this man.' So the Zulu
sentences given above are really equivalent to :
* It is said — it is Ngoza (who said it)/ * I
have been delayed — it is works (which have
done it).'

As already said, there is an actual verb
equivalent to * to be ' in most, at any rate, of
the Bantu languages, though its sphere is
much more restricted than a knowledge of
European speech alone would suggest. There
are several roots common to a number of
lajiguages, which do not, however, all use
them in the same way. They are all mono-
syllables, and therefore classed by most

116 THE COPULA AND THE VERB 'tO BE*

grammars among * irregular verbs' — though
that is hardly a satisfactory way of describing
them.

Thus, in Swahili, we Have ku-wa, used in
the past {a-li-kU'Wa * he was *) and the future
{a-ta-kU'Wa * he will be ') but never in the
present. This is the same root as the Zulu
uku-buy which also is not much used in the
present, except as an auxiliary. Nyanja
prefers li (or n),^ which in Swahili is only
found as a particle indicating the past tense.
Ganda has both ba and /t, and Herero has ri.
These seem to be the two commonest forms.
Kongo uses what Bentley calls * the defective
verb ' nUy^ as in kina vava ' it (CI. 7) is here,'
and also kala, which * is much more definite,
and .... means to be habitually or
generally.'

But kala is also found in Nyanja and (as
kaa) in Swahili. Its primary meaning is * sit,'
and thence * stay ' or ' live ' in a place : in
Nyanja its use is so extended that sometimes
it is really equivalent to a verb ' to be/ The

^ The pronunciation varies with the preceding vowel :
ndiri, uH, ali, tiri, etc.

* Nna is *to be ' in Chwana.

THE COPULA AND THE VERB * TO BE ' 117

Zulu hlala} seems to be the same word, but
its meaning is not quite so widely extended.
This verb is an excellent illustration of the
way in which the abstract notion of * being '
may be developed out of such a simple
concrete one as * sitting ' or * staying.* Kara
is similarly used in Herero.

* As a rule, Zulu hi corresponds to s in Nyanja;
'hlanu, -sanu, * five ' ; in-hlatu, n-satu * python ' :
hlambaf samba * bathe.* There is? however, a Nyanja
word sala * remain * (of which the use is somewhat more
restricted than kala) but it is more properly tsala, and
sala is also found in Zulu (as in the parting salutation
sala kahle) Ila has kala sit,' and shala 'remain/
side by side .

CHAPTER VIII

The Adjective

There are very few real adjectives in Bantu.
Their place is often supplied by nouns and
verbs. Thus Nyanja has no adjective to
express * bad ' or * black ' ; but there are verbs

* to be bad ' (ku-ipa) and ^ to be black ' {ku-da)^
and the place of the adjective is taken by a
kind of participle formed of the infinitive with
the possessive particle prefixed to it. * Black '
is wa kU'da * of being black,' or, more literally,

* of to-be-black,' and * bad ' wa ku-ipa^ usually
contracted into woipa} This constfuction,
which has a genitive or partitive force, as the

*Chwana participle in ng has a locative force,
sometimes replaces a relative pronoun. We
can say, for instance, mnyamata wosaka (for
wa-kU'Saka) nyama, * the youth who hunts

^ Monosyllabic verbs do not contract, so it is wa -ku-da^
never woda,

ii8

THE ADJECTIVE 119

game/ mzungu wosakala * the white man who
never sits down/ {Sa is a negative particle,
to be explained in a later chapter.)

Or the idea may be expressed by a tense of
the finite verb. * He is fat ' is a-li-ktc-nenepa^
from kii-nenepa * to be fat ' ; * there are too
many fowls ' nkuku zi-chumka {kti-chtiruka * to
be too many'). So, too, in Zulu: uku-lamba
' to be hungry,' tikti-tshisa ■ to be hot,' uku-godola
' to be cold,' ukti'hmga * to be straight ' (and
thence * upright,' * good '), etc.

Nouns are usually made to do the work of
adjectives by having the possessive particle
prefixed to them. So, in Nyanja, wa nipamva
is * strong ' (literally * of strength ' ) ; * good '
wa bwino, * many ' wa mbiri, ' new ' wa tsopano.
Bwino and mbiri are not at present used by
themselves ; tsopano is an adverb of time
meaning * now ' (so that * a new thing ' is,
literally, * a thing of now ') ; but all three may
once have been nouns.

Zulu seems to prefer a relative construction
in similar cases ; * a strong man ' is umimhi
onamandhla (a'tc-na-amandhla) ; literally * a man
who he (is) with strength.' And a very
common and curious idiom in Swahili is the
use of mwenye ' owner,' in the sense of

120 THE ADJECTIVE

* having': mwenye nguvu 'strong,' literally

* owner (of) strength.'

The genuine adjective roots (to be distin-
guished from the derivative adjectives, which
will be mentioned presently) are few in number
and should probably be reckoned among the
most primitive elements of Bantu speech.
Some of them can be traced through many if
not most of the Bantu languages hitherto
studied ; others might seem to be confined to
one or two ; but it would be very rash to
dogmatize when so much still remains to be
known. Sometimes, when present-day forms
seem quite ur\related, the parallel is found to
have existed in an older stage of the language ;
and sometimes the cognate word is found to
have different senses in two languages, like
'kiilu^ which is used almost everywhere for

* large,' but in Kongo and Herero has come to
mean * old.' The following list is not com-
plete but comprises the most important of these
root-adjectives.

Adjectives derived from verbs have various
endings, of wWch, perhaps the commonest
are -u {-fu, -vu) and -e. So, in Swahili, we
have nyama-vu ^ silent ' from ku-nyamaa, and
4uli'VU * gentle ' from ku-tulia. With regard to

THE ADJECTIVE 121

erC'VU 'cunning' and vi-vu *idle,* it does not
seem certain that they can be traced to verbs,
and -refu * long, compared with le and -de in
other languages, suggests that it is the same
root, with the termination -fu suffixed to it.

In Herero, we have -poUi * blind, '^ dhorodhu
' black ' (from the verb dhorera), taradhu ' damp '
(from tarara).

Of adjectives in -e, Herero has -kohoke

* clean,' from the verb kohoka^ and -pore * just,'

* gentle,' * kind,' from pora^ of which the
primary meaning is * to be cool/'

In Ila, a language of the Middle Zambezi,
there are a large number of adjectives ending
in -shi^ usually derived from verbs in -ka :

'dimbushi * foolish,' from ku-dimhusha\o be foolish.'
'komoshi 'broken/ „ ku-komoka *to be broken.*
-zapaushi * ragged,* „ ku zapauka * to be ragged.*

Some of these adjectives can scarcely be

* Phonetically the same as the root of the Swahili
noun ki-pofu ; but -pofu is not used in Swahili as an
adjective, in the sense of * blind.*

^ A widely distributed root, which usually has tSe
secondary meaning * recover ' (from illness) — probably
with reference to the reduction in temperature. But in
Herero, the notion of 'cooling * seems to suggest that
of being, or becoming * moderate * — and so 'reasonable,*

* just,* gentle,* etc.

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THE ADJECTIVE 123

^ Probably connected with the verb luHga^ which {t.g. in Znlu)
means * to be straight/ and so ' to be right,' ' good/ etc.

* Old Swahili has -wi (-bi, vi).

' Diminutive of -fupi, which appears in the adverb kufufi.

*' This word is also found in Nyamwezi, Shambala, Bondei and
some other East African languages.

^ Instead of an adjective, Nyanja has the verb kaUmha * to be
old/ and -a kaU^ which means ' of long ago.*

" -kukuu, in the sense of ' worn out ' applied to things. Of
persons, -zte is used, or in some dialects -xima, properly • whole/
and so 'grown up.' Kale is also sometimes used, as in Mjiwa
kaU, ' the old town/ at Mombasa.

^ eda 5, a noun, meaning ' age ' has perhaps the same root as
-dala, but there does not seem to be an adjective of this form.

^ Used in some dialects.

^ This modification returns to its original form after a nasal, as
mpya in CI. 9.

^0 Preferred to -a mbiri in some dialects.

^1 This is found, e.g., in Swahili, with the meaning 'thick/
'stout.' I doubt whether the Zulu -nine ' generous ' is from the
same root.

^3 More commonly used in a figurative than in a literal sense ;
the usual woffl for the latter is -kubwa.

" -kulu is used in the sense of • mature * or * important,' etc.

1* When used with the simple prefix -nene means ' too large '; to
make it mean merely ' large ' it requires another prefix. This very
curious point in Kongo grammar will be touched on later.

^^ In the Lamu dialect -iiti and -toio are used.

1^ Perhaps the root which we find in the other columns exists
in the Zulu u-bisi and Chwane le-vese, * fresh milk.* With -Uila

compare Herero taradhu * damp ' ; — • wet ' is one of the meanings of
'Wisi in Nyanja.

" Only found as a sufl&x, in inkosi-kazi, etc.

18 Herero has no s or jr ; the former is represented by the
sound of th in ' thin,' the latter by that of th in * there ' (here
written dh).

1^ Only found as a suffix in one or two words ; the root -A#
has taken its place.

124 THE ADJECTIVE

distinguished from passive participles, as the
Ila komoshij * broken/ given above, and, in
Sango^ :

H-nhu fi-teleye^ * cooked food,* from teleya * cook.'
umu-pi)^i mu-hongole * a hewn tree/ from hongola
hew.*

The Concord of the A djective is often some-
thing of a puzzle. A priori^ nothing could be
simpler: you have your adjective root, and
you place before it the prefix of the noun with
which it is to agree. This happens, in fact,
with most of the classes in Swahili.

1. m-fw m-2wn * a handsome man.*

2. wa-tu wa-zuri * handsome men.'

3. ni'ti m-zuri * a fine tree.*

4. mi-ti mi-zuri * fine trees.*

5. tunda zuri * a fine fruit.* *^

6. ma-tunda ma-zuri * fine fruits.*

7. Ui'ti ki-zuri * a fine chair.*

8. vi'ti'Vi'Zuri * fine chairs.*

9. nyutnba n-zuri * a fine house.*

10. nyumha n-zuri * fine houses.'

11. U'Pindi m- zuri * 3. fine how,'

15. ku-shona ku-zuri * fine sewing.*

16. pahali pa-zuri * a fine place.*

* The Sango (or Lori) people live to the north-east of
the Konde, some distance north of Lake Nyasa.

^ The Greek j( is used to indicate the Scottish sound
of ch in * loch.*

THE ADJECTIVE 125

Adjectives do not seem to bfe used, in
Swahili, with the locatives of the seventeenth
and eighteenth classes, though they are e.g.
in Nyanja.

The above is perfectly plain sailing, with
the exceptions of Class ii which has taken
the concord proper to Class 3, the contracted
form « being doubtless associated with that
class through its pronoun, though the u has
disappeared from the third prefix. (Of course
the old form for 1 1 would have been lu-pindi
lU'Zuri.) Phonetic laws have produced some
modifications in Classes 9. and 10 (such as 'the
change of n into m before a labial and its loss
before k, /, and some other sounds) but these
need not concern us here.

In Nyanja, the case is difFjprent. Here the
principle seems to be that the inseparable
pronoun is prefixed to the adjective root and
the Possessive Particle to it as chachikulu 7
zazikulu 8, etc. It is not quite consistently
carried out in the First Class, for there the
noun-prefix takes the place of the pronoun :
wa-m-kulu, not wa-u-kulu ; perhaps in order to
preserve the distinction between it and Class 3,
which is wokulu (contracted from wa-u-kulu).

This applies to all real adjectives in Nyanja:

126 THE ADJECTIVE

any which do not take the concord as above
are treated either as nouns or as verbs. But
in Zulu a distinction is observed, to which. we
shall now come.

The real adjectives, in Zulu, prefix (i) the
relative particle a, (2) the noun-prefix, (i)
coalesces with the initial vowel, i.e., when
followed by w, it makes 0, when followed
by i, e. The contracted prefixes return to
their original form.

Thus we get omu-hle (a-umu-hle), eli-hle
{a-ili-hle), ohi-hle (a-ulu-hle), etc.

But there are some other adjectives, which
take shortened prefixes in Classes i, 3, 4 and
6 {i.e., 0' e- a-, instead of omu, emi, ama) as
umu-ntu o-nsundu * a brown man,' imilomo
C'banzi 'wide mouths,' ama-hashi a-mhlope
* white horses ' — not omu-nsundUj emubanzi^
ama-mhlope. The reason for the distinction is
not very clear, but some at least of the
adjectives so treated are originally nouns, as
4iikuni * heavy ' {u{hi)'kuni ' a log of wood '),
'luhlaza * green' {ti{lu)4uhlaza * green grass').

Then, in Chwana, both the Pronoun and
Noun-Prefix are added to the Adjective, but
in the reverse order from that in which we
find them in Nyanja.

THE ADJECTIVE 127

It will be sufficient to illustrate this by
examples from these three languages and
Ganda. In dealing with a Bantu language
which has not been much studied, the learner
should pay special attention to this point, as the
system followed may be different from any of
those which have been enumerated. We
must not too hastily assume — having studied
the theory of the Alliterative Concord, not
wisely but too well — that we can apply the
noun-prefixes, as they stand, to the adjec-
tives ; which, so far as it has taken place, is
probably a late development.

The adjective selected for the illustrations
is 'ktilu^ which ^ is found in most Bantu
languages, though in Ganda it does not seem
to be used quite in the sense here implied.

Many languages make no distinction
between the form of an adjective when used
as an epithet or as a predicate ; but some, as
Zulu, Xosa and Ganda, drop the initial vowel
in the latter case.

Zulu : Umu-ntu omu-hle * a good man ' — but

umu-ntu mu-hlc * the man is good.'

Ganda : ebi-gambo ebizibu * difficult words/ — but

ebi'gambo bizibu *the words are
difficult/

si
I!

THE ADJECTIVE 129

I 'kulu in Ganda is generally used in the sense of ' grown-up.'

* Contracted from a-a-kulu.

* The usual word for ' tree * is se-tlhare, but mou is sometimes
used with the meaning of * herb ' or * medicine,' or in a 6gurative
sense.

* Contracted from wa-u-kulu.

* Contracted irom ya-i-hulu.

* The particle ;> seems anomalous here, like tse in 8 and lo and
io in 14. Meinhof thinks these forms may be relatives (Grundzuge
einer vtrgUichenden Gramttuitik der Baniusprachtn, p, 32), but does not
fully explain them.

T The full prefix is only found in Ganda with some mono-
syllabic adjectives, such as eri-ngi ' many,* eri-mpi * short,' etc.

^ Shortened from a-a-kulu. In the Likoma dialect this class has
the pronoun ya, and the adjective has the form oiya-i-hulu. The
V is an almost extinct remainder ot the initial consonant to which
the Giryama ga is a nearer approach.

* Isi-ntu does not mean ' a thing,' as the other words in this row
do, but has been inserted because it is the same word, though
changed in meaning.

w •)(j}lo hardens into ^X^^^ after the di- (li-) prefix, which is the
same as zi in many other languages.

II The same hardening (see last note) takes place after *, which
also is contracted from e-e,

1' The occurrence of the forms lulime, lulimi, along with lilime,
in Nyanja, shows that the nth class is not quite merged ii>to the
5th, though in process of disappearing. Pronunciation seems to
fluctuate, as in lipntga ' trumpet,' which is sometimes heard as
lupenga and in Yao definitely belongs to the In- class. In Nyanja
words beginning with lu have their agreements according to CI. 5,
as is the case here.

1* Tulo still survives in these two languages, and its adjectives
would agree as above, if they were used.

" Of course -kulu cannot be used with this class.

15 Some dialects have vo vo-^olo or vyo-wo-xolo.

16 Some concords of uta in bu- are given in Scott's Dictionary,
and though the above may not be in use, this would be the correct
form.

17 I do not know how to explain this mo-.

^ See the remarks on the Locative Class in Chapter V.

130 - THE ADJECTIVE

The distinction may seem a slight one, but
it must not be overlooked.
I (The copula is not used in Zulu before
adjectives, as it is before nouns and pronouns.)

We mentioned on a previous page a number
of adjectives which are derived from verbs. But
there are also verbs derived from adjectives —
at least it is difficult to see how the Yao
kulungwa * to be great ' can be anything else ;
though, curiously enough, the adjective -kuhi
is not found in this language. And, again,
there are some cases where it is difficult to tell
whether the verb or the adjective should have
the priority. Mr. E. W. Smith, in his Handbook
of the I la Language, says (p. 6i): * Many of
the adjectives proper have corresponding
verbs which may be used in place of them
as predicates,' and gives a list which we need
not reproduce in full. Some of them seem to
be formed with the suffix -u, as -lemu * heavy *
(verb ku lema)^ -botu * good ' (verb ku bota), but
kufwimpa * to be short ' seems just as likely to
be formed from the adjective -fwafwi (or its
root fwi) as vice versa. We are reminded of
the Nyanja verbs fini-mpa * to be short ' and
tani-mpa * to be long ' ; but there are no
adjectives -fini and 4ani. There is the root

THE ADJECTIVE . 131

ta in -tarij however, and^ may be akin to the
fu in ftipi. At any rate the possibiUty suggests
itself that either the verb or the adjective, or
both at the same time, may be derived from
one of those * interjectional roots,' which will
be discussed in a later chapter.

There is no need to waste any time on the
Degrees of Comparison. They do not exist,
as grammatical forms. There are various
ways of expressing comparison — the conv
monest, perhaps, is the use of some verb
meaning * pass,' * excel * or the like.

Nyanja : Ndi ichi ndi icho cha-pamhana ndi icho :

* that is better than this.* (Literally : * it
is this it is that — that (which) excels is
that.O

Zulu : indoda idhlula umfana emandhleni : * a

man is stronger than a boy * (* passes a
boy in strength *).

Or, kuna is used (the pronoun of the eighth
class followed by na, equivalent to * there is ') ;
indoda inamandhla kunomfana {ktma umfana).
The idiom is not quite easy to explain, but the
idea underlying it may be somewhat similar to
the Swahili kuliko * where there is,' as in nyumba
hii ni nzuri kuliko ilt ^ this house is finer than
that ' — literally, * is fine where that is ' — ^*.e., so

132 THE ADJECTIVE

fine that it would attract attention when the
other was in view, and therefore superior to it.

In Kongo, the simplest form of the adjective
implies that the quality is possessed to excess ;
an additional particle has to be inserted for the
ordinary or what we should call the positive
form.

Sometimes it almost seems as if the notion
of comparison were absent till- imported into a
language by European speakers. Thus, the
author of Elements of Luganda Grantfimr,
after mentioning the use of the word singa
(* surpass '), says (p. 58) * Singa in this sense
is rarely heard among the peasants until they
have come in contact with European thought
. . . thus . . . they would say' — for

* Bring a longer stick,' * This stick is short,
bring a long one,' and so on.

What we mean by the Superlative is
expressed either by some equivalent to * very,'

* exceedingly,' — or by some such phrase as

* surpassing everyone else,' * excelling all.'

CHAPTER IX

The Numerals

Numerals, of course, are a kind of adjective ;
but, in Bantu, their agreements are not always
the same as those of other adjectives, and in
any case they are important enough to deserve
a section to themselves.

They are so convenient for the purpose of
comparing different languages, that perhaps
more attention has been given to them than to
any other part of speech ; and being among
. the easiest words to ask for, they are found in
the vocabularies of all the early travellers.

The numerals from one to five, and the

word for ten are, with few exceptions, common

to the whole of the Bantu area. The numbers

six, seven, eight and nine present considerable

differences. Some have no separate words for

these numbers at all, but call six * five and

one,' seven * five and two,' and so on. This

does not facilitate arithmetical operations and

children in mission schools are usually taught

133

134 THE NUMERALS

the English names of the numbers before
entering on the mysteries of addition and
subtraction. ' Eighty -seven ' is certainly easier
to deal with, at least for the instructor, than

* five tens and three tens and five and two.'
/^ Where the numerals from six to nine exist,

they are sometimes nouns, with an unmistak-
able reference to the practice of counting on
the fingers. Thus, the Zulu for six is isi-hipaj

* the thumb ' — showing that the counting
begins with the little finger of the left hand —
seven is isi-kombisa, * the forefinger.' Eight
and nine are expressed, rather cumbrously, by

* leave two fingers ' (or * bend down two
fingers ') and * leave one finger ' respectively,
It is curious that Xosa, which is so closely
related to Zulu, has -tandatu for six, which is
also found in some of the Eastern languages —
Pokomo, Giryama, Nyamwezi, etc.

This is probably a modified reduplication of
-tatu 'three' (contracted from tatu na tatu),
just as -nane, sometimes used for 'eight,'
seems to be a doubling of -nCj * four.

The numbers up to five sometimes (as in
Zulu) agree like ordinary adjectives, some-
times (as in Nyanja) they take the inseparable
pronoun. * Ten ' seems to be a noun — it is

THE NUMERALS

135

usually invariable, but sometimes, when it has
kept its prefix, it is treated as a noun, and
preceded by a connective particle, as in Zulu :
abantu abay^ ishtimi — literally * people who are
ten.'

The following table shows these six numerals
in ten language^. Konde is spoken at the
head of Lake Nyasa, on the eastern side.

Zulu (

ChwanaHereroNyamja Konde SwahiliGanda Gisu Kongo Duala

-nye

-nwe

♦rawe

-modzi

-mo

-moja

-mu

-twera

-mosbi

-wo

-bili

-vedi

-vari

-wiri

-bili

-wili

-biri

-ole

-ba

-tatu

-raro

-tatu

-satu

-taru

-tatu

-lalo

-jie

-ne

-nai

-na

-ne

-na

-n«

-ya

-nei

-hlanu

-tlhano

-tano

-sanu

-hano

-tano

•tano

-nano

-tanu

ishumi

sbome

orau-

kumi

mlongo

kumi

ekumi

kikum

kumi

dom

rongo

Zulu (but not Xosa) omits the initial vowel
in the prefixes of nye : mti-nye, li-nye, si-nyCf
not omtmyey elinye, etc. (which would mean
^sorne,' * other').

The roots as given here are sometimes
modified when preceded by noun-prefixes, e.g.,
ih Swahili, -wili becomes mbili when agreeing
with a noun of the tenth class. We may also
notice that there is oft%n a distinct set of
numerals without any class-agreement, used
in counting where no particular things counted

136 THE NUMERALS

are specified. Thus, in Swahili, we count :
mosij piliy tatu, nne, tanOj whereas the same
numbers applied to people would be : {mtu)
mmoja, (watu) wawili, watatu, wanCy watafw ;
to trees : (mti) mmojay (miti) miwili, mitatu^
udnty mitano ; to nouns of the seventh and
eighth classes : kimoja^ viwili, vitatu — and so on.

Yao (an important language occupying a
considerable area in Nyasaland and the
Portuguese territory) has mcheche (mvariable)
for four, the root of which is found in Makua
as -cheshe. Yao has another peculiarity, in
treating five (msanu) as invariable.

Some dialects of Chwana use mphecho
^ completion ' instead of -tlhano, that is ' the
whole hand ' — the five fingers.

The root -rongo or -longo sometimes serves
to form multiples of ten : e.g., in Pokomo
* ten ' is kumij but ' twenty ' mi-ongo mi-wii.
In Swahili mwo7igo survives, meaning ' a
decade ' ; in the older reckoning (now mostly
superseded by the Muhammadan Calendar) a
month was divided into three miongo of ten
days each. Twenty, etc., are usually ex-
pressed by makxinti followed by the number
required ; but sometimes, though rarely, there
is a special word for twenty. Such is du in

THE NUMERALS 137

Isubu/ which seems, however, to be borrowed
from the Sudan languages. Konde occa-
sionally, along with afualongo nmbili^^ has
iimundu ^ 2i man' — i.e., both hands and both
feet. Swahili uses the Arabic word for

* twenty ' — ishirini.

Sometimes there are distinct words for

* hundred ' and * thousand,' but in other cases
these are only treated as multiples of ten.
The Lower Kongo people and the Baganda
have the completest systems of numeration,
because they have been used, for many
generations, to deal with a cowrie currency,
and the latter in particular have an ingenious
plan of varying the prefixes for tens, hundreds,
thousands, tens of thousands: thus, lo is
hcmi, 100 ekiktcmij i,ooo ohikumi, 10,000
akaktcmij beyond which this form of numera-
tion does not seem to go. At least I find in
the Rev. G. R. Blackledge's Lnganda Vocabu-
lary a word for ' a million,' which is quite
distinct — akakada. Kongo does not use this

Isubu is spoken in the Cameroons delta, by people
living between the Duala on the south and the Bakwiri
on the north.

^ Or imilongo mibili, as would be expected from the
usual singular. There is also the curious form tu-lougo
tu-hili.

138

THE NUMERALS

system of prefixes, but has words for loo,
i,ooo, 10,000, 100,000 and 1,000,000.

The numbers in the following table, if not
preceded by a hyphen, are invariable, except
in so far as they are treated as nouns, and
behave like ishumi in Zulu. These are
marked*. Those with a hyphen prefixed
agree like those in the first table.

Xosa Cbwana ilerero

Kongo

Duala

-tandatu

•rataro

hamboinwe*

sambanu''

mutoba

♦chisanibomwi®

-sixenxe^

-shupa*

hambombari

iisambwadi

samba

^chiloba

-sibozo

hambondatu

nana

lombi

♦lusele

-litoba

muviu

vwa

dibua

*ifuka

Continuation of above.

Hehe^ Nyamwezi (jiryama

Kikii^u

Gisu

Ganda

tnutauda

-tandatu

-handahu^^

-tandatu

■sesaba

omukaga

mufun-
gate®

mpun-
gati

•fungahe

mugwanja

musafu

omusamvu

•

munane

mnai e

-nane

-nana

kinane

omunana

igonza®

ken-
da^o

chenda

kenda

kyenda

omwenda

THE NUMERALS 139

^ Though the forms for 7, 8 and 9 look identical with the
preceding ones {aba-hlanii, aba-tandatu,) they are really nouns
(isi-xmxe, isi-bozo, i {li)-toba) and the prefix is preceded by the
relative particle. Otherwise it would be aba-^enxe, not aba-si-
xepixe and so for the others. -x$nx$ (the x stands for the
' lateral click ') and -bozo seem to be borrowed Hottentot roots.
i(li)-toba is evidently a noun formed from the verb toba * bend
down ' (cf, tob'umuHwemunye for 9 in Zulu.)

' From the verb shu^a ' show,' ' point.'

8 These numbers are not given, as they are similar tb the Zulu :
' bend down two fingers,* ' bend down one finger.' There is, how-
ever, in some dialects an almost obsolete word for 8, seswai, of
which the derivation is curious : swaya means ' to mark ' (with
paint), and as this is usually done with the middle finger of the
right hand, it comes to be synonymous with ' eight..'

* hamba (the same word as the Zulu for ' go ') means 'jump over '
(i.e., from the thumb of the left hand to the thumb of the right)
— hambo-mwe 'jump over (and take) one.'

* Kongo numerals have a double system of agreement (for the
details of which see Bentley, pp. 567-570) ; in the ' primary form '
7, 8, 9, and 10 are invariable, in the ' secondary * they take prefixes.

6 This looks like a variant of the Herero word ; but the only
meanings given for samba in Mr. Smith's vocabulary are ' wash,
bathe, swim.'

7 The Wahehe are to be found some distance N.£. of Lake Nyassa
and to the south of the Wagogo.

* Fungate is still used in Swahili, meaning ' a period of seven
days' — but only in connection with a wedding (see Krapf, s. v. and
Steere's Handbook, p. 91). It was, no doubt, the old word for 7, but
has long been replaced by the Arabic saba'a.

^ I have found no other example of this form.

10 Also found in Swahili, though not so often as the Arabic tissa
or tisia.

11 • Cerebral t ' becomes h in Giryama. The difference between
the two ^s is very important in Swahili: -^a/w, with ' cerebral /'
becomes in Giryama -hahu, but -tano, with dental /, tsano.
* Cerebral ' t is pronounced by pressing the tongue against the
hard palate, ' dental ' by pressing it against the teeth ; our ordinary
English t is between the two, being 'alveolar' — i.t., the tongue
touches the gums or * tooth-ridge.' The two I's in Swahili may
be distinguished, if necessary as t (-tatu) and -t (-tano) or the
cerebral, as the commoner, may be left unmarked? The Rev.
W. E. Taylor, in his African Aphorisms, prints the dental t in
italic ; but in his version of the Psalms it is underlined. The
difference is more important at Mombasa than at Zanzibar, where
most of the words which at Mombasa have dental / are pronounced
with cA, — mato = macho ' eyes ' ; ieka = cheka ' laugh.'

140

THE NUMERALS

Some of the words for ' hundred * and
' thousand ' are as follows :

_ _ J_

Zulu Herero Kongo Da&Ia Ila

Nyanja Hehe Kikuyu Gisu

100
1000

ikulu

inkuluns;-
wane^

ethere
eyovi

nkama
ezunda

ebwea
ikoli

mwanda
chulu

dzana*
chikwi'*

igana*
imbirima

igana
ngiri

litondo

The Ordinal Numbers are usually expressed
by turning the cardinal number into a noun
preceded by'^the possessive particle of the
noun with which the number is to agree.

Thus in Nyanja immtu wa chi-modzi^ wa chi-
wirij wa chi4atu ^ the first, second, third
person/ Chtntu cha chi-modzi * the first
thing' ; nyumba ya chimodzi * the first house,'
etc., etc.

But the first ordinal is not always an actual

This looks like a diminutive of ikttlii, but I do not
know how to explain it.

Also in Ronga. In some dialects zana.

Kikwi was formerly used in Swahili, but is now
seldom if ever heard. The usual word is the Arabic
elf It {mi a for 100).

This (or gaiia) is also used in Nyamwezi, Shambala,
Zigula, Giryama, Pokomo, etc.

Gisu has no special word for 1,000, kamatonda
kikumi * ten hundreds ' being used.

Konde expresses *a hundred' by * five people.'
Xosa has the same word for * hundred ' as Zulu ; but
thousand' is iwaka. Nyamwezi lias kihumhi for
* thousand.'

THE NUMERALS 141

numeral. In Swahili mtu wa kwanza is
literally * the man of beginning,' from kwanza
(kti-anza) ' begin * ; and . similarly in Zulu
ti7nuntu wokuqala {wa uku-qala)}

Invariable numerals, as a rule, simply have
the possessive particle prefixed to them, and
in Ila this particle is prefixed directly to the
stem even of the variable ones. In Herero a
somewhat curious system is adopted : the
inseparable pronoun followed by the verb tya

* say,' is prefixed to the stem oi the numeral :

* the second man ' is omtmdu tUya vari — liter-
ally * the man he says two,' — * the third tree '
omtiti utya tahi, * the fifth name ' e^ta ritya tano.

The way in which the variable numeral is
changed into a noun is not every^^here the
same, and no general rule can be given. Zulu,
like Nyanja, uses the seventh prefix for this
purpose ; Chwana and Ronga the fourteenth,
Ganda the fifteenth ; and sometimes, as in
Swahili, the isolated forms of the numerals
(those which serve for counting when no
objects are specified) are used. In this language

* the first man,' as already stated, would be
7ntu wa kwanza.

^ Q represents the * cerebral * click.

142 THE NUMERALS

The second tree ntti wa pili.

The third name jina la tatu*

The fourth thing kitu cha nne.

The fifth house nyumha ya tano.

' Twice/ * thrice,' etc. are formed in many
languages by prefixing ka-, which will be
noticed later on, as it forms adverbs from
other adjectives as well as numerals.

Special features to which attention should
be directed are the dual pronouns and the
distributive numerals in Ganda, and the forms
in Zulu expressing * both,' ' all three,' etc. :
bobabiliy bobatatu. But these belong to the
study of particular languages, and cannot be
dealt with here.

Some Bantu grammarians include the
numerals among the adjectives; others
(because of the difference in their agreement,
already referred to, observable in some
languages) place them among the pronouns.
This difference usually extends to the words
for * all,' * only,' and one or two others, some-
times called * indefinite adjectives ' or
* indefinite pronouns.'

The most logical plan appears to be to give
the numerals a separate chapter as we have
done. •

CHAPTER X

The Verb

The Bantu verb normally consists of two J
syllables and ends in a, e.g. :

Zulu : lima * cultivate * ; hamba * go * ; tanda

* love * ; lala * lie down.*
Chwana : lema * cultivate * ; eta * go ' ; rata * love * •

roma * send.*
Nyanja : manga * tie * ; enda * go ' ; konda * love ' ;

ten^a * carry.'

There are a few monosyllabic verbs, most of

which are used as auxiliaries : some are now

only found in composition, as tense-particles.

They are seldom fully conjugated, and have

some other peculiarities which have led to

their being described as * irregular verbs.*

Sometimes, as we shall see more fully later

on, it seems probable that they have been

worn down from a dissyllabic stem. In other

cases they may be original roots, perhaps

143

144 THE VERB

traceable in the monosyllabic Sudan
languages.

Verbs of more than two syllables are practi-
cally certain to be either * derived forms * or
foreign importations (as Swahili fikiri * con-
sider/ ktibali * agree/ which come from the
Arabic). In the former case, the fact is some-
times disguised by the loss of the simple form.
J In Zulu there is a verb kumula ' untie/ ' undo * ;
this has the ' reversive ' termination -ula^
showing that it is the opposite of a verb kt^ma
^ fasten ' — but there is no such verb now to be
found in Zulu. A very common verb in Swahili
is simama ' stand ' ; now in other languages we
have ima^ yima, yema, jima, zhima ema (or ma)
with this meaning ; and ima is even found in
old Swahili. -A ma is a termination implying
* to be in a position/ as ang-ama * be sus-
pended/ in-ama ' stoop ' (be in a stooping
position,)^ etc.

^ But sometimes we may get a verb which looks like
a derived form, though it is Efot really one. Meinhof
gives an instance of a Konde word hov-ela, *hope,'

which would naturally be taken for the applied form of
hova. But there is no such verb as the latter, and the

word is ultimately derived from the Arabic through the
Swahili suhiri * be patient.* Other verbs of more than
two syllables, formed direct from adjectives, nouns or

THE VERB 145

Verb stems beginning with a vowel are not
very common, and usually produce some
modification of the prefix, owing to the contact
of two vowels, which necessitates a special
paragraph or section being devoted to them
in most grammars. Comparative study makes
it appear likely that these ** vowel verbs"
once began with a consonant, and Meinhof
thinks this consonant was the voiced velar
fricative, y. This is not an easy sound to
pronounce at the beginning of a word, and
would very soon tend to disappear, or at
least to become modified. In the above
examples, where it has not been dropped
altogether, it is represented by y^ j, or zh
(pronounced like z in * azure ').

In Zulu we find several verbs which may or
may not have an initial e : ema^ {or ma) * stand,'
eza (or za) ' come ' ; emba (or mba) * dig,' epa
(or pa) * pull up' (as weeds, etc.). These,
we can see, are reduced to monosyllables
by dropping the vowel, after the loss of
the original initial consonant. The voweL

the invariable roots called * sound pictures * or * vocal
images' will be noticed later. Some diacritic marks
have been omitted from hovela — most Konde words

bear more than«gould be printed here without confusion.

146 THE VERB

being retained where it happens to be more
easily pronounced, keeps the real state of
the case before us ; otherwise it might be
thought that these were true monosyllabic
verbs.^

Verbs which do not end in a are very rare
(unless borrowed from other languages) and
chiefly monosyllables. Ti * say ' is found in
nearly every Bantu languages, and so is li * to
be,' in composition if not independently. The
Zulu hlezi from hlala *sit* being a perfect,
does not count in this connection, yet even
as a perfect it is irregular, since it should end
in -e not -i. I have never seen it satisfactorily
accounted for.

The * Derived Forms * of the verb, to which
we have already referred, might perhaps be
most accurately described as * Voices.' We,
in Europe, have the Active and Passive, to
which, in Grfeek, is added the Middle : we
also have traces of a Causative, as in * fall * —
'fgir(=:make to fall) *sit ' — set (=causetosit),
etc. The Bantu languages have all these,
and several others as well.

It is possible that in some of these cases the e may
have been adopted by analogy — e,g. in eza.

THE VERB 147

The Passive is formed by means of the
suffix 'Wa : pig-wa (Swahili) from piga * strike,'
bon-wa (Zulu) from boita * see.* Sometimes
the suffix is -iwa, (as in Rong3.) , -edwct or -idwa}
(Nyanja), -ebwa or -ibwa (Gknda), 4gwa
(Konde). Duala has the very peculiar form -be.
The suffix maycause considerable modification
in the stem of the verb, as in Zulu, where w
cannot follow p^ 6, or m.

The Neuter-Passive, usually ending in
'Cka or 'ika (sometimes in -uka^ -aka or -akala)
is distinguished from the Passive by expressing
a state, or the possibility of being subjected to
an action, rather than the actual undergoing
of the action on some definite occasion. Thus,
in Swahili, kamba yaftmguka^ is : ' the rope is
(in a state of being) unfastened,' but kamba
yaliftmgidiwa is: *the rope was unfastened'
(by some person or persons). In Zulu,

^ Whether it is edwa or idwa depends on the vowel
contained in the verb stem. This * Law of Vowel-
Harmony * will be noticed in a later chapter.

' Fung-uka is really a compound form, being the
intransitive (or neuter passive) of fungua, the reversive '
(see p. 150 below) of funga 'fasten.* Funguliwa^ the
passive oi fungua^ is formed from the original /««^-M/a:,
I between two vowels being usually dropped in Swahili,
and verb-stems ending in I making their passive in -wa.

148 THE VERB

inkanyezi ya-bonakala is : 'the star was visible/
but * the star was seen' (by A. or B.),
inkanyezi ya-bonwa.

The Applied (sometimes called the * Rela-
tive * or * Prepositional ') form of the verb
gives rise to numerous idioms, some of which
have no exact European equivalents ; but the
most general rule which tan be laid down for
its use implies that the action is done with
reference to some person or thing other than
the direct object of the verb. If the verb is
intransitive, and therefore has no direct
object, this form makes it .transitive, and
enables it to take one. The ending is
usually 'da {-ila) or -era {-ira) ; in Swahili -ea
{'ia). Ex. :

Zulu : hamba * go * ; hamhela * go to * anyone, and

so * visit.'
hlala * wait * ; hlal-ela * wait for.*
lima * cultivate ' ; lim-ela * cultivate for *
some one else.

Nyanja : dula * cut * ; duhira * cut for ' anyone.

nena * speak * ; nen-era * speak to ' or * for, '
etc.

The Causative, as a rule, has the ending
-isa or -isha, or some easily recognisable modifi-

THE VERB 149

cation of the same\ Its meaning needs no
further exolanation.

further explanation

Zulu : vala * shut,' val-isa * make to shut,' hamb-

isa * make to go,' tand-isa * cause to
love,' etc.
Nyanja : dul'itsa * make to cut,' lim-itsa * make to

cultivate,' nen-etsa * cause to speak.'
SWAHILI : funda * learn,* fund-isha * teach ' {ix,

* cause to leai4a '), soma * read ', so/»-

esha * make, or help, to read.'
Herero : rara * sleep,' rar-itha * raiake to sleep/

thura * swell,' thur-itha * cause to swell.'

An Intensive form is sometimes found,
identical in form (though not in origin) with
the Causative. Thus, in Nyanja, mang-itsa
(from 7nanga, * tie ') may mean, either * cause
to tie ' or * tie tightly,' end-etsa either * make to
v^alk ' or * walk far.' This is also the case in
Zulu, but here, the intensive sometimes
reduplicates the causative termination and
ends in -isisa : buza * ask,' buz-isisa * inquire
thoroughly.' There is another intensive, in
Zulu, ending in -ezelUj which belongs to the

* It has not been thought necessary to take any
notice here of the causatives in -za and other varia-
tions arising from the presence of certain consonants
in the stem. The causative in -ya is a distinct form,
sometimes found side by side with the others.

150 THE VERB

applied form. In Rundi^ and probably else-
where, th« Intensive is a combination of the
Applied and Causative endings : rira ' weep/
riririsha * weep, continually * ; sab^ * ask,' sab-
irisha ' ask persistently.^

In LrUganda, the Applied termination is
reduplicated : tonya * drip,' * rain,* tonyercra
'drizzle incessantly/ Sometimes the root of
the verb is wholly or partly reduplicated, to
convey an intensive, or sometimes, rather, a
repetitive force, but this is not the same thing
as the verbal forms we are considering.

The Reversive form has the ending -ula
{-ura, in Swahili -tea) — sometimes -ulula, eg. :

Nyanja : tseka * shut,' tseg-ula * open/ pinda * fold,'

pind'Ula * unfold.'
Ganda : simba * plant,' simh-ula * dig up,' jema

* rebel,' jem-ulula * submit.'
Kongo : kanga, * tie,' kang-ula * untie.'
Ila: amha * speak,' aw6-M/w/a * retract * (un-

speak), yala * shut,' yal-ula * open,'

soma * sheaihe,* som-onona * pull out.'^

^ Spoken in the country near the north end of Lake
Tanganyika.

^ Ila and Hereto both have two additional reversive
endings, -ona and -onona. These are found when the
stem contains a nasal (m or n), Kongo also has -ona
and -una.

THE VERB 151

Herero : pata * shut,' pat-urura * open,' yonya * be

crumpled,' yony-onona * smooth out,'
etc.

This form is made intransitive by changing
I to k : tseg'Uka * be open/ sitnbtika * be dug up/^
The Reversive fornj is not usually enumerated
in Zulu grammars, but certainly exists in the
language : jaba is ' be mortified, disappointed/
etc., jab'tda ' rejoice/ and there are words in
'Ula like kum-ula ' unfasten * which distinctly
have a reversive meaning, though the primitive
verb may have been lost.

The Reciprocal, in -ana, implies, gis may be
gathered from the name, an act done by two
or more people to each other :

SWAHILI : pend-ana * love one another.*

Nyanja : mtny-ana * fight ' (* beat each other,* from

menya * beat ').
Zulu : ling-ana ' vie with one another,' * be

equal,' from linga * strive.'

There are some variations in the ending.
Kongo has -ajiana, or -asajiana^ as well as -ana ;
Ganda -agana or -ang^ana, as kyaw-agana * hate
one another,' wulir-agana * hear one another/
etc. ; and Herero -asana^ as mun-asana * see
each other,' from muna * see.*

i$2 tHE VERiB

The idiomatic uses of the Reciprocal form
are curious : we may give some examples.

Zulu : sa-bon-ana nomgani wami, * we saw each

other (I) and my friend.'
Nyanja : akulu a-hvut-ana tnlandu * the headmen

contend in a quarrel ' {bvutana, reciprocal

of bvuta * be difficult.')

In Swahili this form enters into several
expressions where its force is very difficult to
render in English : kupatik-ana ^ to be obtain-
able,' kujulik-ana * to be knowable.' These are
not quite the same as ku])atika and kujulika,
and the difference, probably, is in the implica-
tion that something is obtainable or knowable
by everybody, the acquisition or information
being, as it were, mutual.

The Stative form in -ama has left traces in
most languages, even if it is not expressly
recognised in the grammars. Verbs in -ania
usually express an attitude :

Nyanja : er-ama 'stoop,' kot-ama * be in a crouching

position.'
Swahili : in-ama * stoop ' {in-ua, the reversive of

the same root, means * lift up ') ang-afua,

* be suspended ' from anga ' float ' (in
the air) — angua^ the reversive, means
'take down,' ^.n^ang-uka, \is intransitive,

* fall.'

THE VERB 153

KoUama is found in Zulu, with the same
meaning as in Nyanja, and we also find
lul-ama * rise up a little from a recumbent
position/ /w^-ama * sit, as a hen hatching ' and
pak-ama, * be elevated,' which may be verbs of
the same kind. Compare,

Herero : themb-ama * be straight/ pik-ama * be

aslant ' {from pika * pull to one side ').

Chwana : el-ama (or al-dma) * sit on eggs.'

Kongo : lal-ama * be afloat/ lamb-ama * be

clenched * (said of a nail), kok-atna * be
hooked on to/ etc., etc.

Some languages have a Repetitive form in
-ulula — others express the same idea by wholly
or partly reduplicating the stem. Ila has tUa
' buy, trade' {cf. Nyanja gtda)^ ul-ulula ' trade
a thing over and over again ' ; nenga ' cut,'
neng'Uhila * cut up again and again ' ; Kongo :
sumba * buy,' stcmb-ulula ^ buy again.' Kongo
also has the suffixes -umma, -olola and -onona.

These two languages have, in addition,^ a
* Persistent Repetitive,' which in Kongo has
the suffix 'tijiola, with various modifications.
Ex. :

Tunga * build/ tung-ujiola * keep on rebuilding.'
Kuna * plant,* kun-ujiona * keep on replanting.'

154 THE VERB

Ila has no suffix for this form, but inserts a
before the final syllable of the verb.

sotoka * jump/ sotaoka * hop, as an insect.'
sandula * turn over,* sandaula * turn over and over.*

There are some other endings of which the
functions do not seem as yet to be very clearly
ascertained : -a/a, -a/a, -nga (found in Herero)
and a few more.

The Perfect in -ile is sometimes reckoned
among the Derived Forms of the verb,
because it is not a tense, strictly speaking —
that is, it does not refer to time, but to * the
condition or progress of the action ' (Bentley),
and because, unlike the real tenses, it is
formed by a suffix.

Verbs formed from adjective-stems (as
mentioned in a previous chapter) by the
addition of -pa or -mpa, cannot be reckoned
among the Derived Forms. Such are the
Zulu de-pa * be tall,' Nyanja (and Swahili)
nene-pa * be stout * ; probably the Nyanja i-pa
* be bad ' is so formfed from the root hi,
originally vi, which has dropped its initial
consonant. In Zulu we have a second form
"pala, as kldu-pala ^ be fat ' (or * big ').

In conclusion, we may remark that all

THE VERB 155

these forms of the verb can be compounded
with each other to almost any extent. So in
Zulu: hamb-ela * visit/ hamb-el-isa 'came to
visit/ hamb-el-is-aita ^ cdixise to visit one another/
hamb-el-is-an-wa, passive of the last named,

Extreme instances of this kind of cumulative
composition are given in Bentley's Dictionary
and Grammar of the Kongo Language^ pp, 640,
641, There is no need to say more on the
subject here.

CHAPTER XI
The Verb {continued)

Moods and Tenses

If we ask ourselves what we mean by the

term * mood/ and find that it may be explained

as * manner of being/ it might seem that the

distinction between the Derived Forms

discussed in the last chapter, and Moods is

not very clear. Ho\^ever, on considering

some examples of each, it becomes evident

that moods are the various conditions under

which some particular act is manifested: the

action, say, of writing is contemplated as

actually taking place (whether in past, present

or future time) — or as possibly taking place

under certain conditions — or as being desirable^

and so on. But it is always the same action

of writing. In the Derived Forms, the action

itself is in some way modified : it is looked on

from the point of view of the sufferer instead

of the doer, or as reversed, caused, intensified,

156

THE VERB 157

applied to someone or something, etc., etc.
And each separate form is carried unchanged
through all the moods and tenses.

Moods are only marked to a limited extent
in English. We have the Indicative, Infinitive,
Imperative and Subjunctive, though the last
is going out of use (that is, as shown by the
form of the verb itself : * if I be,' * that he
love,' etc.). In Latin, the distinctive inflec-
tions of the Subjunctive are more strongly
marked, and in Greek we have an additional
mood, the Optative.

The definition of * Tense ' is simple enough,
if we keep to European languages, where the
word can be used in its strict etymological
meaning. It refers to the time at which an
action is performed — past, present, or future,
with the sub-divisions of * complete ' and
* incomplete,' or * perfect' and * imperfect,'
etc. But even here the matter is not quite so
simple as it seems — should we, for example,
call the French conditional a mood or a tense ?
For practical purposes, no doubt, the distinc-
tion matters little — yet it is worth thinking
over in connection with our present inquiry.

When we leave Europe,^ we find— ^.^., in
the Semitic languages — that the word * tense '

158 THE VERB

no longer applies, or rather, it has to be used
with a somewhat conventionalised meaning,
for the distinction of time is not kept in view
so much as that of completed and of incom-
plete or continuous action. We saw in the
last chapter that the Bantu so-called * Perfect '
tense does not necessarily imply a past state
of things. It is very often equivalent to the
Present, indicating an action completed in the
past, whose effects still continue : thus, ' he is
asleep ' is rendered by an expression meaning :
* he has lain down ' (and is still lying).

If we bear in mind that both terms are
elastic! as to meaning, we can draw a very
clear distinction of form between moods and
tenses in Bantu. The former are distinguished
by suffixes^ the latter by prefixes}
. On this showing, the Perfect in -He should
count as a mood^ and it appears to me that
there is no good reasoa against its doing so.
We have seen that some reckon it as a
Derived Form, or Voice.

^ This cannot be taken quite absolutely : for instance,
it does not apply to the Infinitive. (The Imperative,
consisting of the bare stem, might be looked on as the
ground-form whence the others are derived). But this,
in spite of the prefix kiv- (which marks neither person
nor time) differs essentially from the tenses proper.

THE VERB 159

Some writers recognise (tf.^^., in Zulu and
Chwana) Optative and Potential Moods ; but
these, by their structure, are really tenses,
and, since we cannot adhere to the strict
definition of that word, they may very well
pass for such.

We might reckon in Bantu eight moods,
four of which, the Imperative, Infinitive,
Indicative and Subjunctive, correspond, on
the whole, with the notions expressed by those
terms in European languages. The others
are the Negative, the -Perfect in -ilt^ the
Continuative and the Relative. ^

The Imperative^ as we have seen, consists
of the bare verb-stem^ in the singular* and
suffixes -m (really the pronoun of the second
person) in the plural.

The Infinitive (which, as we have seen, is
identical with the fifteenth noun-class) is
distinguished, as a rule, by the prefix, ku-?^ This,

^ Perhaps it is better to follow Meinhof in using this
term instead of * verb-root,' for we cannot tell that these
verbs are not ultimately made up of monosyllabic roots,
going back to a pre- Bantu stage of speech.

^ This prefix has been quite lost in Kongo, except in
the case of the two vowel -stem verbs, kw-iza and kw-enda.
Duala shows traces of having had a different infinitive
prefix. (See Meinhof, Grundzuge, einer vergleichenden
Grammatik d^r Bantusprachen^ p. 10.)

160 THE VERB

the Indicative and the Imperative all, in the
present state of Bantu speech, end in -^, except
in Herero and some of its cognates, and in the
languages of the extreme north west (Duala,
etc.)/ Bleek seems to have considered this
-a a later accretion, and supposed that the
verb originally ended in some other vowel.
But this matters little to our present purpose.

The Subjunctive ends in -e. Its uses are
much like those of the European subjunctive,
though more extensive; they can be better
illustrated from the specimen texts at the end
of the volume, which contain numerous
examples, than by any explanations given
here.'

The Negative, which on our definition we
must reckon as a mood, ends in -i. It is a
feature not found in any European language,
where the addition of some invariable adverb

Herero has one present tense which assimilates its
final vowel to that of the stem, as mepiti ' I go out * (from
pita) ma munu * he sees' {horn muna). Some of the
Congo languages, such as Ngala, Poto, etc. (not Kongo
itself) seem to possess presents ending in -e and -o,
which are probably to be explained by the same principle
of Vowel -Harmony.

Ex.: Zulu: ngi-hamhe Met me go'; Swahili : ni-
jenge * let me build " ; Herero : nge-mune * let me see * ;
Ganda : a-lime * let him cultivate/ etc,

THE VERB 161

meaning ' not ' is quite sufficient to negative
any tense of the verb. The only difficulty
that could arise is from the position of the
negative, which, in a compound tense, has to
be inserted between tlie component parts of
the verb ; and the two particles in French
{ne . • . pas), by doubling this difficulty make
it necessary to learn a negative as well as an
affirmative conjugation. But * not,' nichtj nofij
and ne . . . pas do not affect the form of the
verb itself.

It is otherwise in Bantu. There are several
different ways of forming the negative, but
the main principle appears to be that a nega-
tive particle is prefixed and the final vowel
of the verb altered to i. This is usually
(though not in all languages) the Negative
Present. The Negative Past is formed in a
different way ; and moreover there is not, as
one might expect, a Negative tense corres-
ponding to every Affirmative one. On the
other hand, there are some negative tenses
with no affirmative corresponding to them.
This looks as though the Bantu mind con-
ceived of * not doing' a thing — ^just as the
still more primitive mind conceives of ' more
than one thing ' — as a distinct and separate

162

THE VERB

entity,^ And perhaps this is borne out by the
fact that languages of relatively advanced
development, like Kongo, have lost the final
inflection, and express the negative merely by
invariable particles. Kongo has one of these
particles before the verb . and one after, like
nc , . . pus.

Betonda = they love.' Ke hetonda ko they do not
love.*

In Duala, the negative particle si is used for
all tenses, but is placed after the subject
pronoun.

na lonta * I send * ; na si lotna * I do not send.'
ba tnende jipe * they v^ill cook ' ; ha si mende jipe
' they will not cook.'

The nqrmal Negative Present is as foltov^^s :

Zulu

Chwana

Swahili

Ganda

•

Gisu

a-ngi-hambi

Xa ke reke"

si-pendi^

si-laba

hi-n-teka

• I do not go '

' I do not buy

* I do not love '

' I do not see *

' I do not cook'

a-si-hainbi

Xa re reke

ha-tu-pendi

te-ba-laba

hi-ba-teka

' We do not
go'

* We do not
buy*

' We do not

love '

• They do not
see*

• They do not
cook'

* See Language Families^ pp. 38, 39.

' This e in Chwana is the * narrow e,' approximating
in sound to i.

® The negative particle in Swahili is ha^ which is

THE VERB 163

In Nyanja, the negative used throughout is
si (contracting in the second and third persons
singular to su and sa), and i is sometimes (not
always) suffixed to the verb-stem : as si-ndi
'dziwa-i * I do not know/ but si-ndi-dziwa is also
heard.

We need not enumerate all the different
negative particles in use, e.g., Ila ta, Yao nga,
Zigula nka, etc., but we must say a word in
passing as to the negative in the other tenses
of the Indicative. Swahili has a negative
past formed by means of the infinitive :
si'ku'penda ^ I did not love ' ; ha-hi-kti-penda * we
did not love.' This serves as negative both to
the Past Tense {ni-li-penda) and the Perfect
Tense {ni-me-pcnda)} Now, as -vie- indicates
that the action is finished, complete, the
sentence ni-me-penda cannot be negatived
merely by the addition of a particle.^ So
another form is used : si-ku-penda is a negation

prefixed to the three plural pronouns, but contracts with
those of the singular : si (originally ha + ni), hu (ha + u)
ha (ha+a). Te, the Ganda negative particle, is in some
dialects, used for all three persons alike as it is in Nyoro.

Modern Swahili has disused the Perfect in -He and
the one which has replaced it is, by its structure, a
tense, not a mood.

* See Meinhof, Grundziige (p. 64).

164 THE VERB

of the Infinitive; literally 'not — I to love.'
(This is different from the form actually in use
as the Negative Infinitive, which is ku-to-penduj

a contraction of ku4oa ka-peftda^ literally * to
take away loving.')

But Zulu negatives the Perfect by simply
prefixing the Negative Particle : a-ngi-tandile
*I have not loved'; ka-tandile^ * he has not
loved.' This is what might be called a
mechanical formation ; which means that, the
original force of the inflections having been
more or less forgotten, the prefixes and suffixes
used with some tenses, etc., are applied to
others, without reference tO' their abstract
congruity.

There is, in Zulu, a Negative Past, made
by prefixing a- as for the Present, and suffixing
nga : a-ngi-hamba-nga * Idid not go.'

The Negative Future is, as Professor
Meinhof points out, a recent formation,^ and,
as such, entirely mechanical.

Ka sometimes, in Zulu, replaces a, which is never
used, e.g, with the 3rd person singular (if the subject is
of the first class), or with a noun of the 6th class:
titnfana ka-hambile * the boy has not gone * ; ama-hashi
ka-gijimi * the horses do not run.*

* Grundziige, p. 65.

THE VERB 165

Swahili :

ni'ta-penda * I shall love * ; si-ta-penda, * I shall not
love.'

tu-ta-penda * we shall love*; ha-tu-ta-penda, we
shall not love.*

This, of course, as it does not change the
final vowel, is indistinguishable from the tenses
we shall have to consider later on. But the
Zulu Negative Future is different. It is
recognizably a compound tense, made up of
the verb ya ^ go' and the infinitive ; and the
first part of the compound is negatived in the
same way as the Present.

ngi-ya-ku'tanda * I shall love * {lit. * I go to love *).
a-ngi-yi-ku-tanda * I shall not love.'

In all these indicative tenses, the negative
particle comes first, but in the Subjunctive,
the Participle, Smd the Relative Tenses, it
comes after the subject-pronoun.

Subjunctive :

Zulu : ngi-nga-fandL SwAHlLl : ni-si-pende * I may

not love.'
Relative:

aba-nga-yi-ku-tanda a-si-po-sema

* they who will not * if he does not

love.* speak.'*

These forms were explained in Chapter VI. As to
the reason for the difference in the position of the
negative particle, see the reference in the last note.

166 THE VERB

It will be noticed that the Negative Particle
here is different from that used with the

Indicative. In Swahili, 5/ is used all through
the Subjunctive, and not with the first
person only.

The Perfect in -He is found in a great many
Bantu languages. Swahili, as remarked
above, has lost it — except in some of the
northern dialects — and it seems to have dis-
appeared altogether from Nyanja, though not
from the neighbouring Yao. It is sometimes
shortened to i or ^, and assumes various
modified forms — e.g. it may change the vowel
instead of adding the suffix, as Zulu lele from
lala^^ pete from pata^ and in the verbs of the
Reciprocal form, as hlangana * meet,' perfect
hlangene. Derived forms, especially the Applied,
very frequently shorten the termination to e :
sond-ela * approach,* perfect sondele.

It is not surprising that missionaries and
others engaged in the reduction of a new
language should sometimes have failed to
recognise this ^ Perfect ' when they came
across it, as its use did not correspond with

* Lalile is also used, but with a somewhat diflferent
meaning.

THE VERB 167

their notion of a tense. Yet that use is not
without parallels nearer home. The <jreek
oiSa * I know,' is really the perfect of the verb
meaning * to see,' and Latin perfects used in a
present sense, like coepi, meminij odi (which
have lost their presents), B.nd ftovi, (the perfect
of nosco) * I have come toknow' = * I know,'
are really exemplifications of the same thing.
The Continuative Mood, with the suffix -ga,
is less frequently met with. It implies that
an action is done habitually, or that it
continues for a lolig time. It is found in Yao,
Kinga, Konde, Sango, Ganda, Kongo, Benga,
Duala and elsewhere — sometimes in one of
the forms ka^ nka, nga, or with other modifica-
tions. It ia used in more than one tense, and
is even sometimes added to the Rnperative, to
make it more emphatic. This, and the fact
that Kongo suffixes it also (in the form nge) to
the Perfect, might seem to negative, its being
counted as a mood ; but, though we do not as
a rule find moods superadded on one another,
after the fashion of the Compound Derived
Forms, there does not seem to be any reason
why we should say it is impossible in these
two cases. Or, again, it is conceivable that
the imperative -ga^ at least (which is not exactly

168 THE VERB

contitiuative, though it might, on occasion, be
so) may not be the same suffix. The follow-
ing are a few examples of this form, which
does not exist in Zulu (unless — which I doubt
— we could count the Negative Past), Nyanja,
Herero or Swahili.

Yao : na-tawa-ga * I was binding/ or ' I kept on

binding * {tawa * bind ')
ni-ndawa-ga * if I am binding.'
ni-nga-tawa-ga * I should be binding ' (if
something else had happened).
G^DA : a-fumha-nga omupunga hulijo * she cooks

rice every day.'
a-na-soma-nga * he will read continually.'
omu-ntu eya-kola-nga ebi-bya * the man
whotused-to-make bowls.'
Kongo : o unu n-tunga-nga e-nzo ante * to day I am
building my house.'
unu n-tungidi-nge enzo ame * to-day

I-have-been-building my house.'
e lu^mhu kina ya-tunga-nga enzo ame Vthe
other day I-was-building my house.'
KiNGA : ndt-toya-ga * I keep on striking ' {tova,

' strike.? "~

Sango : vu)(a-ga ' go, do ! ' {vu')(a * go.')

The Relative Mood may take, as in Zulu, an

O underlined, in Meinhof's notation (used in the
book whence this example is quoted), is the * broad o,'
like the sound of ou in * ought.'

THE VERB 169

•

invariable suffix for all persons and classes, or
as in Swahili, a suffix varying with the class
to which the subject belongs {a-pcftda-ye,
u-anguka-o, li-vundika-lo ^ etc.). This applies
to the first and simplest form of the Relative
given in Chapter VI, which is (in Swahili at
least)^ without distinction of tense. But the
other Swahili forms, if analysed, are found to
follow the same principle : the first part of the
word is an auxiliary [li or no) in the Relative
Mood, followed by the Infinitive without ku :
a-li-ye-pendaj a-na-ye-penda^ ki-li-cho-anguka^
vi'li'Vyo-vundikay etc., etc. As the Relative
Pronouns were pretty fully discussed in
Chapter VI., we need say no more about them
here.

Before passing on to the Tenses, it may be
well to say a fe\Y words about Participles.

We have, on previous occasions, referred to
the quasi-participial forms existing in the
Bantu languages : the very common one
formed by prefixing the Possessive Particle to
the Infinitive, and that with a locative termi-

* Zulu also suffixes -yo to the Perfect. The other
verbal relative formations (those without -yo) are
different in principle from the Swahili ones given in the
text ; but they need not be discussed here.

170 THE VERB

nation, found only (so far as I am aware) in the
various dialects of Chwana (including Sutu).
But Zulu has something like a real Participle,
which * may be formed for, all the Tenses *
(Colenso, First Steps § 232), but, unlike our
participles is preceded by a pronoun and
found in all three persons, singular and plural.
Except in the third person (where the pronouns
are e for the singular and be for the plural,
instead of u and ba), and when agreeing with
a noun of the sixth class (when the pronoun a
is changed to e) the forms are identical with
those of the finite tenses ; and a participle is
often only to be recognised by the difficulty of
construing it as a finite verb in the context.

I shall not attempt anything like a complete
enumeration of tenses. The simple ones are
few and well marked, but there are endless
compound tenses, built up with auxiliaries and
other particles, which are not always easy to
classify. The principle of their structure once
recognized, however, they need, present no
great difficulty here.

The tense-particles not immediately recog-
nizable as verbs may have existed as such in
former times — indeed, it is practically certain
that this was the case with most of them.

THE VERB

171

The simplest form of the Indicative Present
(in some languages, as in Swahili, it exists
only in theory) is formed by prefixing *the
Inseparable Pronoun directly to the Verb-
Stem.

•See'

Zulu

Nyanja

Ganda

Si.

1st pers.

ngi-bona

ndi-ona

ndaba (for
n-laba)

2ad „

u-bona

u-ona

o-Iaba

3id „

u-bona

a-ona

a-laba

PI.

1st „

si-bo u a

ti-ona

tu-Uba

2nd ,,

ni-bona

luu-ona

mu-laba

3rd „

ba-bona

a-ona

ba-laba

This tense seems, as Junod says of it in
Ronga, not to convey any precise indication
of time. The more usual Present, in Zulu, is
one compounded with the verb ya * go ' :
ngi-ya-bona * I am seeing ' or, more literally * I
go seeing.'

In some languages, a tense with similar
meaning is formed by means of the prefix
-a-, of which the exact force is uncertain. It
usually contracts with the pronouns. The
Swahili tense given below is that used at
Mombasa ; the corresponding one at Zanzibar
is ni'Ua-onaj n-na-o^ia^ etc.

Na is one form of the verb * to be ' ; and in

172

THE VERB

Ronga

Chwana

Swahili

Zigula

nda-bona (ndi-
a-bona)

ke-a-vona

na-ona (ni-a)

n-^^ona

wa-bona (u-a)

wa-vona

wa-ona

w-a-ona

a-bona (a-a)

wa-vonu

a-ona

ha-bona (hi-a)

re-a-vona

t wa-ona

(tti-a)

ch-a-ona

ina-bona (mi-a)

1 wa-vona

ui wa-ona

mw-a-ona

ba-bona (ba-a)

va-a-vona

wa-cna

w-a-ona

some languages, instead of the above tense,
we have one compounded with this auxiliary
in one shape or another. Thus, in Nyamwezi,
ndi-wofta (for n-li-wona), u-li-wona^ etc. ; in
Nyanja ndi-ri-kii-ona^ literally ' I am to see
(= * I am seeing '), and so on.

Some languages (Zulu, Konde, Ganda and
others) have a Past Tense identical in form
with the Present in -a-. Others use na to
form a Past Tense, e.g.^ Nyanja ndi-nchrona^ etc.

The Future is very often formed with the
auxiliaries meaning * come 'or 'go ' — Nyanja
ndi'dza-ona^ Chwana ke-tla-vojtaj Zulu ngi-ya-
ku-bofta {or ngi-rza-ku-bona). Swahili has ni-ta-
ona: ta at present means nothing by itself,
but it may be shortened from taka (* wish ' or
* want.') In Ganda, the Near Future is formed

THE VERB 173

with the prefix na, and the Far Future with the
prefix ri. Both of them mean * to be.'

The most pecuHar Future is that in the
Likoma dialect of Nyanja, which is identical
with the Negative Past in other dialects — e.g.,
si-ni'fe ' I shall die.' The explanation seems
to be that what one has not yet done is still in
the future, and, therefore, to say one has not
yet died is the same as saying that one will die.

In Swahili, as already stated, there is a
Perfect Tense differing from the form in -He
discussed under the Moods. It is formed
with the particle -W5- (which may be connected
with mala 'finish') — ni-me-ona^l have seen.'
A similar tense is formed in Pokomo with
-ma-.

Giryanyi has two Perfects — the Perfect
Mood, which is the older form, ending in -ere
or -ire {ni-onere * I have seen,' ni-fik-ire * I have
arrived' — from fika) and the tense, formed
with dza : hu-dza-m' -ona * we have seen him.'

Compound Tenses are very numerous in
Zulu, chiefly built up on the verb 'to be '
(uku-ba) and the particle nga, which mainly
implies potentiality {e.g., nga-ngi-be-ngi-bona,
* I would have been seeing,' etc.), and
Chwana has a still greater variety, introducing

174 THE VERB

several other verbs. But these, and the
particles which play so great a part in Nyanja
{ma, tUj ka, ngo, etc.), must be left to the
students of the respective languages. It only
remains to say a few words more about
auxiliaries and about monosyllabic verbs.
(The latter are not always auxiliaries, and
there are some auxiliaries of more than one
syllable).

The auxiliaries which we have mentioned
so far are employed as tense-prefixes, and
inserted between the subject pronoun and the
verb. But there are others which are
grammatically separate from it, but necessary
to its meaning. Some of these are defective,
only used in one or two tenses and never
apart from a principal verb ; others are
independent verbs, which have a peculiar use
as auxiliaries. Thus in Zulu ponsa * throw '
means, as an auxiliary * to be on the point of
doing/ — ngiponse ukuwa * I was on the point of
falling.' In Ganda yagala * like, love, want '
is similarly used to express that something is
abo'bt to take place : enyumba eyagala okugwa
*the house is likely to fall.* Va *go out'
conveys that something has just been done, or
that an act results from something mentioned

THE VERB 175

X
t

before ; in the latter case it is equivalent to
' therefore.'

Tti'Va kti'kola ' we have just been working.'
Sometimes the auxiliary is followed by an
infinitive, as in the last examples, and as we
should expect in European languages. But it
is, just as often followed by a finite verb, and
this construction gives rise to some of the
most curious and difficult i(5ioins — e.g.^ in
Zulu : U'buye ti-hlangane nabo, * do thou after
that join with them.' Literally *do thou
return {buy a) that thou may est join with
them.' In Ganda, mala * finish ' is used in
various unexpected ways. It may denote,
with a negative, * non-completed, though
intended action.' Ya-mala na-ta-kola *as a
matter of fact, he did not do the work.' Or
we may find it in such sentences as malaga-lya
' eat it just as it is' — whether you like it or
not ; (perhaps the idea is * eat it and have done
with it ! ') — mala ga-genda * never mind, go ! '

In Ronga, dyuleka neuter-passive of dyula
* seek ' is employed as an auxiliary to express
' it is necessary,' and chuka * start ' (with
surprise) to convey the notion of ' perhaps ' * by
any chance,' or to emphasize a negative
imperative.

176 THE VERB

KU'dyuleka ndi-famba * I have to go.'
U -ta-mii'khoma loko u-chuka u-mu-bonih * You
will seize him if by any chance you have
seen him.' U-nga-chuke- u-hlaya ' Don't go to
say. . . .' = * Don't think of saying. . . .'

The use of the verb //, properly meaning
' say ' is very important. It will be mentioned
again in the next chapter, as it occurs so
frequently in conjunction with the ' descriptive
adverbs ' or ' sound-pictures ' so common in
the Bantu languages. *But besides this use,
it enters into a variety of characteristic idioms.

It is found in most languages (except
perhaps those of the Congo), though now
disused in Swahili. In Chwana, it has the
form r^S in Herero ty-a {ti + a) otherwise it
scarcely varies. Its infinitive i« often used as
a conjunction, equivalent to * that ' {cf. our
* that is to say,') as in Nyanja :

Antu a-ganiza kuti ndi mfiti ^

* People think that (they) are wizards (who)
zi-sanduka makoswe

* change-themselves (into) rats.'

Sentences like this, where it is equivalent to
^ saying,' show the connection quite clearly :

Where e in Chwana corresponds to an i in Zulu, it
is the narrow e — intermediate between French i and »•

THE VERB 177

Tamhala a-lira kuti * kukuluku ! *
' The cock crows saying ** kukuluku / " *

Other tenses, simple and compound, are
used more or less as conjunctions, e.g.^ Nyanja
nga-ti *if' Ila a-no-ku-ti * whereas,^ Zulu
ku-nga-tey ku-nga-ti-ti. Ila has a4ela * lest,'
antela ' perhaps,' which may be applied forms
of it. A very common idiom is to use.it as
an auxiliary at the beginning of a sentence,
with some such meaning as * when,' * as soon
as,' or * it came to pass that. . . .'

Irregular Verbs. Bantu verbs can be
irregular in two ways, neither of which need
cause much difficulty. They may be of one
syllable only, or they may end in somQ other
sound than a. Ti and a few others are
irregular in both ways at once.

Genuine Bantu verbs of more than one
syllable which do not end in -a are so rare
that we need do no more than mention them.

The monosyllables are more important, but
of these a certain number must be eliminated,
which are not original monosyllables, but have
only become so by attrition. The case of the
Zulu ma or ema * stand ' (Swahili sim-ama)
was referred to in the last chapter, and there

178 THE VERB

is a whole number of verbs in Zulu, found
either with or without an initial e. Such are
(e\mha * dig '^ (e)ha * steal,' {e)pa * thin out '^ (as
seedHngs) {e)zwa * hear/

Some have more than one syllable, and
these (like {e)fmika * go away ' {e)tula * take off ')
look like Derived Forms.

It seems clear that these (or most of them,
for some might have been formed later, by

* false analogy ') originally began with a
consonant which was dropped, and then the
initial vowel, when it could not easily be
contracted with the pronoun, was elided also.*
It is interesting to see that Nyanja, while
keeping the initial vowel in ima ' stand ' has
incorporated the infinitive particle with niha
' dig,' which is now ku-kumba. Perhaps this is
to avoid confusion with imba * sing,' as it has
not been done in the case of ku-ba ' steal.'*
Nyanja has no objection to the contact

^ Probably the Swahili /-emfre^ahoe* comes from
the same root.

^ To be distinguished from pa * give,' which seems to
be an original monosyllable.

* 'Vowel verbs' are usually reckoned among

* irregular verbs,' on account of this contraction, which
is not always applied m the same way.

* Cf. Swahili iba (Mombasa) and Jepa (Lamu).

THE VERB 179

between two vowels, and, as a rule, sounds
them both distinctly, not often contracting
them into an intermediate sound, as is done in
Zulu ; and perhaps this is why it retains the
original i in ma, which in Zulu is altered to e.
When we come to primitive monosyllables
— or what we may fairly presume to be such —
we find, apart from tense-particles and recog-
nised auxiliaries, several verbs expressing
simple and universal notions (such as * eat,'
* drink,' * die,' etc.), m so many Bantu languages
that they are likely enough to have formed
part of the original common stock. The
following table exhibits some, but by no means
all, of these.

The great interest of these primitive verbs
lies in the fact that it may be possible to trace
*them in the Sudan languages, as indeed, I
think, has been done with one or two. But
such questions lie outside the scope of this
book.

•mm

Bang

—

9
C

•

a
o

«d

s
a

^(■■^

«d

««-•

Id
e

a
(d

it
B

•

.is

4,«»,

tUB

ed
ja

•

N
(d

Id
u

ed
C

c
(d
>^

«d

td
M

Cd
a

«d

9
N

•

«d

H
Id

a
Q

•3,

c
>

m
Q

THE VERB 181

^ The Kongo form of this word is spelt as given here in Bentley's
Dictionary, but I have no doubt that it is pronounced dya^ as it is in
Nyanja, where many of the printed books have dia. The same
lapplies to the spelling nua (for nwa) and kia for kya in Kongo and
Bangi. Bangi is spoken in the district near the junction of the
Kasai with the Congo.

> The old root has been lost in Zulu, probably for hlonifa reasons* ;
the word now used is puza. Zanzibar Swahili has nywa, like
Ganda. etc. Note the tendency of Duala verbs to end in-*.

* Gwais found in old Swahili : the modern word is anguha. The
usual word in Bangi is kita, but ku is given as an ' indeclinable
adjective ' suggestive of falling. It may be the root of Duala ko,

^ A dissyllabic form of this word is found in Yao (uwa) and
Kikuyu (kiia). The former must not be confused with Swahili ua
* kill,' which is the same word as Zulu and Kongo btda * strike.*

^ Nyanja Zigula and Swahili have lost this, and use words
meaning 'strike each other' (menyana^ towana, pigana). Giryama
and Ganda use the reciprocal Iw-ana^ and Kongo has nw-ana^
evidently another form of the same ro .

6 Ha in Chwana is used in the special sense of *' giving food."
The word used in Kongo is vana, reciprocal of va, which could

correspond etymologically with pa.

f Kia and kya (which should probably be spelt alike) may ^bc the
same sound as that indicated by cha and tya. See Noel-Armfield,
Gtneral Phonetics, p. 91.

8 This is only found in some dialects of Nyanja ; it is not used at
Blantyre, probably to avoid confusion with a similar word, tabcosd
as vulgar.

* This word in Zuln expresses What anthropologists call ' taboo.' People turd
said to hflonipa a word, if they avoid it (i) as improper or vulgar, (2) because it
is the luKie — or part of the zlame->of a deceased chief, or (in the case of
women) the head of the family. Thus, the wives and daughters of a man named
u-Langa would have to find some other word when speaking of the sun {\-langa).

CHAPTER XII

Adverbs and Particles

I have preferred the term * Particles ' for
the invariable parts of speech — except adverbs,
which are somewhat more clearly defined —
because the words which act as prepositions
and conjunctions may be — and often are —
used in other^ ways, and, in fact, they usually
prove, on examination, to be different part6 of
speech altogether.

Pa, hiy mw, which, as sometimes employed,
are genuine prepositions, and treated as such
in all the older grammars, are really pronouns,
as we saw in an earlier chapter. In fact,
Meinhof says there are no such things as
prepositions in Bantu. The Zulu nga * with '
(in an instrumental sense, as watshayma
ngomcibitsholo ' he was hit with an arrow ') at
one time seemed to me a possible exception,
but its use after the passive^ shows that it is
really identical with the copula, as explained

^ See above, pp. 114, 115.
182

ADVERBS AND PARTICLES 183

above. Na * with,' in the sense of ' along
with/ is really the conjunction * and,' perhaps
the only undoubted conjunction.

We have already remarked that infinitives
and even finite tenses of verbs may be used
as conjunctions : e.g. {u)kuti\n Zulu and
Nyanja ; xP'^^^^^^ — literally * to arrive' (at)
for * until ' in Chwana ; Swahili kw-amba

* that ' literally * to say ' {ktiti not being used),
Lala k'limfwa ' and so ' literally ' to hear.'
Nyanja -ngakale 'although,' — used with a
pronoun, a-nga-kaUj chi-nga-kale, i-nga-kale^
etc., from kala * sit,' ' stay, be in a place,' and
so, literally, * it may be (that. . . .')

There is also an interesting use of nouns as
conjunctions, as, Nyanja, chi-fukwa ' because,'
which really means ' fault,' ' blame,' etc. ;
Duala onyola na, contracted from o nyolo a nay

* through the body of ' (* the fact that . . .'
also meaning * because.') In Swina pa mtisoro
pa * on the head of ' and pa musana pa ^ on the
back of,' are used prepositionally for * because
of,' * on account of.'

The ease with which these locutions change
places is illustrated by the fact that some

adverbs are turned into prepositions by the
addition of a particle.

184 ADVERBS AND PARTICLES

Thus pa-nsi (it is found in a great many
languages, even where, as in Zulu, pa by itself
has gone out of use) means * on the ground,*
' down,' but pansi ya is * under ' ' below.
Tint {chilli) which takes the place of pansi in
Swahili is treated in the same way.

It would serve no useful purpose to attempt
enumerating all the possible words or com-
binations of words which might serve as
prepositions and conjunctions : the above is a
sufficient indication what sort of thing to look
out for in any particular language.

With regard to Adverbs wis have several
possibilities to consider. First, there are the
regular adverbs, formed from adjectives with
the prefix ka- ; to which we have already
adverted in the chapter on the Numerals.
These are found in Zulu, Nyanja (only with
numerals), Ila, Nyamwezi (with numerals),
Zigula.^ They do not occur in Swahili, Ganda,
Gisu or Kongo. Kale or kade * long ago '
found in almost every language, even those
which have no other adverbs in ka, seems to be
iho adverbial of the root for ' long.*

^ Besides the numeral adverbs this language has ka-ngi
* often * (from -(«) ngi * many and perhaps other words
of the same kind.

ADVERBS AND PARTICLES 185

Then we have nouns preceded by a posses-
sive particle, as in SwahiH hifanya kwa uzuri
* to do beautifully.' Here the possessive par-
ticle agrees with kufanya^ but it would*also be
used with a finite verb — I suppose still with
reference to the infinitive ; or perhaps because
its real relations had been forgotten, so that
it could be placed indifferently after any form
of the verb.

Another way is to use an adjective with the
prefix of the seventh or the eighth class — as
Hereo tyi-nene * very/ from -nene * great ' ;
Swahili vi-baya ' badly ' ; Duala bu-bi * badly *
which last might also be classed as a noun.
Other nouns are used, by themselves, or with
a particle prefixed, as Zulu na-muhla * to-
day,' Nyanja maw a ' to-morrow.'

Then we have the locative Adverbs^ — not
merely those already mentioned, which are
preceded or followed by a locative particle, as
pezuhij pansi (some languages have also kunsi
and munsi)f tini, etc., but such as pano^ 7nuno,
kuno, or hapUj pale, or mumofta, kukona, (Ila)
and momwemoj pomwepo (Nyanja), with other
variations, too many to be enumerated.
These, however, are rather a kind of demon-
strative pronoun. And it should not be for-

186 ADVERBS AND PARTICLES

gotten that the Derived Forms of Verbs, in
many cases, render adverbs unnecessary.

There are some invariable Adverbs, which
do not seem to be derived from other parts of
speech, as lero^ leo^ lelo * to-day,* Nyanja
tsopano (Yao sambano) ^now,* kati * in the
middle ' (sometimes with added prefixes), Yao
soni ' again/ Nyanja -nso (suffixed to almost
any other part of speech), *also/ * again' —
and others, whiph can be found by consulting
the lists in various grammars. It may be
that the etymologies of these are only as yet
untraced, and they may be assigned to their
proper position in time ; but some of them
possibly belong to the class described in the
next paragraph, though they have settled
down to a more assured position in the
language than those we are about to mentfon.

These are what are sometimes called
* Sound-pictures ' ; other terms for them are
' onomatopoetic vocables' (Stapleton), * de-
scriptive adjectives ' (Junod), * onomatopoetic
substantives' (Torrend), ^indeclinable adjec-
tives ' (Whitehead), * interjectional roots,' etc.

The importance of these has been more
and more recognized of late years. They
occupy a very prominent place in the Sudanic

ADVERBS AND PARTICLES 187

languages, and Westermann has devoted a
good deal of attention to them in his Ewe
Grammar} There is also a very interesting
passage dealing with this feature of primitive
language in Levy-Bruhrs Les Fottctions
Mentales dans les Societes Inferieures} Dr.
H ether wick (Handbook of the Yao Language,
p. 76) says :

* Certain words onomatopoetic in their
character may be classed as adverbs. They
represent the action or the idea referred to
and may be used either with or without the
descriptive verb ; thus chum signifies the sound
of falling into water, like our English '* splash."
Wa-gwile m'mesij chtim ! '* He fell intc^ the
water, splash ! " Myu^ with the fingers drawn
across the lips, or accompanied by a peculiar
motion of the hands, one over the other,
signifies completion ; Ngondo jaiche nekumala
wandti myu ! '* The war came, and the popula-
tion was completely destroyed." An idiomatic
use of the verb kuti ** to say," is used in con-
junction with such words. To the form -ati
is prefixed the characteristic pronoun of the

^ See The Language-Families of Africa^ pp. 43^ 66.
' Paris, 1910.

188 ADVERBS AND PARTICLES

object described, and joined with the onoma-
topoetic has the force and application of an
adjective. Ngo jati pyu ** red cloth '' (literally
the cloth which says pyu or red), Nale^ ngope
jakwe jati bi '* Look, his face is black" (says
bi — i,e., he is angry).'

Here we see one of the expressions noted
accompanied by a gesture. In fact we may
suppose them to have arisen out of the gestures
which preceded speech — to be, as it were,
gestures translated into sound. To quote
M. Levy-Bruhl (p. 183) :

* It is not even necessary ihat these
** auxiliaries " of description should be exclu-
sively gestures or movements.' (The previous
paragraph deals with the use of gesture, not
in the absence of speech, but to help it out
and make it more expressive.) * The desire to
describe may also try to find satisfaction by
means of ... a kind of pictures or repro-
ductions of what one wants to express, obtained
by means of the voice. Among the . Ewe
tribes, says M. Westermann, the language is
extraordinarily rich in the means of directly
reproducing an impression by sound. This
richness arises from an irresistible tendency
to imitate all that is heard, seen, or generally

ADVERBS AND PARTICLES 189

perceived, and to imitate it by means of one
or more sounds. . . . What is imitated,
in the first instance, is apt to be movement ;
but we also have these imitations or vocal
reproductions — these '* vocal images,'^' for
sounds, odours, tastes, tactile impressions.
There are some which accompany the expres-
sion of colours, abundance, degree, pain,
enjoyment, etc. It is beyond doubt that
many words in the real sense (nouns, verbs,
adjectives) have originated in these vocal
images. They are not, properly speaking,
onomatopoeias, but rather descriptive vocal
gestures.'

Stapleton, therefore, defined them some-
what too narrowly in calling them imitations
of sounds^ — in fact this is contradicted by the
very examples he gives a few lines further
back :

Ngala: mai mahandakani lilili * the water has

quieted down peacefully.'
hutu hoindi pi 'the night darkens darkly,

or silently on all the heavens at once, etc.*
LOLO : ntso kwi kwi kwi * go quickly.'

This writer goes on to -say : ' These forms

Comparative Handbook of Congo Languages ^ p. 130.

190 ADVERBS AND PARTICLES

are used very largely as interjections, and
some are evidently amongst the most primitive
elements of these languages. Some appear to
be the roots from which nouns, etc., are
formed, — sanja abameli ba o mai (Ngala) ** the
moon shines on the water brightly " {cf. bo-biiy
'' light "). Ndako foi foi (Kele) ^'* the house is lit
up brightly/' '

It is a pity that the author did not illustrate
this point a little more fully, as he does not
tell us what noun is formed iromfoifoi: by
analogy we should expect bo-Joi. In the
cognate Bangi language (which does not seem
to possess the / sound) poipoi^ expresses the
brightness of a shining surface, such as
polished wood or metal. It makes a verb
poibana. A glance through the Dictionary
shows numerous other examples : pioka ' beat
with a stick or whip,' from piOy the sound
made by a switch ; tsakana * be dispersed '
from tsa ; zonga * surround,' from zo. These
are given in the Dictionary as derived from

As printed in Whitehead's dictionary, this word
has diacritic marks indicating that o is the narrow o
with the * raised ' tone, and i has the * lowered * tone.
This is important, as there arc other words quite similar
except for the tones,

ADVERBS AND PARTICLES 191

verbs, but it is not fair to mention this without
quoting the passage from the Grammar (p. i8)
which relates to them :

* For the most part these are derived from
verbs, or 'the verbs from them. For practical
purposes it is here assumed ' (but why ?) * that
they are derived from verbs. Those who
maintain that the verbs are derived from
them have the best of the argument, for
these indeclinable adjectives are the most
elementary parts of the language, and many
may be traced to an onomatopoetic origin.
These words are the most graphic in the
language, they are the ** colouring " words,
the stories and common speech of the people
are full of them, and often they have such
force that sentence after sentence can be
constructed by means of them, without the use
of a single verb, the verb being indicated by
these indeclinable adjectives. They take the
place of adjectives to a very large extent, and
in the dictionary their meaning will often be
found indicated by an English adverb, yet in
Bobangi they are adjectives.'

These languages of the Middle Congo and
its northiern affluents tend to shade off towards
those of the Sudanic family. This would seem

192 ADVERBS AND PARTICLES

to account — I do not say for the abundance of
these roots, for Ronga, Nyanja, Zulu, Yao, etc.,
are very rich in them,^ but for the frequency
of nouns and verbs formed from them, and
the ease with which they can be recognised.

In Zulu (which in many ways seems to be
one of the younger Bantu languages), a number
of verbs are plainly derived from these
particles, though they are more usually intro-
duced hy t^kuti. See § 298 (p. 128) of Colenso's
First Steps in ZiUu-Kafir — a most instructive
passage, though the author did not quite
appreciate the character of these 'vocal
images/ The remark (p. 129) that ' others are
probably imitations of the sounds referred to '
shows, however, that he was on the right track.

Some of the examples given to illustrate
this derivation of verbs incidentally show that
some verbs may seem to be Derived Forms
which are not so in reality ; thus hlepula

* And probably other languages, where no special
attention has been called to them. In Velten*s
Nyamwezi grammar, e.g, (Velten's books are practically
useful, but he is scarcely a safe guide in philology) wc
find bti * abundantly,' and po or pe * also * — perhaps
others. It is rather surprising to find no indication of
such * adverbs * in Gisu — but the work done on that
language is admittedly very tentative as yet.

ADVERBS AND PARTICLES 193

< break off' looks like the reversive of a (non-
existent) hlepa^ whereas it comes straight, so
far as one can see, from nhiti hlepu. So, too,
boboza * pierce/ which looks like a causative, is
from ukuti hobo * to have a hole in it ' ; and the
same root gives us the nouns im-bobo and
isi'bobo. Perhaps some of us have not left our
childhood too far behind to feel in a dim way
that bobo somehow suggests a hole (and it
does so quite as much as the same word, in
French nurseries, expresses * something that
hurts') — but even these will not be able to
explain why it is so.

Some of the Zulu examples are so delightful
for their own sake, that I make no apology for
quoting them.

Ngaziti shwangalazi lezo' zinto zonke.

* I said shwangalazi to all those things — swept !hem
away with a swish.'

* He says xafuxafu '^ — eats like a dog.

* It (the sky) said namanama (rained very gently)
this morning."

* He said (or went) gtgigi down the slope ' — ue,, ran
down — * and crossed over to the other side.' (Evidently
getting impetus for the upward effort).

* The sun said tetete ' — was low down in the sky.

^ X indicates the lateral click.

194 ADVERBS AND PARTICLES

Mr. E. W. Smith {Grammar of the Ila
Language^ p. 66) mentions 'certain particles
suffixed to adjectives which express a super-
lative or absolute idea. They do not seem to
be used with all verbs.

* Ne, Menzhia la tontola-ne, the water is very, very
cold.'

* Bu. Muntu u la tuba-bu, the person is very, or
altogether white.

* NswA. Menzhi a zuma-nswd, the water is
altogether dried up.*

The acute accent (which is not explained in
the text) may indicate a raising of the tone,
or (more probably) that it is accented
independently of the verb, and does not, as
enclitics in Bantu usually do, draw the accent
forward. In that case, it would surely have
been better not to connect the two by a
hyphen.

It would seem as if Ila had limited the
scope of the Vocal Image to a mere expression
of intensity. Or perhaps the author has to
some extent mistaken its nature ; for it seems
clear — even without an inside knowledge of
the language — that they do not mean * very '
or anything of the sort ; but ne is * cold/

ADVERBS AND PARTICLES 195

bu * white ' ; nswa ' dry,' piu * red ' (as- in
Yao), and so on. Mr. Smith goes on to say :

* These particles are also used interjectionally,
the verbs being omitted, e.g.^ Nda kaya kti
menzhi. Nswa! I went to the water.
Quite dry ! ' This could not be explained on
the supposition that nswa simply means

* very.' We should also like to refer back to
the parallel columns of verbs and adjectives
given by Mr. Smith on p. 6i — already ad-
verted to in Chapter VIII. The adjectives
there given look to me like developments
{'biabe 3.nd -fwafwi are imperfect reduplications ;
all the others ending in o or uY from roots of
this kind, and the verbs as if they had been
formed directly from the roots. Of the

* superlative particles ' I have only been able
to trace one which has given rise to a verb :
-pi J whence pia ' to be hot.' (This, as pya^
psya^ swa, etc., is found in most Bantu lan-
guages with the same, or some closely con-
nected meaning. Meinhof thinks the Proto-
Bantu stem was pia.) But I have no doubt
that careful search would be able to discover a
great many.

We shall recur to this point in the next chapter.

196 ADVERBS AND PARTICLES

In Swahili these particles are not con-
spicuous, yet I do not know how otherwise to
account for tu ' only/ pia * also,' * altogether,'

* entirely,* {watte wote pia) y hi7na ^ quickly.* A
few are heard as expletives (* When the doctor
pulled out my tooth, I felt — bti ! * — lo-o-o !
expressive of surprise, chtib ! of impatience,
etc.), but they are not used otherwise and do not
seem to have given rise to any verbs or nouns.
Perhaps the influence of Arabic, which has
supplied some useful adverbs, prepositions
and conjunctions, has favoured the disuse of
the Vocal Image.

The late Revs. D. C. Scott and W. A.
Scott, of Blantyre, collected, in a valuable
little pamphlet — The Mang*anja Unit of
Thought — some interesting specimens of what
they have somewhat enigmatically called

* Buds or Thorns ? ' I take this title to
imply a doubt whether such particles were
really roots whence speech was developed, or
outgrowths of developed speech — atrophied

* fragments of verbs.' A few of the^ sentences
may be here given in illustration.

* The lion did not spring — he just came, kuputu !
kuputu I kuputu ! — like a horse.'

* The eagle has swept past — kwa.'

ADVERBS AND PARTICLES 197

* A man with a lame leg goes timpya, timpya, ttttipya.*

* The soldiers stood ndaj nda, nda * (in line).

* The stars are shining ng'anit ng'ani, ng'ani,*

* He got into the mud and fell tapwi I — he got out
and fell into the water, pahva ! *

* The guinea-fowl has run away it jo ! njo ! njo ! *
Here the verb used is njonjola, clearly formed from the
particle.

Further quotations are unnecessary, and
would take up too much space, but I would
direct the reader's attention to M. Junod's
paragraphs (§§ 378, 379) on Adverbcs descriptifs
(pp. 196, 197 of his Grammaire Ronga.y He
strongly insists on the importance of these
adverbs ' and on the great number of verbs
derived from them.

One point to notice, in conclusion, is that
Vocal Images frequently contain sounds not
otherwise found in the language, just as we
use clicks not found in any articulate English
words to express surprise, regret or (to a horse)
encouragement. Chum (Yao and Nyanja) and
chub (Swahili) have unwonted final consonants.

His Elementary Grammar of the Thonga-Shangaan
Language (in English) is more generally accessible.
The section on * Descriptive Adverbs ' will be found on
pp. 84-86.

198 ADVERBS AND PARTICLES

In Shambala, quite a number of these words
begin with p — a sound which in that language
is (except when preceded by m) changed to h.
This matter would evidently repay further
study.

CHAPTER XIII

Word Building

We saw, at the outset, that inflexion by
prefixes was a great and striking characteristic
of the Bantu speech-family. We have seen,
also, that suffixes play by no means a negligible
part, as they distinguish both the Derived
Forms and the Moods of Verbs. Further^
some languages have the suffixed Locative ;
and we just remarked in passing that a good
many adjectives are formed by suffixes.
What more there is to say about these, and
the other cases not already noticed, can best
find a place here.

Nouns may end in any one of the five
vowels.^ Any one of these may be a suffix.

^ I am using this expression for convenience sake.
They may, for aught I know, end in any of the fifty or
so vowel-sounds recognised by phoneticians which
exist in Bantu. But the old original five will serve the
purpose of this exposition.

199

200 WORD BUILDING

but is not necessarily so ; e.g.^ in mbwa * dog,'
nyati * buffalo/^ the final vowel seems to belong
to the stem.

Taking, first, nouns andv adjectives formed
from verbs, and going through the classes in
order, we find that one of the commonest
derivatives of this kind is the noun-agent,
where the verb-stem takes the prefix of the
first class, and changes its final -a io-i (in
Herero to -e).

Zulu : um-fiki one who arrives,' from fika

* arrive.*

um-fi * deceased person,* from fa * die.'
Herero : omu-tarere * overseer,* from tarera,

applied form of tara * look.*
Chwana : mo-dihi. * worker,* from diha * work * ;

mo-ruti * teacher * from ruta * teach.*
Nyanja : m-weti * herdsman * from weta ; tn-pamhi

* robber * from pamha. •*
Ganda : omu-zimhi 'builder* from zimba; omti-

somi reader,* from soma.

Other nouns prefix the first-class prefix to
the unchanged verb-stem, as Swahili m-chunga
{m-tunga) * herdsman,' from chunga (tunga) to
' herd ' ; m-gcfna ' one who taps palm trees ' (for

^ These words are Swahili, but they are found (some-
times in the same form) in many other languages.

WORD BUILDING 201

wine), from gema. But these are really a
species of participle, and their verbal character
is still so far felt in Swahili that they are usually
(not always) followed by an object : mc/mnga
mbuzi * a goat-herd ' (* one who herds goats ')
mfanya biashara * one who makes trade,' i.e.^
* a merchant.' But both in Swahili and in
other languages we also find nouns of this
kind without an object, which shows that there
is a tendency to lose sight of their verbal
character. E.g., Yao m-langa * herdsman,'
Nyanja m4ondola * one who tracks game,'
from londola * follow up ' and the Swahili
mgema already given.

There are some verbal nouns in -e as
Swahili m4ume^ * messenger,' from tuma * send.'
We have already pointed out that adjectives
in -e are frequently derived from verbs, and
from these we get names of the first class, like
m-ume 'husband,' the adjective -tcme *male
being derived from an almost obsolete (in this
sense) Itima * cohabit.' Ganda has a set of
nouns ending in -e with a passive significance —
omU'fumite * wounded man,' ivomfumita * stab,
omU'Sibe * prisoner ' from siba^ * bind.'

^ Not often used except in the sense of 'apostle.*

202 WORD BUILDING

Verbal nouns of the first class in o do not
seem totfe so common, but are found in Yao,
as m-jiganyo * teacher/ from jiganya * teach.'
(Dr. Hetherwick, however, says that * in
actual use, the relative iorms jtmkwiganya,' etc.
— i.e. J the infinitive preceded by the possessive
particles — * are more frequently employed').
And, in general, it is so easy to make these
forms for oneself that it is well to remember
the warnings of experienced writers, and never
venture on any not ascertained to be used
by the natives themselves. Bishop Colenso
says :

* The above words, however,' {i.c^ um-fuftdi

* learner ' and um-fiindisi * teacher ') * and most
of the above kind which appear in the printed
books, are formed by Missionaries, not by the
Natives, who employ these derivatives much
more sparingly, but may form them at
pleasure, so that they cannot be entered in
the Dictionaries as standard Zulu words.'
Examples of the latter kind are um-ondhli

* nourisher ' used in an isibongo^ of Mpande,

^ Isi'bongo (from bonga * praise ') is a song (generally a
string of laudatory epithets) composed by the professional
bards or * praisers * of the Zulu chiefs, and banded down
by tradition.

WORD BUILDING 203

SO that it may be regarded as a kind of
poetical license, and um-hambi * traveller/
which occurs in a proverbial expression. Some
such words, however, * belong to the lan-
guage ' ; and indeed we might add that even
of the others, some (such as um-fuiidisi) have
been found so useful that they are by this
time fully naturalized.

And the late Dr. Scott, in the Preface to
his Cyclopcedic Dictionary of the Mang^anja
Language^ says :

* Yet no word can be formed at pleasure :
it must bow to usage and wont. However
clear the formation. . . . is . . . one
must serve the language, not create it;*

But I cannot refrain from adding to this
a remark I once heard from Professor Meinhof,
to the effect that no one knows a language
really well, until he can play tricks with it.
The application of this, in conilection with the
previous quotations, must be left to the indi-
vidual conscience of the linguist.

Adjectives, as we have seen, often end in -w
when derived from verbs {-fu and -vu are
common terminations in this case) and some-
times when their derivation is not so clear.
Meinhof derives -kulu from kula * grow,' but it

204 WORD BUILDING

is open to question whether the derivation is
not the other way about. Nouns in -i^derived
from verbs, do not seem to be so common, —
unless they are verbal adjectives used as
nouns : e.g. nt'ttdivu ' a quiet, peaceable sort
of person,' from tiUia}

There is in ^wahili another suffix to
personal nouns, which denotes habitual action :
-y/, as m-seMa-ji * orator ' from se^na ' speak ' ;
m-pa-ji * a generous person ' (but see note
on this word in Madan's Swahili-English
Dictionary), from pa * give.' I do not know
if this particular ending is found anywhere
else.

Nouns of the third class are sometimes
formed from verbs with the ending o ; Nyanja
m-pepo and Herero om-bepo Svind,' from pepa

* blow,' (this verb and its resulting noun are
found in most Bantu languages, but the latter
is sometimes of a different class) ; Herero
omii'hapo ' shape,' fri)m hapa * grow ' ; Nyanja
m-kotamiro * lintel of a door ' from kotamira

* stoop ' ; m-dtiliro * mode of cutting ' (the

^ Chatelain says that, in Mbundu (Angola) -u and -o
have, in general, a passive * or inactive ' force and -a,
-e and -i an active one.

WORD BUILDING 205

hair) ; Swahili m-teremo * cheerfulness,' from
terema^ rejoice'; m-pako 'plaster' ixom paka

* smear/ m-chezo {m-tczo) * dance,' ' game,* from
cheza (teza), mw-endo 'journey' from enda^ walk'
(the same word is found in Nyanja, meaning
*leg'). Duala has in this class a peculiar
suffix -ko : mii-anga-ko * roast meat ' from anga

* roast,' mpoko * gimlet,' from poa * bore.'

Verbal Nouns of Class 5 ending in
are common. They often mean the place
where anything is done, as Ganda e-fti.inbiro

* a place to cook in ' from fumba ; Bangi
ebombelo * hiding place,' from bomba, * hide/
In Kongo nouns of this kind, end in
w : estimbihi * place for buying ' from sumba

* buy/ Sometimes these are only used in the
plural, as Nyanja matero * limits/ from tera^
applied form of ta * finish ' ; malowero * place
where the sun sets,' from lowcra, iowd * go in.'

Another kind of noun in belonging to this
class indicates the result of an action, or
sometimes the way^ in which it is done.
Swahili chezo (tezo) 'game,' etc. (used as well
as mchezo 3, but more frequent in the plural,
ma-chezo) ; pendo * love,' * liking ' from penda.
Also mapenzi^ not used in the singular: in fact,
many of these nouns only exist in the plural,

206 WORD BUILDING

e.g.^ Nyanja maganizo * thought ' from ganiza

* think ' ; matyolo * breaking ' from tyola^

* break * ; majebo * notches cut round a stick *
from jeba ; Swahili ma-choro * carving/
ma-patano * agreement ' from kti-patana, reci-
procal of pata ' obtain ' : * get (from) each
other ' = ' agree/

Some have taken these nouns as plurals to
the infinitive (ku) class ; but they should have
been warned by the termination and the
slight, but quite distinct, difference in meaning.
KU'Chora, e.g., is the act of carving, ma-choro
the carving itself (our English participle is
ambiguous) ku-teza the act of dancing, matezo
the dances (or games) themselves.

I may repeat here that the coining of words
for oneself is apt to be a dangerous experiment.
Because matezo comes from teza, and taka is

* wish ' it is not safe^o conclude that ma-tako
means * wants/ * wishes ' : if you do, the result
will be embarrassing.

The seventh class has a good many nouns
formed from verbs, sometimes without change
in the final vowel, sometimes with the endings
e, i or : perhaps the last is the commonest.
The chief meaning is (i) the instrument with
which, or the place or time where, anything is

WORD BUILDING

207

done, but we also find (2) a person who does a
thing habitually, or excels in it. Some,
however, can scarcely be distinguished in
meaning from those mentioned in the last
paragraph, as (Swahili) kiUfido * action,'
kicheko * a laugh * ; Yao chi-nyengo * deceit '
trom nyenga. Ganda : eki-gambo ' word,'
from gamba * speak.'

(1) Zulu : isi-bongo from bonga * praise,' isi-fo

* disease * (that by which one dies).'

Chwana : se-reko * a thing to buy with,' from

reka * buy ' ; se-aparo * clothing,
from apara * put on.'

Yao : chi-Undo * watch-hut,' from linda

* guard ' ; chi-gono, * sleeping-place »
from gotia,

Swahili : ki-fo * place of dying ' ; ki-funiko 'lid,'

from funika * cover.'

Herero : otyi-dhsra sacred place,' from dhera

* avoid for ceremonial reasons ' .

otyi-kunino * garden,' from kuna

* plant.*

(2) Zulu:

isi-lauli * habitual jester,' isi-hambi
* traveller.'

RONQA : shi-di * great eater * (from da), shi-yaki

* skilled builder,' from yaka * build.'

208 WORD BUILDINQ

Nouns in -e are

Nyanja : chi-poude * a mess of pounded food,

from ponda * pound,* chi-kalidwc
* nature of a thing.'^

Chwana has a large number of verbal nouns
belonging to the ninth class, which in form
(as this class in Chwana has no prefix) and
meaning are much like those of the fifth
already mentioned : tiha * work/ from diha

* do ' ; kepo ' digging ' from epa * dig ' ; picho

* assembly ' from bilsa * call.' These usually
have a more and a less concrete meaning —
c.g.^ picho may mean the act of calling, or the
assembly which is called ; and there is another
kepo^ with a difierence in the quantity of the
final vowel, meaning * a digging-stick.' The
differences in the initial cons'onant follow the
special laws of soujad to which Chwana is
subject, and we may remark that, in kepo^ k is
not prefixed to the root, but is a modified
restoration of a lost consonant.

^ From kalidwa, passive of kala * sit,* * stay,* * be * —
verbs which with us cannot have a passive. Chikalidwe
means, I suppose, * the way in which a thing is,' as
regarded by an outsider, and not from its own point of
view — this might make its * being,* in some sense,
passfve.

WORD BUILDING 209

In Herero we find some personal verbal
nouns of this class : o-ndodhe ' an artful?
crafty person '^ from rora * test,' * examine,'
O'hodhe * spy,' from hora * spy out.' They are
not so common elsewhere, but Meinhof derives
the Zulu and Chwana word for chief in-kosi,
kxosif from koka, xoya ' draw,' * lead ' — like dtiXj
from diico.

We find some nouns of the eleventh and
fourteenth classes derived from verbs, though
the latter oftener come from nouns and
adjectives. Yao, however, has a great many
in U'j which seem to belong to this class.

Ganda : olu-tinda * bridge ' from tinda * bridge

over * ; olu-talo * battle * from tala * set
in array * ; olu-imha * song * from imha
* sing ' ; (in other languages this ends in
o: Swahili w-imbo, Ila and others Iw-
imho) ; oln-getido * journey * from genda
*go* (Nyanja ul-endo), olu-gero a
proverb * * story/ from gera * tell * (a
story, etc.). -

Kongo : lu-keselo * how the cutting-down came

about,' from kesela, applied form of
kesa, *cut ' ; lu-vangilu * the manner of

^ * One who will take nothing on trust * is the sense
suggested by the derivation.

210

WORD BUILDING

being made * ; 'manufacture,' from vanga
* make.' Of CI. 14, umbangu * skill,'
from vanga ; undqfii * witchcraft,' from
loka * bewitch.'^

I LA : lufuno * love,* from funa ; lufuko * dust,'

from fuka * rise ' (said of smoke, etc.),
luheta * judgment,' no doubt from heta^
but the verb now in use is the derived
form beteka,

SWAHILI : u-funguo * key,' from fungua * unlock ' ;
^ u-fagio and u-peo * broom,* from fagia^
pea * sweep ' ; u-pito, * passage,' from
pita * pass ' ; u-puuzi * nonsense, * folly,'
from puuza * talk foolishly.' The last
two are probably of CI. 14, which is
not now to be distinguished from 11 in
Swahili.

Ganda : CI. 14, ohu'Sera * flour,' from sera^ ap-
plied form of sa 'grind,* obu-ganza

* favouritism,' from ganza * be fond of.'
Nyanja : U'limbo * bird-lime ' {obu-limbo in Ganda :

probably from limba * be firm, hard,
tough,' also * stick fast,' etc.), u-bvundo

* decay,' from bvunda * rot * ; u-sokedwe

* manner of sewing,' from soka ; m-
endedwe * manner of walking,' from
enda»

Yao : U'lindi * watching,' from linda ; uwii

Both these words have their initial stem-consonant
modified by contact with the prefix,

WORD BUILDING 211

theft,' from iwa * steal ' ; and a number
indicating the way of doing things, like
the last two Nyanja examples: u-tawc^

* plan of building/* «-^^;/^^n37tf * mode
of making/ from panganya * make/ etc.

XOSA : ubu-xoki * falsehood * from xoka * tell

lies' (also Zulu) ; uhu-lumko * prudence/
from lumka ; ubii-sika * winter ' (/.e.,

* the cutting time '), from sika * cut/
(also Zulu), etc., etc.

In Kele (Conga) we have, e.g.^ bo4io *door,'
from lia * shut.'

The Locative Class sometimes has a kind
of relative form based on a verb-stem in the
applied form; as in Nyanja: po-gonerUy mo-
gonera^ 'a place to sleep at' or 'in.' The
latter implies that it is an enclosed place, and
can therefore be used as an equivalent for
* bedroom ' ; so, too, mo-dyera * dining-room '
(from dya) 3.nd mo-sambira * bath-room.' from
samba * wash.'

This does not exhaust the ways of forming

* Tawa * tie ' is used to mean * build ^ (as manga,
with the same meaning in Nyanja) because in erecting
the framework of a nativs hut, a great part of the work
consists in tying the poles, or withes, together — and,
again, in tying on the thatch.

^ From gona * sleep.*

212 WORD BUILDING

nouns ; but these are the principal ones to be
found in most languages. The passage on
the Derivation of Nouns in Bentley's Kongo
Grammar (pp. 528-538) is both interesting and
instructive, but it should be remembered that
the system is not everywhere so elaborate.
See also the section headed * Formation of
Nouns/ in the Rev. A. J. Wookey's Secwana
Grammar^ pp. 10-14.

Before leaving the subject of noun-suffixes,
it is necessary to notice the diminutive in
-a7ia, which Zulu, Chwana and Ronga have
substituted for the diminutive formed by the
thirteenth prefix {ka-). It is probably like the
suffix 'kazi i'kxalt)y which forms something
like a rudimentary feminine gender, due to the
influence of the suffix-inflecting * Hottentot '
language — or languages.

We must say a few words about Denomifui'
live Verbs — i.e.^ verbs derived either from
nouns or adjectives. They were mentioned
in connection with the Derived Forms, but
they are distinct from these, and probably of
later formation. They are exceptional, in
that they consist of more than two syllables,
without going back to a simple verb ; but they
often look like derived forms ; e.g.j Swahili

WORD BUILDING 213

chafu-ka * be dirty,' which is not the neuter-
passive-reversive of a verb chafa^ but comes
from chafii ' dirty.' So, too, toroka, * run
away ' from m4oro * deserter ' ; pevu-ka * be
grown-up ' from -pevtc * full-grown/

Verbs are also formed in this way by the
suffix 'pa, as nene-pa * be ' or * grow stout ' (also
found in Nyanja, where the adjective -nene is
not used). In Herero we have handu-ka ' be
impudent,' from the noun e-handu 5 ; ram-ka

* be greedy,' from e-rani 5 * gluttony,' dhandu-
pa * become young ' from -dhandii ; and others
with the suffix para, as poiu-para * be blind,'
re-para * be long.'

In Zulu there are a few verbs in -pa and
'pala ; de-pa * grow tall,' kuhc-pala * be fat ' (or

* big'). In Yao, verbs are often formed from
Vocal Images by the^ suffix : -ma, as sisima

* be cold,' from si or sisisi.

Herero has a somewhat ^peculiar class of
compounds, which we must not leave
unnoticed. We saw, quite early in this book,
that names of trees have practically every-
where the prefix of the third class. In Herero
they are sometimes still further distinguished
by suffixing the root -ti: omu-hama-ti, omu-
tender e-ti, omu-ngwa-ti. (I am unable to say

214

WORD BUILDING

what these trees are, except that the last of
the three is called by.Brincker ' wild tamarisk/
Umu-nga, in Zulu, is a common species of
mimosa.) Again, we have a number of words
compounded with -ndu (the root of omu-ndu,
nmii-nUi).

omu-kadhe-ndu

omu-rume-ndii

omU'hepu-ndu

woman
*man *
* widow '

Also :

on-dume-wa 9
omn-kuru'kadhe 1
omii-dhorO'twa 1

{'kadhe = * female ')
{-rume = * male *)
(Meinhof suggests a de-
rivation from -hepu
* discjpntented ' !)

* male dog ' (on-rume-ombwa)

* old woman * (-kuru = * old *)

* Hill Damara,' from -dhoro * black *

and otnu'twa

* Bushman.'

Another curious feature is the insertion of
the interrogative particle ke between prefix
and stem, as imu-ke-ndu} * What sort of
person ? ' omti-ke-ti * What sort of tree ? '

Professor Meinhof says that compound
nouns are unusual in Bantu^ and that perhaps

^ The initial vowel i is sometimes substituted for o
in Herero — as in the Demonstrative Pronoun (CI. l)
ingwi,

^ LautlehrCi p. 135.

WORD BUILDING

215

those in Herero are due to the influence of
Nama, in which they are very common. If
he is referring to the compounds enumerated
above, he is probably right ; but he goes on
to give a number of compounds consisting of
a verb and a noun, which could easily be
paralleled elsewhere.
Some of these are :

omu-rara-nganda 1

orU'pif onganda 11

omu-dhemha-titna 3

otyi-dhuma-we 7

* neighbour ' ; that is * one who

sleeps {rara) in the same
village * {onganda),
' vagrancy,* from pita * go out *
and onganda.

* forgetf ulness,' literally * for-

getting heart * {dhemba * for-
get,' omu'tima * heart * —
Nyanja mtimay etc.).

* noise made by the fall of a

meteor* — strange that this
should be a common enough
occurrence to have a word
to itself — from ^^dhuma^
* roar * and e-we 5 * stone '
(the verb dhuma does not
seem to. be in use. Zulu
has duma * thunder,* but the
word corresponding to the

* An asterisk prefixed to a root or word means that it
is not actually used in that form.

216 WORD BUILDING

Hereto one should be zumu^
which has a different mean-
ing)*

It would not be difficult to make a long list
of similar compounds.

Zulu : indhlula-miti 9 * giraffe,' from dlilula

* pass * and imiti : it is * higher than the
trees.*

in-swela-boya * a horrible portent ' (some-
times * a corpse *) — literally * a thing
without hair/ from swela Mack' and
uh'Oya * hair,* * wool,* etc.

n-mahamba-nendhlwane caddis- worm,'
etc., from hamba * go ' and indhlwana

* little house.*

kw a* Ma man galahlwa* the Back of Beyond'
— literally : * At (the place of) " Mother !
Tm lost ! " *

Many Zulu proper names are such com-
pounds, sometimes very curious and
suggestive.

Nyanja : kokalupsya * early rains ' which * sweep

away ' {koka) the * burnt grass ' (lupsya) ;
inpinganjira 3 'obstacle in the way,*
'' from pinga * lie across,' and njira * road '

fulagonibe * the bee-eater * (which builds
its nest in a bank, like our sand-martin)
from fula * dig out ' and gombe * river
bank.'

WORD BUILDING 217

Ila : chi-zhinga-lula 'intestinal fat * (* that which

surrounds the bowel *)•
mU'dima-ku'hushu * small-pox ' (*what digs
(holes) on the face and numerous
others.

In fact the compounding of words (there
are numerous examples of two nouns connected
by the possessive particle forming an insepar-
able compound^) seems — if not so fully carried
out as in Greek — to be by no means alien to
the genius of the Bantu languages. It is
oftenest found in proper names (as already
remarked) and in the names of animals and
trees. I

^ Zulu : inja-yo-mSutu (* dog of the Mosutu *)-=-a

hairy caterpillar.
iso-le-nkosikazi (* lady's eye *) — a flower (a
kind of jasmine).

CHAPTER XIV

Some Phonetic Laws

I j'HiNK I have sometimes been asked— by
persons whose philological science was some-
what more imperfect than my own — whether
Grimm's Law was applicable to the Bantu
Languages, Of course, as the law in question
is^only a statement of what happens to certain
consonants in the Indo-European languages,
the answer must be no. But the principle on
which it is based, that of the permutation of
consonants, holds good, and seems to work
out with unfailing regularity. That is, if we
meet with any apparent irregularities, they are
probably due, either to imperfect observation
of the sounds, or to the operation of some law
not yet ascertained : in either case, they will
disappear in the light of further knowledge.

* In investigating the relations of any

dialect with its kindred dialects, the first step

218

SOME PHONETIC LAWS 219

is to determine to what sounds in the latter
its own sounds regularly correspond.*^

This was done to a limited extent by Bleek
— with remarkable thoroughness considering
the number of languages at his disposal, and
the small amount of material available for
some of them. But the work can never be
satisfactorily completed till the nature of all
Bantu sounds has been determined with
scientific exactitude. Meinhof, for instance,
after working for years in order to discover
the Bantu sounds regularly corresponding to
the clicks in Zulu and Xosa^ was obliged to
give up the task as hopeless for the present,
chiefly because ' the method followed in these
comparisons was a very rough one. The
question whether the clicks were or were not
aspirated, was never taken into account, and
the tones were not investigated at all. There-
fore, in cases where it seemed as if we had
found two or three instances going to prove a
particular sound-shifting, it is not certain that

* Whitney, W, D., Langucfge and the Study of
Language (1884), p. 97.

* Most of these clicks occur in borrowed (Hottentot
and Bushman) words ; but some axe found in words
which have parallel forms in other Bantu languages.

220 SOME PHONETIC LAWS

even these were valid, and .... the
results of infinite trouble are worthless from a
philological point of view.'

But, even now, some broid principles of
correspondence can be set down as certain,
though we must await the exacter definitions
of phonetic science before filling in the details.
As this book does not concern itself with
phonetics, I should be straying beyond my
province, if I attempted to do more than
indicate these in the most general way ; but a
few hints on the subject may fitly close our
survey.

The difficult sounds called * laterals '
(written hl^ dhl tly tlh) are confined to Zulu,
Chwana and Thonga.^ They are absent even
from Herero and the Venda languages of the
North Transvaal. The following table will
illustrate the various sounds in which they
correspond with other languages.

Here we find that hi (which seems to be the

^ Here *Zulu* includes Xosa and the various sub-
ordinate dialects spoken by the AmaBaca, Swazis and
others ; Chwana comprises Sutu and Pedi (besides
Rolong, Khatla, etc.) and Thonga (the h is necessary to
prevent confusion with at least three other Tongas), Ronga
and other languages of the Delagoa Bay region.

SOME PHONETIC LAWS

221

Five

Python
Elcphaut

Zulu Chwana Herero Venda Nyanja Swahili Ganda

-/i/anu

in-hlatu

iu-dlilovu

-///jano I -/ano
tlhware —

tlou cn-dyou

-/ai!U

n-dou

-sanu

n-satu

n-jobvu

-/ano

chatu
n-dovu

-/ano

in-jovu

same sound as the Chwana lateral in the
corresponding word, though written differently),
is represented in the other languages either by
5 or (dental) /, except in the case of the
Swahili for * python/ to which we must return
presently, dhl or //, on the other hand are
represented either by 7 {dy is probably in some
cases nearer the sound) dental rf, or (in
languages not included in the table) ^, dz^ or s
(Pokomo nzovUj Giryama ndzovu, Konde
i'Sofu) .

(The names for * python' used in Herero and
Ganda seem to come from a different root,
and I have not been able to get the Venda
word. Ronga n-hlam keeps the lateral and,
like Chwana, substitutes r for t)

The apparent anomaly of the Swahili 4ano
and chaUi requires a little further explanation.
In the Mombasa dialect there are two kinds of
/, in that of Zanzibar only one is recognised in
practice. They may be distinguished here

222 SOME PHONETIC LAWS

(though this book, on principle, tries as far as
possible to avoid diacritic marks) as / and t.
In Mombasa printed books — the former, as
the more usual sound, is left unmarked, the
latter is underlined, or printed in italics, or
distinguished in some other way. t is pro-
nounced with the tip of the tongue against the
hard palate, t %vith it touching — or even
between — the front teeth. Get a Mombasa
native to pronounce, first -tahc and then -tano,
and, if you have even a moderately good ear?
you cannot help hearing the difference.

Now many words (but not ^11) which at
Mombasa have t, as fita * hide,' teza * dance,'
jito * eye,' are at Zanzibar pronounced with
what (with apologies to the I. A. P.) I will
write ch : ficha, cheza, jicho. Therefore chatu
is the Zanzibar form, which, - logically, at
Mombasa, should be tattc. But I am not sure
that it is so, •never, to my remembrance,
having heard the latter pronunciation. In
fact, the only time I can recall hearing a
python mentioned in Swahili was by a Lamu
man, and I think — but would not swear to it —
that he said chatu. Krapf gives chatUj but as
a quotation from Steere : it is possible that
some other word is used at Mombasa.

SOME PHONETIC LAWS 223

But, looking again at our table, and taking
it backwards — nj^ in Nyanja does not always
correspond to a Zulu lateral. We have
njoka ' snake,' njati \buffalo,' and njuchi * bee,*
which in Zulu are in-nyoka, in- nyati, in-nyosi.
And sometimes we find Zulu words containing
ny not only in Nyanja, but other languages as
well, such as in-nyama * animal,' or * meat '-—
which only in one or two cases that I have
come across is nama (in Chwana and in Vcnda),
Before coming to a conclusion in a case like
this, one would want to be sure whether all the
ny sounds were the same. Some may, per-
haps, be quite properly written ny, while others
require the symbol which for typographical
reasons is banished from these pages — and as
to the sound, see Mr. Noel-Armfield's General

Phonetics, p. 63.

The comparative tables of words given in
the preceding chapters will already have called
attention to some correspondences, such as
that between Zulu t and Chwana r {which t
and which r are important points to be dealt

The presence or absence of a nasal before a
consonant makes some difference as regards sound-
ghiftings.

224 SOME PHONETIC LAWS

with by the phoneticiaa), the tendency of
Chwana (which it shares with Makua) to prefer
a voiceless stop to the same sound voiced and
preceded by a nasal {e.g., rata = tanda and podi^
= mbuzi) ; the curious absence ofp from a large
group of East African languages, etc.

In most of these latter, tHe place of p is

taken by A, in Ganda by w and in Pokomo,

by * bilabial /' — written bf by the German

missionaries who have chiefly cultivated this

language, and who spell the name of the people

* VVabfokomo/ Chwana, curiously enough,

shares this tendency to a certain extent, though

having no objection to the p-so^nd per se.

The word usually found as pa-nsi is le-hatse

or le-fatsCy (the pa- prefix being incorporated

with the noun-root) and p appears (as we saw

just now) where one would not expect it —

instead of mb or mv. There is no v in Chwana,

but * bilabial t; ' is a common sound, and — at

any rate in some dialects — takes the place of

* Here the o is an extra-narrow o (written in MeinhoPs
notation 9) which approaches u in sound : the word is
sometimes written poliy in which case it ijiust be
remembered the 1 is * cerebral 1/ If you try to sound 1
by turning the tip of ihe tongue up against the palate,
you will find that it approaches very nearly to the sound
of d similarly pronounced,

SOME PHONETIC LAWS 225

b also. P, unless nasalised (i.c^ preceded by
m) is not common in Kongo : perhaps the
words in which it unquestionably occurs
might on examination prove to be borrowed.

Herero has no s or z, — the sounds substituted
being those of th, voiced and voiceless {i.e.j
as in ' there ' and * thin ') for which I have
written dh and th respectively. Makua, too,
and Kikuyu, have no s sounds : the reason in
all three cases is supposed to be the custom
of extracting — or chipping away part of — two
front teeth. On the other hand, Nyanja,
Yao, and some others have no h, while Swahili
seems to have an exceptional preference for
the sound — as in the pronouns. (It should be
noted that it frequently arises, in this language,
from a contraction which one would scarcely
expect to produce it : e,g. ha- for ni-ka — not to
be confused with the negative ha — and hi- for
ni'ki-^ Conversely, sz-, in the negative of the
first person singular, is a contraction of
ha-ni.)

There are three main principles^ which we

^ Steere, A Handbook of the Swahili Language^
pp. 134, 137.

* See Meinhof, Lautlehre, pp. 12-16.

226 SOME PHOKETIC LAWS

must keep in mind when examining the struc-
ture of any language and its relation to others
of the same family. These are :

(i) Assimilation.

(2) Dissimilation.

(3) Transposition.

We might add False Analogy, which often
accounts for phenomena otherwise inexpUc-
able, as when in Swahili we have julika ' be
knowable/ fvom jua 'know,' which never can
have contained /, as we see by the noun mjuvi,
formed from it, and the parallel forms Nyanja
dziwa, Pedi tzeva. But, as most Swahili
verbs in -tm have dropped /, which reappears
in some of the derived forms {e.g. pindua
* turn over,' applied form pindulia, passive
pinduliwa) jua has been made to * follow the
rule,' like many modern EngHsh verbs
(^helped,' 'worked,' etc.).

(i) Assimilation may be (a) Incomplete, or
(b) Complete, and is applied both to vowels
and to consonants.

In Complete Assimilation, two different
sounds occurring in succession are made
exactly alike, for greater ease in pronun-

SOME PHONETIC LAWS 227

ciation. Sometimes the second is assimilated
to the first, sometimes the first to the one
following it. Thus, in Kond», the verb^^a
' hide ' (Zulu fihla^ Swahili fichuy fita) is
sometimes heard as fifa. Shambala, having
borrowed from Swahili the word for * paper/
kartasi (itself borrowed from the Arabic)
makes it into talatasi: the first consonant being
influenced (in spite of the intervening /=r) by
the t in the next syllable but one.

If a sound becomes, not e^cactly the same,
but only similar to that which precedes or
follows it, we have Incomplete Assimilation.
This is shown in Bantu when the prefix in- is
followed by a labial (/>, 6, /, v) — when the
dental nasal n is changed to the labial nasal*
m. Nj again (except in a few languages, e.g.,
Kongo and Makua), cannot be followed by /
or r and changes these sounds to d ; this is why
the plural of u-limi * tongue ' in Swahili is
{zi)n'dimiy instead of {zt)n4imi} In the same
way, verbs whose stem contains o or ^ take the

* Another case of Assimilation is when the two sounds
unite to form a third, different from either. We have
already met with the union of a and u to form o, and a
and i to form e. In Chwana, if n is followed by v, the
two together become^. See Lautlehre, p. 13.

228 SOME PHONETIC LAWS

terminntion -eka instead of -ika, because the
position of the tongue for e is nearer to that
for than is that for i. But these terminations
are in most (not in all) languages governed by
the Law of Vowel-Harmony^ which rests
partly on Assimilation, and partly on Dis-
similation and may be stated thus v If the
verb-stem contains a, 7, or u^ the termina-
tion has i: if or e^ it has e. So, in
Nyanja ang'-ana Mook' makes ang^an-ira^
angan-itsa, lira *weep,' lir-itsa ; f una ^ seek j^
fuU'itsa ; but yera *• be white ' yer-etsa and the
passive yer-etsedwa, and omba * strike ' omb-era,
omb-etsa. In the case of e, i, and the sounds
are made quite identical, or at any rate
brought nearer together ; in that of a and u
they are put further apart.

This last process belongs to Dissimilation.
This arises when two similar sounds occur in
close conjunction, and the speaker, to avoid
confusing them, lays special emphasis on one
and tends to slur- the other, in order to make a
difference between them. Some Yao verbs,
whose stems contain /, have a perfect in iter
instead of -He, as lolite^ from lola * look.*

Under this heading, special attention should
be directed to the law discovered by Dahl, a

SOME PHONETIC LAWS 229

missionary in Unyamwezi, and prevailing in
many East African languages — among others
that usually written as ^Kikuyu.' As a matter
of fact, the people call themselves A-giktiyu;
just as the infinitive prefix for certain
verbs is gti^ not kti^ and the word for a
stool is gi-ti^ not ki-ti. All these words, and
many more, are illustrations of Dahl's Law,
which may be stated thus :

When a voiceless stop {k, /, p) is followed by
another voiceless stop^ it becomes voiced. In
other words, if k is followed by either k^ t, or
pf it becomes g ; t becomes d, and p becomes b.

This principle, if it had been clearly recog-
nised by those who have dealt with Kikuyu,
would have saved them a good deal of trouble.
In Mr. Barlow's Tentative Studies (p. 5) it is
mentioned as the* * Euphonic Change of ^,'
and no doubt the fact that Kikuyu has neither
p nor (except nasalised) d helped to obscure the
real bearmgs of the case. But the matter
stands exactly as it does in Shambala, Bondei
and Nyamvvezi — probably also in Yao, where
we have nguku * fowl ' (Nyanja, nkuku) mbeko
* fire-stick,' which elsewhere would be mpeko.

Nyamwezi : rnbeho 'cold ' {mpepo : the second j^ has

become h).

230 SOME PHONETIC LAWS

deka * cook ' (elsewhere teka),
'datu for 'tatu * three.'

ShambalA : m-gate * bread ' (Swahili m-kate).

Transposition may occur in two forms :
syllables may be transposed, as in Venda,
where gidima * run ' is sometimes heard as
digma, and Nyanja, where * cough ' is either
sokoiiwla or kosomola. Or a vowel in one
syllable may intrude into another, as in the
Konde perfect of -eh^ha^ * be white,' which is
-elwiphe, for -ehiphile ; the / being dropped and
the i taken into the previous syllable. Other
interesting examples of this and similar
changes may be found in the sections of
Meinhof's Lautlehre already referred to.

A study of General Phonetics is indispens-
able to anyone taking up an African language.
As already stated, this is a subject with which
I have not attempted to deal, my object being
merely to give an outline of such grammatical
features as are common to the Bantu speech-
family. A list of the most useful grammars,
dictionaries, and other helps towards the
acquisition of particular languages will be
found in the Bibliography.

* This ph is an aspirated p.

SOME PHONETIC LAWS 231

After embarking on the study ot some one
language, it will be well (though I am aware
that, till the English edition is published, this
is more or less a counsel of perfection) to go
systematically through Meinhof 's Lautlehre der
Bantusprachen or, at any rate, Chapters I. to III.
and the one dealing with the language nearest
to that on which the student may be engaged.
But it is a book that cannot be used to much
profit, unless one has some little notion of at
least one Bantu language to begin with.

As the readers which* a book of this kind
can hope to meet with are Necessarily limited
in number, and (in one way or another) some-
what specialised in outlook, we may be excused
if, feeling a sort of personal interest and
parting from them not without regret, we
remind them in the words of Brother Hyacinth
that :

* If any be desirous of learning ....
beyond what is asserted in the preceding
pages for the more easy understanding of
beginners, and their careful recollection, he
ought also sedulously to study and labour in
learning what follows . • .* . and the
preludes of other matters worthy to be hwwn.'

APPENDIX I.

TEXTS
I. Zulu

(a) Why the Rock-Rabbit has no Tail*

Ku-tiwa/ im-bila' ya-swela* um-sila'

It is said, rock-rabbit was- without tail

ngo-ku-yalezela'^ ezi-nye^ Ngokuba^

with-giving-a-message (to) others. Because

na-mhla^ kw-abiwa^ imi-sila la-li-

on the day (when) there were distributed tails it had

buyis-ile^° i-zulu; za-puma-ke^^ ezi-nye

clouded-over the sky ; they went out so (the) others

uku-ya-'u-tata^* imisila lapa^^ i-tatwa kona";

to take tails where they were taken ;

y-ahlul-eka^^ e-nye uku-ba i-hambe^^ na-zo^^

he was prevented another that he might go with them,

ya-yaleza ezi-lwan-eni^^ zonke ezi-ne-misila^^

he sent-a- message to-animals all who with tails,

ya-ti, ' 0, nina ba-kwitP, a-no-ngi-patela'°

he said, * O, ye our (people), do ye get-for mc

owami^^ umsila; ngikohl-we*' uku-pama

that which is mine tail ; I cannot come-out

em-godi-ni, ngokuba izulu li-ya-na.'

from-hole, because sky is-raining.'

* From Callaway's Nursery Tales, Traditions and Histories oj the
Zulus (1868), p. 255.

232

APPENDIX I. 233

Za-buya-ke ezi-nye nemisila ; leyo^ yona

They returned, so, others with tails ; that-one he

a-i-ba-nga i-sa-ba^^ na-msila ngo-ku-enqena^

he was not he still being with tail with being-disinclined

uku-puma, izulu li-buyisile. Ya-lahla konke

to come-out, sky it has clouded-over. He lost all

oku-hle ngomsila; ngokuba umsila u-ya-siza

good with a tail ; because tail it helps

eku-zi-pung-enP ; ngaloko-ke

in-driving-away-from-oneself (flies) ; and so in this way,

imbila a-i-sa-zi-pungi nga'

rock-rabbit does not now drive away from himself

luto."

with (any) thing.

Se-ku^^ izwi eli-kulu loko 'ku-libala kwe-mbila

Now it is word great that loitering of rock-rabbit

ku'bantu^ aba-mnyama ; ba-kuluma ngaloko

to people black ; they say with that

'ku-tsho kisembila, ku-tiwa kw-aba-nga-zi-

saying of rock-rabbit, it is said to those-not-tiring-them-

katazi ngaloko oku-tandwa-yo aba-nye, n-aba-tsho-

selves with that which is liked (by) others,and those who

yo kwabanye, ku-tiwa, ' Bani,^

say to others (to act for them) it is said, * So-and-so,

a-w-azf^ ukuba loko 'kutsho kwako kw-okut^^

do you not know that that saying your of saying,

'' A-no-ngi-patela *'^^ — a-w-azi na ukuba umu-nta

" Bring for me " — do you not know that a person

ka-pat-el-wa^^ omu-nye, uma into leyo

not is-carried-for (by) another, when thing that

i-lingene^ abakona? 0!

it is-enough (only for) those (who are) there ? O !

imbila ya-swela umsila ngokuyalezela.

rock- rabbit went without tail by sending-message.

234 APPENDIX I.

Nawe, musa ukw-enza'^ njenge-mbila^^ ;

And you do not do like (the) rock-rabbit ;

ku-yi-ka-zuza^ lu-to ngokuyalezela ; zi-hamb-ele^

you will not get anything by sending-word; go for yourself

ngokwako/ I njalo-ke in-daba ye-

as to what is yours.* It (is) thus, then, story of

mbila. A-i-kuluma-nga yona ngo-mlomo, ukuti,

rock-rabbit. He did not speak he with mouth to say,

' A-no-ngi-patela ' ; kwa-Yela^^ izwi kodwa^

* Bring for me ' ; there came forth word only

ngokuba izi-lwane zi ne-misila/^ kepa yona

because animals they (are) with tails, but he

a-i-na 'msila^^; kwa-nga^^ ya-swela umsila

not-(is)-with tail ; it (was) as if he went without tail

ngokuyaleza, na ngokuba izulu imbila

by sending-word, and because sky rock-rabbit

'i-ya-l-esaba^^ uma *^li-bayisile ; a-i-

he is fearing it if it has clouded-over ; he does not

pumi emgodini uma li-ng-enzi^ izi-kau

come out from hole if it not making gleams

zoku-sa.

of sunshine.

^^
NbTES

^ Tiwa, passive of // ' say ' ; the prefix is that of Class 15,
which is used when there is no definite subject, like our * it,
or • there.'

2 A noun of Class 9, tlie prefix in- becomes im- before a
labial.

^ Swela • want,' ' lack.' Ya prefix of the past tense, agreeing
with imbila,

* Umsila^ a noun of the third class ; pi. imi-silat found in
next line but one.

** Yalezclat applied form of yaleza, ultimately from yala
' direct,' ' order ' ; yaleza means * give a message,' and takes the

APPENDIX I. 235

thing, not the person, as its direct object, whereas yalezcla
takes a direct object of the person by whom, (not to whom)
the message is sent. Ngoku- for nga-nku- : nga * by means of,*
prefixed to the infinitive.

8 ezi-nyt agreeing with izi-lwane 8 * animals,' understood.

^ For nga tikuba^ lit. * with being ' — i,g, * because.'

® namhla^ for na umu-hla^ often used for * to-day.'

* abiwa passive of nba * distribute.' Monosyllabic verbs,
and those beginning with a vowel, make their passive in -iwa
instead of -wa,

*° Agrees with iziiln^ which, by a not infrequent exception,
follows its verb. Pluperfect tense ; the Perfect having both
the Past {la) and present (li) prefixes before it. Buyisa, lit.
* bring back,' is the causative of buya * return ' ; the idea being
that the sky ' brings back ' the clouds from below the horizon.

^^ kc an enclitic particle, usually rendered * then,' * just,' * so,*
etc. Unlike the interrogative ;m, it draws forward the accent
of the word to which it is attached, so that we pronounce
zapiimdke, instead of accenting the syllable pu^ as would
otherwise be done. It is the subjunctive of the auxiliary ka
(Colenso, First Steps, p. 132).

" This is a future infinitive, for uktiyakutata : the k of ku is
often dropped.

*^ Lapa • here,' followed by koua, has a relative force, the
two together being equivalent to * where ' (not the interroga-
tive * where,' which is-/>t). Kona is the pronoun of Class 15 —
or, more properly, of Class 17, which in Zulu has been merged
in 15 — and usually means * the place,' * there ' (not adverbially,
like lapo, lapaya, but more in the sense of the French j').

^* Neuter-passive of ahltila • overpower ' ; the subject is $nyc 9
which seems to refer in a loose way to imbila, properly, it
should be esi-nye 7 agreeing with isi-lwatte * animal,* which
seems to be required by the sense.

^^ Subjunctive, agreeing with enye. There is no distinction
of tense in this mood.

*^ na-zOi agreeing with czi-nye (izilwaue) above.

" Ezi-lwan-eni, locative of izilwanc. It is not very usual
to have nouns denoting living beings in the locative, though
we sometimes find ebantwini (more often ku* bantu). Here it
is used because yaleza cannot take a direct object of the
person : it is therefore equivalent to a dative. Isilwanc for
isi-lo-ane is the diminutive (suffix -ana or -ane) of isi-lo * wild
animal,' but generally used for * leopard.' Isilwanc means a

236 APPENDIX 1.

wild animal in general, — but more especially a carnivorous or
noxious one, whereas in-nyamazane is *game,' and more
particularly * buck.'

" Relative construction {ezi=a-\-izi ; nemisila=na'\-imisila)
literally * which they with tails ' — i.e, • which have tails.'

*^ hakwiti or bakiti * my ' (or * our ') * people * — ki=ku^
followed by the * prepositional ' form of the personal pronoun
(always in the plural). See Colenso, Firsl Steps , §91.

•° a-no-ngi-patda^ Future Indicative, used authoritatively for
Imperative (Firs/ 5/6/>s, §222), VHth a, prefix of Imperative;
no=niyu'u=niyaku : see tirst Sieps, ^241.

^* oivamij relative form of the possessive=* that which is
mine.' It is generally used for special emphasis, * my own,'
etc. First Steps ^ §i37«

^ Perf. passive of kohla, proprrly * escape,' * slip (the
memory of) ' — so that the usual meaning of kohlwa is * forget '
— i»e, 'be escaped' by the thing forgotten. The use here
seems somewhat unusual, but probably means * coming-out
has escaped me ' — i.i, is beyond my power.

^^ leyo, demonstrative of CI. 9 * that one ' (or raiher * the
aforesaid one ') — agreeing vvith imbila, though the antecedent
is not expressed in this sentence.

^* aibanga negative past of 6a ' be ' ; a neg. prefix, i pronoun
agreeing with- imbila understood, isaba is best taken as a
participle, sa here=* still ' ; the two verbs together may be
taken as a compound tense and translated ' he no longer had.'
Cf. First Steps f §271.

*^ For nga-nku-enqena : nga, instrumental = * with ' or
* through.'

2^ Locative of the infinitive ; zi is the reflexive pronoun.

^■^ U{ln)-tOf usually uucontracted, because of the mono-
syllabic stem. Here ugaHutOy not ngoluto, because following
a negative, when the initial vowel is always elided, never
contracted.

^^ Verb ' to be ' understood. The subject with which the
pronoun agrees is ukulibala. Concerning se see the chapter
on ' The Particles Sa and Se ' in Colenso's First Steps, pp.
112-116, especially §274.

^ kn' bantUy more usual than ebantwini, A little later we
hnd kwabanye (uhecoimwg w before a), not kii* baity c ; but
ku' bantu seems to be preferred, — perhaps because kwa' bantu
is used with a different shade of meaning — * at (the house -of)
the people ' — like chez»

APPENDIX I. 237

^ Uhani *who* (interrogative, not relative) is sometimes
used in this way, * when the name of a person is not known or
not immediately remembered,' or in a familiar and slightly
contemptuous style of address, ' You, sir! ' *you, fellow 1 ' (u
is always dropped in the vocative.)

^1 Awazi for a-u-azi, u becoming w before the vowel-stem.
Azi is one of the few verbs which end in i and therefore cannot
change their termination in the negative.

^2 Kwokuti for kwa tikuti * of saying '—the possessive particle
agreeing with the preceding loko 'kutsho.

^ The sentence breaks off, and the question begins afresh.

^^ Ka, not a, is the negative for the third person singular, or
nouns of the first class ; a being used in the subjunctive
and in some forms of the relative, as the pronoun of the
third person singular. Patela applied form of pata * carry *
(in the hand or on the arm— not on the head, which is twala).
This is an instance of the Bantu preference for the passive
when European languages would have the active construction.

^* Linga * try,' * test,' * strive ' (in some languages, eg,,
Nyanja, it means • measure ') ; the reciprocal, lingana (perf.
lingene) means ' try or strive with,' ' vie with, • be as large as,'
and so 'be sufficient for,' as luubila ulingene labo' bantu *the
maize is sufficient for those people.' It may take a direct
"object, as in this sentence, and in the text [abakona)^ or be
followed by na, Kulingene, without an object, means • it is
fair, fitting, reasonable.'

^ The Negative Imperative is the Infinitive preceded by
musa, I do not know that any satisfactory explanation of this
has been given, but sa is a negative particle in some languages.

^^ For njcnga (' like ') imbila.

^ Negative Future (2nd person sing.) o£ ztiza * obtain.' Ku
instead of a-u (which would contract into 0), probably to avoid
confusion with the same person of the relative.

8^ Hambela here Qieans * go for,' and not, as most commonly ,
* go to ' '=* visit '). Zi the reflexive pronoun. The Subjunc-
tive is generally used instead of the Imperative, when an
object-pronoun precedes.

^0 Past tense (ku-a-vcla) with the indefinite subject ku ;
instead of saying izwi la-veU, This construction so exactly
corresponds to our idiom of beginning with * there ' and letting
the real subject follow the verb, that we can translate quite
literally.

*^ The adjective -odwa * only ' (which, like -onke * all,' takes

238 APPENDIX I.

the concords of a pronoun, not of an adjective), with the con-
cord of the 15th class — *.^., agreeing with an undefined subject.
It is often used as here, adverbially for * only,' and thence easily
glides into the very common sense of * but,' in which it is
synonymous with kepa,

^* Note the difiference between these two words : the first
contracts because the verb (understood) is affirmative ; the
second elides because it is negative.

^* Nga as an auxiliary is * used to express a wish or like-
ness' and is followed by a finite verb. Compare wanga
angawcla * he wished that he might cross.'

** An unusual order of words, but not unknown.

** ng' here stands for nga^ the negative particle for the
Imperative, Infinitive and Participles: see First Steps, §§259,
263.

Connected Translation

It is said that the rock-rabbit {Hyrax) is without a
tail, because he sent a message through someone else
(instead of going himself). For, on the day when tails
were distributed (to all tBe animals), the sky clouded
over ; the others went out to get their tails where they
were to be got, but he was prevented from going with
them ; he sent a message to all -the animals who had
tails (ix,y all who subsequently received them), saying,
* O ye my people, do ye obtain my tail for me ; I cannot
come out of my hole, because the sky is raining.' So
the others returned with their tails, but he had none,
through being disinclined to come out when it was
cloudy. He lost all the advantage of a tail, for a tail is
useful in driving away flies ; and so the rock-rabbit has
nothing now with which to drive them away.

And so that loitering of the rock-rabbit has become a
gieat proverb among the black people ; they make use
of that saying of his with regard to those who will not
take any trouble about what other people like, or who
tell other people to do things for them. * So and so!
As for that saying of yours "Just bring it for me,"

APPENDIX I. 239

don't you know that you cannot have anything brought
for you by another person, when there is only just
enough for those who are on the spot ? Oh ! — the rock-
rabbit had to do without a tail because he sent a message.
Do not be like him ; you will not get anything by
sending word through another ; go and attend to your
own affairs for yourself.*

This is the story of the rock-rabbit; he did not
(exactly) say, with his mouth, * Bring it for me * ; the
proverb only arose because (the other) animals have
tails, but he has none. It was as though he went without
a tail by sending word and because he feared the
threatening look of the sky ; for he does not come out
of his hole except when the sun shines.

(b) Extracts from Native Letters'^'
Sa-fika 6 St. Helena, kwa-t' uba^ ngi-pume

We arrived at St. H., it befell when I came out

em-kunj-ini^ aba-kitP ba-jabula kakulu uku-ngi-

from the ship our people rejoiced greatly to see

bona, nga-puma ngi-nga-Ba-tandi^ na kancane

me, I came out I no longer wishing even a little

uku-hlala pakati^ kwomkumbi, so-ku-ngi-

to stay inside of the ship, it having already

gulisa.^ Yebo-ke, 'Nkosazana ya-kiti

made me ill. Yes, indeed, lady of our (country)

e-tandeka-yo/ ama-kosi lawa a-kwa' Zulu^

who is worthy to be loved, chiefs these of the Zulus

ay' etanda^ kakulu uku-finyeleW° England

they are wishing greatly to reach England

a-bone aba-ntu nezwe la-kona

that they may see the people and country of there

♦ Written from St. Helena, in 1896-7, by a Natal Zulu, employed
as secretary and teacher to the exiled chiefs.

240 APPENDIX I.

nomuzr^ lowo o-dumileyo^^ was' e London.^^ . .

and town that famous of at London. . .

Ngezindaba e-zi-Yela e-kaya^' kiti, ngi-zwile

As to news which come from home our, I have heard

ukuti aba-ntwana bami ba ya-gula^" kakulu ngo-

that children my are ill greatly with

mkuhlane. Nokuti um-kuhlane w-andile^'

fever. And that fever has increased

pakati kwezwe, kodwa-ke kuhle, nje,

in the midst of the land, but yet it is well, indeed,

noma^^ ku-njalo/^ ngoba i-kona innyanga

even though it is thus, because there is a doctor

ya-kiti leyo o-y-azi-yo^^ nawe; yena

of our (people) that-one whom you know, you also ; she

u-ya-b-elapa, kambe,^ labo aba-gula-yo,

is treating them, of course, those who are ill,

njengokumiswa^^ kwake y'inkosi^

according to the being made-to-stand her by the chief

uyise, aba-ntu ba-ya-m-bonga kakulu,

her father, people « are praising her greatly,

ba-ya-jabula nga-ye^ ezwe-ni lonke las'

they are rejoicing on her account in the land all of
Ekukanyeni^\ . . .

Ekukanyeni. . . .

Nkosazana — Omunye um-ntwana wenkosi yakwa'

Madam — One child of the chief of

Zulu, u Ndabuko, u-zwile kimi^

The Zulus, Ndabuko, he has heard from me (when)

ngi-m-xoxele^" indaba^^ ngawe ya leso' slzwe^

I related to him story from you of that tribe

esi-mnyama o-wa-u-hlezP pakati kwa-so,^ na

black which you stayed among them, and

ngezinncwadi lezo o-wa-u-zinge^ u-ngi-tsheleka

from the books those which you used you lending me

APPENDIX I. 241

zona aku-ba ngi-f ande ngesi-kati leso e-nga-ngi-gula^^

them that I might read at the time that when I was ill

nga-so kiti Ekukanyeni. Nga-loko

at it at our (home) at Ekukanyeni. Therefore

u-ya-tanda kakula, u-ya-cela akuba wena,

he wishes greatly, he asks that you,

Nkosazana, u-m-xoxele izin-daba za labo

Madam, you would relate to him affairs of these

'bantu. Ngi-m-landisile^ futi uku-ti aba-nye

people. I have narrated to him also that some

baku lezo' zizwe^ ba-kuluma ngo-limi^ Iwakwa'

of those tribes they speak with tongue of the

Zulu impela, ngitsho^ labo a-ba-biza u Nknlankalu

Zulus indeed, I mean those who call God

ngokuti 'Mulungu,'^ nabanye aba'lalimi Iwabo^

by saying * Mulungu,* and others who tongue their

lu-sondele^ kwolwetu ; a-ngia-jabala^ a-qobo'°

approaches to ours ; he would rejoice in truth

a Ndabuko uma wena, Nkosazana, ti-nga-m-tamela

Ndabuko if you. Madam, you could send him

in-ncwadi etile'^ (Book), kumbe^ u-m-tamele

book some or send him

in-cwadi (Note) yo-ku-m-xoxela^ indaba ya labo

letter to relate to him story of those

'bantu noku-m-tshela ukuti lezo' zizwe z'ake^'

people and tell him that those tribes they have built

kuyipi^ in-dawo, izi-zwe ezi^igaki, za-Yela-pi^

in which place, tribes how many? (and)'Where did they

na?

come from ?

Nkosazana, njengokutembisa kwami ukuti

Madam, as to promising my that

ngi-ya-ku-tuma^^ ezi-nye izi-bongo zama-kosi akwa'

I will send some praises of chiefs of the

242 APPENDIX I.

Zulu kuwe nga lesi 'sitimela/^ a-ngi-na-wo^^

Zulus to you with this steamer, I have not

ama-ndhla ukuba ngi-ku-tumele'^ namuhla, kodwa

strength that I might send you to-day, but

ngi-ya-ku-ku-tamela'^ ngesitimela esi-za-yo/^

I will send you by the steamer which comes.

Ngi-sa-hamba^^ kahle em-zimb-eni wami, uku-gula

I now go will, in (as to) body my, illness

loko e-nga-ngi-na-ko'^ Ekukanyeni a-ku-ka-ngi-

that which I (was) with it at Ekukanyeni has not again

Yukf^ lapa. • . .

arisen (upon) me here. . . .

Magema Magwaza.

NOTES

1 Kwati, past tense, like the preceding safika, but with the
indefinite subject kUf 15. An idiomatic use of the verb ti * say '
(cf. First Steps, §290), which may often be rendered, * and so','
or * once upon a time.' Uba, a contraction of ukuba *to be,'
is here equivalent to «wa * when.' (First Steps, p. 81.) It is
followed by the subjunctive ngi-pume.

^ emkunjinif locative of umkumbi 3 ' ship.' mb becomes njin
accordance with the Zulu law that a labial is never followed
by w. There is no apparent w here, such as we find in
endhlw-ini (from indhlu, u becoming ze^ before -ini,h\it the form
endhl-ini is also in use) ; but it is probably introduced into
the termination by analogy with the w of the stem : umkumbuf-
ini, for nmkumbu-ini,

8 AbakitiWi. 'those of at us,' cf. First Steps, §91, and ante
p. 236, note 19.

^ This is not the Potential Mood (First Steps, §247), but the
Negative Participle (i^., §269). Sa, * when used with a
negative verb, may be generally expressed by any more, any
longer, at all, etc' (ib. §271).

* This is an instance of a word compounded with pa (like
pansi, peziilu, pumbili, etc.), though that preposition (or rather
pronoun) is no longer used in Zulu. Um-kati 3 * space inter-

APPENDIX I. 243

vening between any two things' preserves the root kaii

* between,' which is still so used in Swahili, though not in Zulu.
(There is an adverb kati * although,' * in spite of,* — which may
have the same origin, though possibly a derivative of ti.)

" This is not the infinitive, but a participle, having for its
subject the pronoun ku, which may be the indefinite subject
(* it,' or * there ') or may agree with ukuhlala * the staying.*
So=set the vowel being modified under the influence of u in
the next syllable. Se has tne force of * now,' * by this tune,'
•already,' etc. (First Steps^ §§274, 275.) Gulisa^ causative of
gula • be ill ' ; -ngi- is the object-pronoun, first person.

' Tandcka, neuter-passive of tanda * love ' (Firsi Steps, §86) ;
for the relative etandekayo, see ih., § 132. c^a+i is the Relative
Prefix, because agreeing with inkosazana 9.

^ A possessive particle agreeing with amakosi 6 (exceptional
plural of inkosi 9 — see First Steps, §38). Kwa *Zulu : kwa * at '
(= French chez) — see First Steps, §92 ; u Zulu (the vowel elided
is probably u=ulu) used for * the whole Zulu nation * ; a kwd*
Zulu is used instead of the locative — as' ezulwini because the
latter would mean * in ' (or * from ') • the sky ' (ib., §79).

^ A pronoun agreeing with amakosi* A-ya-ipa) etanda, lit.

* they are, they loving * : the verb -ba being understood.

^0 fifty elela (properly a double applied form oifinya, but the
latter does not seem to be used in any sense recognisable as
cognate) ' reach, as a traveller a place,' followed by the
locative. (* England,' as it begins with c, seems to be treated
as a locative, without further modification.)

" Nomuzi=na umuzi 3, * kraal; people of a kraal, family';
hence used for * village ' and * town.' (Nyanja mM-(fzi, Swahili

m-ji,)

^2 Literally * that (tow^n) which has thundered': dum-ile
perf. of duma : the usual expression for * renowned,' * glorious,'
etc. Cf. Psalm viii., i : igama lako lidumc kangaka emhlabeni
wonke, lit. * thy name has thundered how greatly in all the
earth.'

^* 5 is inserted before the. Locative when it follows a
Possessive Particle. See First Steps, §69.

" Locative of ikaya * home,' * dwelling.' The word is found
among the * Nyika ' tribes of East Africa {e,g,, the Giryama) to
denote the principal (fortified) village of the Tribe, For the
absence of the locative termination, see First Steps, §68.

i« * Emphatic Present' (Colenso) or • Present Progressive '
(Bryant) tense,

244 APPENDIX I.

" For u-andile ; u agreeing with umkuhlane 3, which is
(Bryant) * a general name for any acute disease accompanied
by fever, such as ague, influenza,' etc., etc.

17 7iowrt=na uma. For uma * if,* * when,' etc., see First
Steps, §81.

" Ku is here (as in the preceding ktthle) the indefinite
subject, with the verb * to be ' understood.

^' Objective Relative (First Steps j §134) y (=>'», for i)
agreeing with innyanga 9. The reference is to Miss Agnes
Colcnso.

^ For kambCf see First StepSj p. 75.

*^ For njenga ukumiswa, Misa, causative of ma * stand,'
means, in the first instance * make to stand,' estaWish,
* ordain, as a law or cn^om,' etc., whence the present sense
is easily inferred. The infinitive is here used as a noun of
the 15th class (8th in Zulu grammars), with which the
possessive kwakc agrees.

" The Passive (ukutttiswa) is followed by the Copula
denoting the Agei)t (First Steps^ §100 et seq,, and ante, p. 114).
The * Chief ' is Bishop Colenso.

*® ye, pronoun of the third person singular (First Steps,
§104) following, and governed by, uga (ib., §§93-99), and sec
ante p. 91.

'* For this locative see First Steps, §69, and ante, p. 243,
note 13.

^ kimi for knmi, like kiti, etc. — First Steps^ §90,

2* X, in Zulu books, stands for the * lateral click,* made by
pressing the tongue against the side teeth and then with-
drawing it suddenly. Xoxele, perf. of applied form, instead of
xoxel'ile — First Steps, §236.

*7 For the various senses of indaba, see Colenso's or
Bryant's Dictionary, s.v, Daba (in).

^ isi- xwe * tribe ' — the root of i(li)-zwe * country,' with the
7th prefix — see ante, pp. 45, 55.

^ Relative, with object in an oblique case (First Steps, §134):
viz., pakaii kwa-so (so pronoun agreeing with isi-xwe 7).— o-
is the Relative (2nd person singular) subject, wa- the subject-
pronoun of the 2ud person combined with (Past) tense-
particle. — Pakati, used prepositionally, is always followed
by kiva.

^ Relative construction similar to owauhleni, Zinge is a

APPENDIX I. 245

(deiective) auxiliary verb, used (First Steps, §334) * to express
** repeatedly," " continually," " habitually," etc.* Zona (agree-
ing with izinncwadi 10) is governed by tsheleka, which, like all
verbs of giving, etc. (see First Steps, §340), takes a double
accusative ; but only one objective pronoun can be prefixed
to the verb., viz,, here, that of the person, -ngi-,

8^ A similar relative, but with the subject in the first person
(prefix e-). The tense is the Past, which when combined witb
a Relative (cf. owauhlexi, above) takes the prefixes both of past
and present {nga-, ngi), Ngaso agrees with isikati 7.

" Perfect of land-isa, causative of landa * follow * : * make to
follow ' — hence * narrate.' •

^ Literally * of at those tribes,' one would have expected
ba lezo'ziz we— hut the construction is like Iwa kwa^Zulu^
a little further on, and cf. -^ote 8 above. Abanye must be
translated * some,' or * others,' according to the context.

5* For nga+tt(lu)-iimi. The usual word for * language.*

** Literally * I say '

^ Muluitgu is used by the Yaos, Anyanjfi and other eastern
tribes. It is difficult to believe, with Bleek, that it is the
same word as Unknlunkulu, since the latter is plainly derived
from 'kuln, a root existing in all the languages where
Mulungu is found. Unless, indeed, some other form was
anciently in use among the Zulus, which only became
Unknlunkulu through an adaptation of popular etymology.

^' Relative in the Possessive — see First Steps, 1 133.

^ lu, pronoun agreeing with «/*;»» 11; sondele, perfect of
sondcla (see above, note 26). Sond-ela is properly an applied
form of sonda, which, however, does not seem to be used.

83 Potential Mood.

*° U(lu)-qobo (q expresses the palatial click), properly * sub-
stance of a thing,' * self,' * person,' • reality,* is used adverbially
to express * really and truly' (Coleuso).

** Tile is an adjective meaning * certain, when the name or
nnmber is not known ' (Colenso). It takes the prefix o- with
CI. I, like o-mnyama, etc. ; hence inncwadi etilc, not entile^
The original meanings of inncwadi (Colenso's Dictiofiary) are :
* mark, made to show whether any one has entered a hut in
the owner's absence; mark or sign told to a person who
enquires his way by which he will know whether he is going
right or not ; tribal token, as marks cut in the skin,' etc., and
hence ' token generally, proof,' and, since the introdaction of
writing, * paper, letter, book.' The writer has been compelled

246 APPENDIX I.

to distinguish between the two last-named senses by the
addition of English words. The sense in which he here uses
eliie seems to be equivalent to * some ... or other.*

*^ kiimhe^ * perhaps, with the idea of hope or expectation '
(Colenso), but also equivalent to the conjunction ,*or.' The
latter is often expressed (as in Nyanja) by a word meaning

* perhaps ' — the possible alternatives being set before the
mind as conjectures.

*^ An example of the quasi-parliciple mentioned on p. ii8,
yokii' =ya ukti' : ya referring to inncwadi,

** ake perf. of aka * build,* which is often used in the sense
of * live.' Akelana (reciprocal applied form) means * to live
near together,' — ht. * to build for ' (or * with respect to ') each
other : hence owakeUne * neighbour.*

^^ yipi, interrogative, * which'? (of two or more), agrees
with indawo 9 following it. -pi means either * where ? * or

* which ? ' (see First Steps^ §§169-171). Yipi, as used here is the
object following ku : as subject it would have to be preceded
by the copula {iyHpi), -pi * where ? ' takes the inseparable
subject-pronoun as prefix : upi ? bapi ? lipi ? ipi ? etc.

" -/*, * where?* is sometimes suffixed to the verb in this
way, and draws the accent forward {zaveldpi)»

*'' This is the Future, * I will send,* not the Present, with
object-pronoun, * I am sending you * ; tuma in the simple form
cannot take a person as object ; to do this it must be put into
the applied form (tumela)^ as will be seen a little lower down.

*® An adaptation of the English word ' steamer.* St being
a difficult combination in Zulu, i is inserted between the two
consonants, and the first syllable being taken for the 8th
prefix (m-), the plural is izi-timela, (There is a genuine Zulu
word isitimela, meaning * darkness ' — see Colenso's Dic^iowflry,
s.v., p. 587). The §ame tendency is observable in Swahili,
where the Arabic kitah * book ' becomes ki-tabu^ pi. vi-tahu.
Vi-mni has even been heard at Zanzibar, as the plural of

* (lamp-) chimney.'

^' Literally, ' not I with it ' — wo * prepositional form ' of the
pronoun of CI. 6. A mandhla has no singular.

^ Here tumcla takes the direct object of the person, and,
the verb being in the future, ku is repeated, or rather two
different ^m -particles follow each other. See note 47 above.

^^ esi', Relative Particle agreeing with isi-timela 8.

*' sa may be rendered by *now,* * still,* * already.' See
First Steps, chapter XVI.

APPENDIX 1. 241

*" Relative — ^the construction like engangigula (see note 31),
except that the verb is understood and the whole drawn into
one word. The pronoun -ko refers to uku-gula,

" Vuka *rise up from a recumbent posture; . . .
rise in anger, be in a towering passion* (Colenso). The
personal object -ngi- is unusual with this verb, but may be
used because it is taken in the sense of ' attack,' which is
perhaps not incompatible with the second meaning given
above. In that case, however, one would have expected the
Applied form, vukeUf which is, in fact, so used ; SLud^uki may
be a mere slip on the writer's part. For the auxiliary ka see
First Steps f §315.

Connected Translation

We arrived at St. Helena, and when I landed from
the ship, our people were very glad to see me. I also
was very glad to land, having no desire to remain on
board any longer, as I had been very seasick. Yes
indeed ! dear lady coming from our country I these
chiefs of the Zulus wish very much to come to England,
to see that country and its people, and that famous city
of London. ... •

As to the news whichrhas reached us from home — I
have heard that my children are very ill with fever. In
fact, fever has been very prevalent in the country ; but
there is one very good thing, even though this is the
case — for there is that physician of our people whom
you also know, who is treating the sick according to the
instructions received by her from the Chief, her father.
The people praise her greatly, and they are rejoicing
through her in all the country-side of Ekukanyeni. . . .

Madam, — One of the chiefs of the Zulus, Ndabuko,
has heard from me a story which I related to him,
having heard it from you, of that tribe of black people
among which you (formerly) lived, and (gathered it)
from those books which you used to lend me to read, at
the time when. I was ill, at our home, Ekukanyeni.

Therefore he wishes very much to ask that you,
Madam, would relate to him the affairs of those people.

248 APPENDIX 1.

I have also told him that some of those tribes s{>eak a
language exactly the same as that of the Zulus — I mean
those who call God by the name of Mulungu — and
others whose language resembles ours (though not quite
the same). He would be very glad if you could send
him some booWbr other, or perhaps a letter, to give him
an account of those people and tell him what place they
live in, and how many tribes there are, and where they
came from. Madam, as to my promise that I would
send you by this mail, some of the traditional songs
praising the Zulu Kings, — I am not able to do so to-day,
but I will send you (some) by the next steamer. I am
now very well in health, as that illness which I had at
Ekukanyeni has not again attacked me here. . . .

2. Herero.*
Siory of the Old Woman with the Bag
Pa-ri^ omu-kadhe-ndu^ oma-karu-kadhe,'

There was woman old,

ngu-ya-twa* OYa-natye* m'ondyatu.^ E-yuYa^ri-mwe

who put children into bag. Day one

pa-rire^ oYa-natye, OYa-kadhona OYengi,' Ya-ire^^

there were children, girls many, they went

k' oku-nyanda" k' e-rindi/" n' a-rire'' tyi"

to play in pool, and it happened that

Ya-hukura otu-Yanda^^ n' omi-tombe^" n*

they took off little-skirts and necklaces and

OYi-mbakutu" n' ou-ndyendye^® n'odho-mbongora^'

(see note) and beads and (see note)

n' a-Ye-pundu*^ m' omeYa. Kombunda" omu-atye

and they descended into water. Afterwards child

* Published by C. G. Biittner in Ztitschrift fur afrihtmische

Sprachen, Vol. I. (1887).

APPENDIX I. 249

u-mwe wa-tarere^ kokure, n' apira tyVa-tara

one she looked far, and it happened that she saw

omu-kadhendu omokurukadhe, ngu n' oka-ti m' eke

woman old, who with little-stick in hand,

OFu-hoFo-ti,^ n' ondyatu p' etambo. Nu^ ingwl

a-long-stick, and bag on back. And that

omu-kadhona wa-tyere k' oYa-kvawo^: 'Indyea^

girl said to (the) others : * Come

ta-tupokee^ 'ka-karakadhe^ ingwina,

let us run-away-from litlle old-woman . yonder,

nga-twa oYa-natye m' ondyatu.* Indino^ ty'a-tya^

who puts children into bag. Now when sfie said

nai, aYche^^ arire tyi Ya-piti^ m' e-rindi oku-

so all it happened that they came out from pool to

tupuka, nu auhe^ wa-torera oru-hira^ r-omu-

run-away, and every she took apron of

kwawo nu omitombe Yy-omu-kwawo^ tyinga Ya-ri

other and necklaces of other as they were

m' oru-haka r-oku-tupuka, ndino arire tyi

in haste of running-away, now it happened that

Ta-tupuka k' onganda.'^

they ran to kraal.

N' omuatye umwe ara-dhembire etanda^ e-porora'^

And child one she forgot (see note) (see note)

p' ehi.^ Ndino 'kakurukadhe arire ty'

on ground. Now little -old- woman it happened that

a-pingene p' epurura, , n'a-tora,

she followed (and came) on epurura, and picked-up,

arire ty' a-twa-mo m' ondyatu.^* Nn ing*

it happened that she put-in into bag. And that

omuatye umwe wa-tya: me-yaruka^ me-ka-pura^

child one she said : I return I go to ask

epurura randye k' omu-twa,^ oka-kurukadhe,

epurura my from Bushwoman, little-old-woman,

250 APPENDIX 1.

tyiri ! ^ hi n' oku-pi-etha-ko.^ linb' OYa-kwawo

truly ! not- 1 with leaving-it-there. Those others

YE-tyere : muatye I arikana/'^ omundu eingwi/'

they said : Child ! please (beware of) person that,

ngu, maku-dhu/^ utwa ovanatye m' odhondyatU)

who, it-is- said, she puts children into bags

nu i-ko !^ W% wa-tyere :^ kako ! me-ka-eta

and goes away ! And she said : No ! I go to bring

epuFura ra mama oku-kotoka k'omutwa

epurura of my-mother to return from Bushwoman

oka-kuFu-kadhe. Nu imb' OYakwawo aYehe

little-old-woman. And those others all

Ya-ire k'onganda, n' eye, a- kotoka, a- ende

they went to kraal, and she, she returning, she going

n' a- riri*^ n' oma-kono k' otyi-uru. Nu

and she weeping with hands on head. And

ty'a-ri m'ondyira kokure, * arire T;y'

when she was on road far-away, it happened that

a-raYaere,'^^ a-ithana, a-tya: Mu-tyimba,^

she cried-aloud, she called, she*said : Pauper,

kakuFukadhe, eta nguno epurura ra mama,

little-old- woman, bring here epurura of my mother,

ndi wa-tora. Nu omukadhendu wa-tya**

which you picked-up. And woman she said '.

Indyo, kambura. N'e-a-ende, a-me-utuka, arire

Come here, take (it). And she went, she running, and

ty' a-tumbuka popedhu, n' a-tya : Kakurokadhe,

so she approached near, and she said: Little old woman,

eta nguno epurura ra mama. N'e wa-tya rukwao :^

bring here epurura of my moth_er. And she said again :

Kambura, n' arire ty' a-tumbuka, n' arire

Take (it), and so she approached, and it came to pass

ty* e-mu-tono oru-pyu k' otyi-tama, nu

that she her struck slap on cheek, and

APPENDIX I. 251

okakupukadhe a- hakahana^' oku-wira-ko''

little old woman she hastened to fall-upon-her

n* a- petere^' m* ondyatu, a'arire ty' a- kata

and she doubled (her) up into bag, and so she tied

ondyatu n* omuYia, n' arire ty' a- kuta ondyata

bag with thong, and so she tied bag

p'etambo, n' a- Yereka,'^ aripe ty'

on back, and she carried (her), it happened that

a- i a- tedha ku-kva-P OYa-natye

she went she followed where-there-went children

k'onganda. Nu m' onganda mwa-Tadhepwe'^

to kraal. And in kraal there- was-arrived,

a-mwa-tu omu-kandi.^ N'e we-epe^

it-there-died feast. And she came (in the)

ongupoYa n* a- kape kongotwe y- onganda m' okutl.

evening and she sat behind the kraal in the field.

Nu kombunda OYa-natye Ye-ma-muna,^ apipe

And afterwards children they-her-saw, it happened

tyi Ya-paePBPe ku ihe^ a-Ye-tya : Tate,®

that they cried aloud to their-father they said : Father,

omukadhendu ingwi eingwi^ okakupukadhe ngn-

woman this she (is) that little-old- woman who

a-dhepa OYa-natye nu ngu-a-twa-mo omn-atye watn

she kills children and who has put in child our

m' ondyatu. Nu Ya-pupipe ku ihe a-Ye-tya :

into bai». And they-asked from father, saying :

Nga-tu-mu-tyite Yi ?^ Nu ingwi ihe wa-tyepe ;

We are to (to) her do what ? And this father he said :

Wepepekee^ ongupoYa tyi mamu-apuka^

Catch-with-guile (in) evening when you (pi.) begin

oku-papa. Nu imb(a) OYa-natye ongupova

to sleep. And these children (in the) evening •

tyi ma-Ye-apuk (a) okupapa, Ye-epe*" p'

when they began to sleep, they came to

252 APPENDIX !•

okakarukadhe n* a-ve-tya : Mama kakurukadhe,

little-old-woman and they said : Mother, little-old- woman,

mo-Yanga tyike,^ ku-tya tu-ku-pe? N'e

you want what » that we may give you ? And she

wa-tyere : namba^^ ami me-vanga tyike ? Yanatye

she said ; now, for my part, I want what ? children

Yandye, ke-ndyi-pahere" urp orukune (o) ru-nene ;

my, go (for) me look-for just log-of-wood large ;

mba t'^^ombepera. N'owo Ya-ire, apire

I am dead (with) cold. And they, they went, it happened

tyi Ya-ka-paha opu-kane (o)Fa-nene, ndu

that they went-to-seek log large, 'which

Yamuna rukura,^^ n'arire tyi Ya-tora

they saw long-ago, and it happened that they-lifted

omumbeumbea/^ n'arire tyi Ya-eta,

all- together and it happened that they brought (it),

a-Ye-tya ; kakurukadhe, twe-ku-etepe^*^

saying : Little-old-woman, we-to you-have-brought

opukune opu-twedhuj^ ndu-papa n' omundu,

log thick, which sleeps with person,

omukadhendu okakupukadhe o-tya oyb,^

woman old as you,

n' a-yanyuka OYiandonya.'' N'apipe

and she stretches (herself) out (on) back. And

tyi Ye-mu-etepe opukune. M' ou-tuku

so they (to) her brought log. In night

ty' a-papa, oYa-natye apipe tyi Ye-kutupa^

when she slept, children and so they untie

ondyatu, n' apipe tyi Ya-itha-mo omu-atye

bag, and so they take-out-of-it child

n'oYi-na OYi-tyuma^^ nu m'ondyatu m'

and things vessels " and into bag into

otjipupukute^ apipe tyi Ya-ongepe-mo

dry bag it happened that they collected into (it)

APPENDIX I. 253

ou-puka,^ ngamwa,^ 'kapuka ke-rumata akeha.^

animals, all sorts, animal it bites everyone.

Nu ondyatu otyi-purukute) arire tyi va-kuta rukwaOi

And bag dry bag, so they tied again,

n* owo a-Ye-i k'onganda n' a-ve-twara omu-atye

and they went to kraal and they carried child

n' oYi-na mbi^ Ya-ithire m' ondyatu, nu

and things which they had taken-out from the bag, and

Ye-Yi-twarepe ku ihe. Ihe

they-then-brought to the father. The father

wa-dhepcpe omukandi, a-koho nao^

he killed (a beast for) the feast, he cleansed with it

omu-atye. Nu kombunda 'kakurukadhe

the child. And afterwards the old woman

apipe ty' a-nununga ondyatu, a-tyangoYathi,^

it happened that she felt the bag, she thought,

omu-atye om' e-pi^ apipe ty' a-kutupa

the child in it she was and so she untied

ondyatu n'e wa-tipe omadhenge

the bag and she was (nearly) dead (with) rage

tyinene, kutya^ OYanatye Ya-ithipe-mo m'ondyatu.

truly, that the children had taken-out from the bag.

Ndino oupuka apipe tyi wa-sakumukipe

Now the animals it happened that they crawled-out

mu-ye, n'apipe tyi wa-hiti m'oputu pwe apuhe,

on her, and so they entered into body her whole,

m* otji-nyo na m' oma-yupu na m' omeho, n'apipe

into mouth and into nostrils and into eyes, and so

ty'a-koka. Oputyo,^*

she ended. This is all.

254 APPENDIX I.

NOTES

^ Pa locative prefix ; ri verb * to be.' Pari is the perfect
tense, the one with the suffix corresponding* to -iU is a * PIu-
perfect,* or distant past. In the Present, the prefix would be
pCf not pa,

' Herero has a somewhat peculiar way of forming com-
pounds. Instead of saying omu-ndu omu-kadh» * female
person,' or using omu-kadhc by itself as a noun, • woman,' the
root -ndu is suffixed. See antt^ p. 215, and note t3, on
oruhoroti ; also Meinhof, Lautlchrc der Bantusprachen, p.
135. Another curious feature, to some extent analogous to
the above, is the insertion of the interrogative particle ke
between prefix and root, as omu-ke-ti, * what sort of tree?'
omu'kenduy * what sort of person ? '

• -kadhe is suffixed to omu-kuru, which by itself means * old
(person),' in order to indicate the feminine. -^a^rHs similarly
used in Zulu (as in indoda-kazi * daughter,' inkosi-kazi
* queen ' : there is no independent word um-kazi), though less
frequently. The Herero are supposed to have a mixture of
Hamitic blood, or at any rate to have been in contact with
Hamitic tribes (r.^., the Gal la or Somali) before their south-
ward migration, and they might have borrowed from them
the notion of a feminine suffix — which is quite foreign to the
genius of the Bantu languages.

* ngu relative pronoun of the third person. In the Present
it immediately precedes the verb-stem ; ngu-twa * who puts ' ;
in the Perfect it is followed by a: ngu-atwa (or ngu-ya-twa ;
the y no doubt introduced to prevent the two syllables from
gliding into ngwa) * who put.'

^ The singular of this noun is omu-atye^ the », which, as we
know from other languages, belongs to the root, seems to
have dropped out.

^ ondyatu 9 is a leather bag or wallet, carried over the
shoulder by people who go out to collect roots, etc.

^ The 5th prefix is in Herero abbreviated to e (as Ir Zulu to
*) : its full form is eri^ the pronoun ri, Ejuva is the same
word as Sango lidyuva, Nyanja dzuwa^ Swahili jua, etc.

^ Rira '^tcome,' 'he j' (rire is the Historic Aorist) ; for its
i (Jiomatic use as an auxiUary , see below.

APPENDIX I. 255

^ ov-engi for ova-ingi, adjective agreeing with ovanatye, ova^
kadhona * girls ' is, though a noun, practically equivalent to an
adjective, being placed in apposition with ovanatye*

^° irtf, pluperfect of the defective verb^a *go.'

" The frequent use of ku, even where it would seem super-
fluous, as here before the Infinitive, seems a peculiarity of
Herero.

- " Same root as Swahili and Pokomo dindi * hole ' or * pit * —
more especially applied to a deep place in the bed of a river
or the sea. It also appears in such place names as Lindi,
Malindi, Kilindini (the harbour at the south end of Mombasa
Island), etc. The Herero use erindi to mean what is called
in South Africa a * pan * — i.e,^ a depression in which water
collects during the rains, drying up partially or wholly after
they are over.

** a-rire, followed by tyi is equivalent to * it happened tJiat,*
* it came to pass that,* etc., — or merely * and so.* The pronoun
a (instead of u) is prefixed to the * Historic Aorist * and the
Subjunctive.

" tyi * say,* like Zulu ti, here used as a conjunction (cf,
Zulu ukuti)=ih2±,

^* PI. of oru-vanda 12 ; the singular is not used in this sense.
The word means a kind of apron or kilt worn by little girls
(under 15 or 16) and consisting of a number of hide thongs (in
Cape Dutch rimpies)^ hanging from a belt. In front these
reach the feet, — behind they are long enough to sweep the
ground. A more ornamental kind of okavanda is the otjim-
bakutu (pi. ovimbaktitu)^ mentioned a little lower down, which
consists entirely of omitombe (see next note).

*^ omitombe 4 are strings of small disks cut from the shells of
ostrich-eggs, and rounded by rubbing their edges on a stone.
As the process of preparing these * beads * is slow and
tedious, they are highly valued. Tliey are worn, either in
single strings, as necklaces, or the strings arc looped together
to form a sort of bodice, called omutombe 3.

" ovimbaktitUi see note 15.

^^ oundyejtdye 14, (imported) glass beads, usually worn in
strings round the neck.

^^ PI. of ombongoraf 9, a string of disks ^similar to the
omitombe (see note 16), but made from the shells of snails or
other molluscs,

256 APPENDIX I.

** 3rd pera. pi. * emphatic aorist ' of punda * descend ' ; in
this tense the final vowel is assimilated to that of the stem.

'1 An adverb composed of ku and ombunda 9 ' the back ' —
therefore * behind' or * after.' In Herero, the u of ku is often
elided before another vowel, instead of turning into w,

'* 3rd pers. sing., pluperfect of tara * look.'

^ oru-horoli is a compound oiomu-ti analogous to omu'^kadhe'
ndu. It means ' a long stick,' and is used in apposition with
oka-ti, so that it is practically an adjective=' long.' But
Brincker's Dictionary does not give ornhoro in any sense
which would imply this.

'^ Nn is used to join sentences (or, in other words before a
verb) — na nouns.

*^ 'kuao {=kwawo) is given in the grammars and dictionaries
as an adjective meaning * other,' but really it is the possessive
pronoun of the 3rd pers. pi. agreeing with Class 15. All three
persons are used with the prefixes of Class i and Class 2 : —
omii-kwctu 'my (our) companion, house-mate, person of the
same village, etc.,' pi. ova-kwetu, omu-kwenu * you, etc.,' omu-
hwawo ' his, her, their, etc' — like Zulu abakiti (see p. 2^6 ante)
of which, however, there is no singular form corresponding to
omu-kwetu,

2^ Imperative plural oiya * come.'

^^ tupukeej applied form of tupnka, taking the direct object

(0) kakurukadhe.

^ Diminutive of omu-kuriikadhe (note 3). Compare the use
of kizee in Swahili for an old woman, mostly used of a witch
or other uncanny person.

*^ Indino, properly a demonstrative agreeing with cyuva 5

* day ' (lit. ' sun ') : * this day,' and so * now.'

^ Tyi here used in the sense of * when.' Tya is the form
used as an independent verb, when the meaning is actually

* say.'

^* avehe ' all,' agreeing with CI. t. The root is he which
always prefixes a- followed by the personal or class -pronoun :

a-fu-he * all of us,' a-mu-hc * all of you, etc'

^* ' Historic Aorist ' (Viehe), one of the tenses which
assimilates its final vowel to that of the stem — of. pundu

(note 20).

Auhe : -he * all ' agreeing with CI. i — singular of avehc^

APPENDIX. I. 257

^^ oruhira ii, a goat-skin apron worn next the skin, the other
articles mentioned being put on over it. The initial r of the
next word stands for ra, the nth possessive particle, agreeing
with oruhira, Tliis elides the a (instead of combining it, as in
Zulu, with the initial vowel of the noun) — no doubt because
the initial u has already been modified to o (as is also the
case in Ganda).

" The possessive particle of Class 3 is vya (not asr in most
languages yk), preserving a hint of the original y. Nu before

omitomhe seems to contravene the rule given in note 24, but
may be a printer's error.

^ onganda 9 is the word generally used for * kraal,' * village ' ;
the word used in S.W. Africa is werft (Cape Dutch, though in
this sense it seems to be peculiar to that district) — see
Pettman, Africanderisms, p. 550. The Zulu umuzi 3
represents the word used in most Bantu languages; it is
found in in Herero as oru-dhe 11, meaning * principal
village.' Brincker translates onganda by Viehdorf * cattle-
village,' which among the pastoral Herero would be the
normal type of settlement. 'A village without cattle is ondua
(which, ex hypothesis appears to be a Nama village) or otjihuro,

'■^ etanda and epurura appear to be more or less synonymous
and consist of strings of iron and copper * beads,* or hoUow
balls, fastened to the lower edge of the omutcmbe,

•^ ehi 5 is the word which appears in Swahili as nti 9 ; in
Zulu, Nyanja, etc., as pa-nsi (it is not used by itself) ; just as
-he * all,' corresponds to Nyanja -onse and Zulu -onke. But it
is something of a puzzle that Zulu should have the ns in pansi,
and so is the elimination of the vowel in Herero).

^ Herero, as we have seen, prefixes pa, ku or mu to a noun,
and does not possess the suffixed locative of Zulu, etc. It
also suffixes the pronouns -po^ -ko -mo to the verb accompany-
ing the noun — a usage also found in Nyanja, where the
noun, moreover, frequently takes both prefix and suffix as
m'nyumha-mo * in the house.'

*° The inseparable pronoun in Herero varies to an extra-
ordinary degree. * I * is me- with the Present, e- with the
Aorist, mha- with the Perfect, and with the * Jussive,' ngU- or
hi- ; while it also has a distinct object-form ndyi-,

*^ The particle ka has a * directive force ' as mekatona * I go
(to) strike ' — i.^., * I am going to strike.*

*^ Omu-twat pi. ova-twa (cf. Zulu umu-twa^ aha-twa) originally
meant ' Bushman,' but seems to be used in a depreciatory

258 APPENDIX I.

stnse of any non-Herero, and hence with the meaning of

* slave,* * bandsman,' etc. Omu-tyimha, applied further on to
the same old woman, is used by the Hereto of people who
have no cattle, but pick up a living as they can in the Bush
(and so = * pauper ') ; but other tribes apply it to the Herero
themselves.

^^ tyiriy invariable, is called by Brincker an * interjection of
assurance.*

^* ^if/t«=* leave * ; ri reiers to epurura, ko, locative pronoun
(17).

** arikana an exclamation ©f entreaty, variously rendered
according to the context. Similar expressions are found
elsewhere — e.g,^ the Yao chonde ! It looks like the imperative
of a reciprocal verb, but none such appears to be now in use.

*^ s-ingwi for tye ingwi. Eye is frequently contracted to c,

*7 dhu from dha * come from * means, with the indefinite
subject (ku) *it is said,* ma-ku-dhu is the tense called by
Brincker the ' Simple Present,' which prefixes ma to all its
pronouns.

*^ i is the aorist of the defective verb ya ^ go* ; ko the
locative pronoun, here best rendered by * away,* but a better
equivalent would be the French en in s*en aller,

*^ f(y^)i or . eyej separable personal pronoun : tyere,
pluperfect of tya,

*° a-riri : this, like the preceding verbs is a participle, which
in the simple form always assimilates the final vowel. Rira

* weep ' (Zulu lila, Nyanja /ira, Swahili /»a, Pokomo ia) must
not be confused with rira * become.*

'^^ Ravaera^ applied form of rava * thrust in * (used, e,g,^ of
Moses putting his hand into his bosom, etc.). The sense of

* crying aloud ' is derived, according to Brincker, from that of

* thrusting the tongue into the throat * (stark die Zunge in die
Kehlc stecken) ; in the applied form * cry aloud to * some one,
ithana (cf. Nyanja itana) is properly a reciprocal; Swahili has
the simple form ita,

^' See note 42. is elided in this word and the next, because
they are in the vocative.

" rukwaoy used as an invariable adverb, * again,* but really
an adjective agreeing with oru-vedhe * time,' =* another time.*

'^^ Historic Aorist. The rule of vowel-assimilation is not
usually applied to yerbs of more than two syllables, but there
are some exceptions,

APPENDIX I. 259

" Ko locative preposition. According to the usage of most
Bantu languages, one would have expected oku-mu-wira,

*• Pluperfect of peta, * bend,' Swahili peta * bend,' * curve,'
from which comes pete * ring.'

" vereka means to carry on th« back, as native women do
babies : bcreka is similarly used in Nyanja, and beleka (or
beleta) in Zulu, where im- beleko is the prepared goat-skin used
for tying the child on.

*® Relative of the ku- class in the past. We must under-
stand something like * to the place,' or * at the time ' after
a-tedha,

^ mwa- is the locative pronoun for the past tenses, the
subject of the verb being m^ongMttda. vadherwe is the passive
of the applied form of vadha * reach,'

^ Omu-kandi is a feast of meat, when a bullock is slaughtered
on special occasions. The feast is said to * die ' because it
was just ending. A -mwa-tu seems to be a mistake for a-mu-{u,
which is the Historical Aorist of ta * die.' (This verb has a
dental /, which distinguishes it from ta * be equal with.')

•* ere plup. oiya * come,' which takes we instead of wa for
the pronoun of the 3rd pers. sing, in the past tenses. This
and the aorist ya (instead of i) distinguish it from ya * go
away.' 0^w-/» is really the locative (17) which in Herero is
merged into the infinitive class (15) — see ante^ p. 85. It
means the open country — in fact is best translated by the
Dutch veld,

^' mu is here the objective pionoun of the ist class, not the
locative prefix.

«® the ' his, her, their father ' — cf. Zulu uyise, * Your father '
is iho (Zulu uyihlo) ; * my father ' tate (cf. Nyanja tate^ atate).
This form is found in a good many languages, while others,
like Zulu and Swahili, prefer (u)baba,

^ e=eye : eye ingwe * she (is) this ' (or * that ') one,

** Subjunctive. In principal sentences (as here) this has
nga- prefixed to it. For tyita * do,' cf. Nyanja chita, vi is an
invariable interrogative.

** Brincker translates werereka by * do a thing treacherously ;
{verrdtcrisch etwas tun),

" Second person plural of the Present, which prefixes ma
to all the pronouns, though in the three persons of the
singular it is contracted with them Into me^ mo, ma,

^ See ante, note 61.

260 APPENDIX I.

•* Tyike * what ? ' stands by itself after a verb, as here.
When the question is asked, * what is (are) he (it, they) ? '
— 'kwatyike is used with the proper class-prefix : ofuukwa-
tyikCi ovakwatyike, otyikwatyikt^ etc.

^ In the original n'ti^ha, which, Prof. Meinhof tells me, is
a mistake. * It should be namha " now,'* which is derived from
pa' Cat').

" Pahere (e) imperative plural of applied form (pahera) of
paha * seek.' Ke is the * directive particle ' ka, which modifies
its vowel when followed by an object-pronoun. * Go and
seek for me a log.'

7' un an invariable (adverbial) particle, equivalent to * just,'
* only,' * so,' etc.

'® For {u, perfect oita * die ' ; omhepera^ a noun of the 9th class.

'* Originally an adjective (* old ') agreeing with oru-vcdhc^ of.
note 53, on rukwao, A fairly good supply of firewood is to be
obtained from the mimosas and acacias of the Herero country
(Biittner). People are always on the look-out for dead logs
which will burn easily, and, if they see one, note the place so
that they can return for it when wanted. These girls
remembered that they had noticed one in the bush some
time before.

^* Translated by Brincker and Viehe ' zusammen,' * gemein-
sam ' ; it is evidently a noun of Class 3, but the original
meaning is nowhere given.

^' Applied form of da (Zulu leta) * bring,' which enables it
to take the direct object (-ku- object-pronoun 2nd pers. sing.).
Twe^ instead of twa, because a always becomes e before the
object-pronoun.

" Properly * a log like a bull.'

^^ t.^., * which an old woman like you can sleep with':
meaning that it is large enough to burn through the night, so
that a person can sleep comfortably, without getting up to
put wood on the fire.

^^ Properly a plural noun of Class 8, but it gnly seems to
be used adverbially, ondonya 9 is both noun (* back ') and
adverb (* behind '),

®° Reversive of kuta ' tie.'

^^ A general word for * vessels,' * implements,* * household
stuff.' Chuma^ in Yao, means * beads,* (applied in Nyanja
to property of any sort) ; in Swahili, * iron ' — but it is not
certain that the three are the same word.

APPENDIX I. 261

^ This seems to be a descriptive epithet applied to the bag
and to mean anything made of hide which is hard and dry
and rattles.

^ PL of §ka-puka (diminutive of otji-puka), applied to small
animals and insects.

^ ngamwat indefinite numeral meaning * all sorts,* * of any
kind whatever.*

^ ' Every biting animal.* rumata * bite ' : the simple form,
ruma does not seem to be used in Herero. Ke pronoun of
CI. 13 with the present tense,

^ Relative Pronoun of Class- 8, agreeing with its antecedent
ovina.

^7 < with it* seems to refer to omukandi. No doubt some
sort of ceremonial purification is intended, to free the girl
from any evil influences which may have emanated from the
old woman. The sentence seems to mean that the father
killed an extra beast {wa-dhepere imperfect of the Applied
Form, not Pluperfect) as part of the omukandi^ which was not
yet finished.

^ This and some allied forms are derived from iya * say *
and ndovathi (nd§vadhi) * perhaps,* * if haply,* and mean ' think,'
* be of opinion that.' , , , ,

^ Om'eri contracted from omu eyi u ru (Information kindly
urnishedby Professor Meinhof,and see Brincker, Worterbuch,
p. 83).-
^ kutya used synonymously with tyi,

»* Opu, locative adverb, * there,* * in that place.* Combined
with a pronoun, as here with -iyo (CI. 7) it means * that's all '
(literally * there (is) that ') — uc, * this is the end of the story.'

Connected Translation

There was once an old woman who used to put
children into her bag (and carry them oflf). *One day, a
number of girls went to play in a pool ; they t#ok oflf
their clothes and ornaments and went down into the
water. After a time, one of them, looking out to a
distance, happened to see an old woman who had a long

262 At>l>ENDIX 1.

stick in her hand and a bag on her back. So the girl
said to her companions : * Come, let us run away from
the little old woman yonder, who carries off children in
her bag.* When she spoke thus, all of them came out
of the pool, in order to run away, and every one picked
up the apron and the necklaces of her companion, as they
were in such haste to run away. So they ran as fast as
they could back to the village. But one child forgot
her epurura and left it lying on the ground ; and the old
woman went up to it, picked it up, and put it into her
bag. So the girl said, * I am going back to ask that
old Bushwoman for my epurura; I am not going to
leave it there, truly ! ' But the others said, ' Please
don't, dear! — they say that person puts children into
bags and goes away with them ! * She answered, * No,
I must get my mother's epurura back from that old
Bushwoman.* So all her companions went home, but
she turned back, and walked along, crying, with her
hands on her head. And while she was on the path,
she called out to the old woman, a long way off, saying,

* You horrid old pauper ! bring me my mother's epurura,
which you have picked up.' The old woman said,

* Come here and take it.' The girl ran up to her, and
when she was quite near, said again : Old woman, bring
my mother's epurtira here ! ' The old woman said
again, * Take it ! ' and when the girl came close to her,
she slapped her on the cheek.* And then the old
woman made haste and seized her and thrust her into
the bag, and then tied up the bag with hide thongs and
fastened it on her back and carried it so, and went on in
the direction which the girls had taken to reach their
village, where a great feast had been going on and was
nearly ended. The old woman arrived there in the
evening and sat down outside the fence in the open
field. When, later on, the girls saw her, they called out

* It is not clear from the text, as it stands, whether it was the
old woman who slapped the girl, or vice versa. Bat the women
who related the story to Biittner insisted that the former was the
case.

APPENDIX 1. 263

to their father, saying, * Father, the old woman out there
is the one who kills children, and she has put our child
into her bag.* And they asked their father, saying,

* What shall we do to her?* And their father said,

* Wait till the evening, when you are all thinking of
going to sleep, and then you can entrap her.* So, in
the evening, before those girls lay down to sleep, they
came to the old woman (outside the kraal fence), and
said, * Mother, what would you like us to get for you ? '
And she said, * For my part, my children, what I should
like is that you should just find me a good big log (to
burn), for I am well-nigh dead with cold.* So they
went to look for a large log which they had marked
down some time before, and lifted it all together and
carried it back and said, * Little old woman, we have
brought you a regular' whoppet of a log, such that a
woman can sleep all night beside it, lying comfortably
on her back.* So they brought her the log (and put it
on the fire).*

But in the night, when she was asleep, the girls went
and untied the bag and took out the child and everything
else that was in it, and they collected and put into it all
kinds of biting insects and reptiles, — every creature that
bites. And they tied up the bag again and went into
the kraal, carrying with them the little girl and the
things which they had taken out of the bag, and brought
them to their father. And he killed another bullock for
the feast, so as to purify his daughter with it. But,
after a time, the old woman got up and felt the bag,
thinking the girl was inside it (but she was not there),
so she untied it and nearly died of rage, indeed, because
the other girls had taken her out. So then all the
animals crawled out on her and got into her mouth and
nose and eyes (and stung her to death), and that was
the end of her. That is all.

* It is to be supposed that the old woman had made a little fire
for herself with such dry sticks as she could find, and only wanted
fuel to keep it up through the night.

264 Appendix i.

3. iLA*

The Tortoise and the Hare

Ba-nyama^ bonse' ba-ka-fwe^ nyotwa,^

The animals all, when they were about to die (of) thirst,

ba-amb,' ati :^ ' A-tu-lukanke lubilo,

they spoke, saying : Let us run (with) swiftness,

tu-bone ati a-ka-shike'^ ku menzhi.*

(so that) we may see that he may arrive at water.'

Pale, Fulwe » nga a-ka-^hala^ bana

But Tortoise (it is he) who produced children

banjibanji: a-la-ya-ba-zhika^ mwiYu;^ umwi

very mauy : he goes burying (them) in ground ; one

mwana wa-mu-zhika, ku-mbadi ku^ menzhi.

child he him buried, by side of water.

Inzho banyama baamb', ati: ' A-ta-tiane/"

So the animals they spoke, saying : * Let us race,

tu-ka-shike ka mu-longa, tu-ka-nwe menzhi.'

when we arrive at the river, let us drink water.'

Ba-fuma, ba-lukanka, bonse baamb', ati:

They started. they ran, all they spoke, saying :

* Tu bona^ ati ngani^^ u-ka-tanguna^^ ku-shika.*

*Let us see that who is it he will be-first to arrive.*

Pele ba-lukanka odimwi/^ ba-fulwe ba-la-ya-

But they ran again, tortoises go along

bu-amb'^^ ati : ' Imbelembelei o-ba-shana^

saying : * Forward, those who are with

* Ila is spoken in North- Western Rhodesia, by the people
commonly called the Mashiikulumbwe, whose proper name is ba-ila.
Tl]ey live on both banks of the Kafue, one of the northern
tributaries of the Zambezi. They are closely allied (at any rate as
far as speech goes) with the Baton ga and Basubiya. The above
story is extracted from the Rev. E. W. Smith's Handbook of thi
Ila Language (see Bibliography).

APPENDIX I. 265

solwe.'^^ Odimwi balukanka, odimwi baamb' ati :

Mr. Hare.* Again they ran, again they said :

' Imbelembele, obashanasnlwe I ' Dimwi izuba^^

* Forward, Hare & Co. ! * Another sun

dia-ibila, ba-la-ya-bu-ompolola : ' DimwP

it set, they go along shouting : * Another (day)

kwa-shia.^^ Imbelembele, obashanasnlwe I

it has grown dark. Forward, Hare & Co. ! *

Dimwi banyama bamana knfwa,^ mwana^^ folwe

Next day the animals finished to die, child (of) tortoise

0-wa-ku-di^ kumbadi ku menzhi, wo-ompolola^

he who was beside the water, he shouted

ati : ' Imbelembele, obashanasnlwe ! ' Wezo

saying : * Forward, Hare & Co. ! ' That

Snlwe wa-ya ku-fwa,^ wa-bnla^ o-ku-shika kn

Hare was going to die, he was- without arriving at

menzhi. . Hwana fulwe owakndi knmbadi

water. Child (of) tortoise who was beside

kn menzhi wa-ba-letelela^ menzhi mu^kanwa :

water he brought-for them water in mouth :

ke-ziza^ kn-lapwila^ banyama. Ati :

let him come to spit-out-for animals. He said

, Ndimwe mwa-ku-zumanana, ati, '' Fnlwe

It is you you were quarrelling, saying, " Tortoise,

tu-lamn-shia^ Inbilo." Inzho

we shall him leave (behind) (in) swiftness." So

mwa-ba-nji'' ku-shika ? Hn-di ba-nichi.''

you have become what to arrive ? You are children.

Ndimi mukando, nda-shika ku menzhi.

It is I (whc^m) a big man, I have arrived at water.

Hudi banichi.' Ngonao^^ wa-ba-lapwila

You are children.' Immediately he spit-out-for them

menzhi a-ku-di mu-kanwa. Ba-bnla

water it was in (his) mouth. They were without

266 Appendix i.

o-ku-mu-ngula : ba-usa budio.'^ Inzho

answering him : they were-sad only. So

banyama baamb' ati : ' Tu-ka-fambe^ mu-kalo,

animals they said : * Let us dig water-hole,

tu-ka-ku-nwa"^ u^-mukalo menzhi.' Inzho

that we may drink in water-hole water.' So

ba-fumba. Basnlwe ba-kaka kufumba, inzho

they dug. Hares they refused* to dig, so

baamb' ati : ' Bu^^ mwa-kaka kufumba, inzho

they said ; * Since you refused to dig, so

ta-mu-ti-mu-nwe^ menzhi. Mu-la-mana

you shall not drink water. You shall finish

ku-fwa nyotwa/ Kwashia,

to die (of) thirst.' It grew dark,

bakaka kufumba, ba-ya ku mukalo,

they (who) refused to dig, they went to hole,

ba-kwiba.^ Inzho banyama bamwi baamb' ati:

they stole. So animals other they said :

' A-tu-ba-zube^ basulwe, tu-ba-

'Let us hide (from) them the hares, (that) we may see

bone.' Inzho ba-ba-bona, ba-ba-kwata,

them.' So they saw them, they caught them,

ba-ba-anga. Pole baamb' ati : ' Bu mwa-

they bound them. But they said : * Since you

tu-anga, inzho twa-beba. A-mu-

(have) tied us, so we (have) repented. Let you

tu-tole^^ a-bwina, mu-ka-tu-yayile^ ngona.'''

carry us to burrow, (that) you may kill us just there.*

At>P£NDIX I. 207

NOTES

^ Nyatna, in most Bantu languages, is a noan of the ninth
class (though, in Swahili, when meaning * an animal,' it usually
takes the concords of the first). In Ila it has the prefix mu-
(pi. hanyama 2) and is thus included in the person-class.
Other names of animals are treated in the same way, e^.^
munyati ' buffalo ' (Z. innyati 9 ; Ny. njati) musifu ' eland,' mu-
xovu ' elephant.' Some names ot animals (also included in
Class I) are compounded with the prefixes 5/r<i=* father of
and na=* mother of ' (Smith, p. 18). This seems to be dis-
tinct from the use of sha- or shana- as an honorific prefix, «^.,
shana-sulwit for sulwe 1 * hare.' (5m/w^, ordinaruy, has no
preRx in the singular, but, being included in CI. i on account
of its meaning, it's plural is ha-sulwi z.) This is very common in
African tales — cg,^ in Ganda * elephant* is ittjovu 9, but
when he figures in a story he is called Wanjovu, and in Yao
stories the names of animals have the title Chi prefixed to
them. (Cf. ' Brer Rabbit,' * Miss Cow,' etc.)

> Future Subjunctive (Smith, p. 161). This seems, incon-
gruously, to be used as a principal verb, but in reality it is
equivalent to an adverbial clause, with * when ' understood.
' The relation of time is often expressed not by an adverb,
but by moods and tenses of the verb. . . . [«^.J the
preterite indicative and the subjunctive.' (Smith, p. 240).

' Nyota means * thirst ' in some dialects of Swahili, also in
Nyamwezi, Karanga, etc. Cf. also Ganda $nyonia^ Yao njota^
Herero onyot/i, Sutu Unyora,

* Ati, properly 3rd pers. sing, of ti * say,' is used regardless-
of number or person, in a way which comes to be equivalent
to the conjunctive * that.' For other idiomatic uses of tif see
Smith, p. 185.

* Lit. * that he may arrive (first) at the water,' — 1.#., • who
will arrive first.'

* Past (Preterite) of zhala * bear,' « beget ' : Zulu, xala^

Swahili vyaa (zaa).

V Properly the * Immediate Future Habitual' tense (Smith,
p. 156) : the narrator goes back to the actual time of t
incidents and treats them as if they werte happening I »«
his eyes.

® Locative,=mi« ivu *in the groandL* Mr. Smith

268 APPENDIX 1.

tnwivhUf but the sound — see p. 7 of his Grammar — is clearly
that of * bilabial v.*

^ We should have expected kumbadi kwa menxhi, mhadi 9
being placed in CI. 17 t>y prefixing the locative ku^ but see
Smith, p. 223. Mbadi is not given in the vocabulary as a
noun, but cf. Nyanja mhali 9 * edge, side, rim ; ' no doubt the
same word used in Swahili as an adverb * far,' etc.

^0 tia * be afraid ' (cf. Swahili tisha * frighten ' — probably a
causative of the verb usually written cha *fear '), and so *run
away ' : tiana reciprocal, but apparently with the meaning
* run against ' (or, * in competition with ') and not * run away
from ' each other.

^^ Present Subjunctive, used in place of Imperative.

" Ngunif interrogative (Smith, p. loi), lit. : * it is who ? ' A
relative is understood after it, or rather, it is an example of a
construction very common in the Bantu languages, even
where relative pronouns exist : the demonstrative, or even
the ordinary personal pronoun are often preferred, as though
it were less trouble to make a fresh assertion than to link up
the clause with the preceding one.

^^ Second Future (Smith, p. 157) — probably distinguished
from the Preterite by tone, — tanguna^ evidently a derived form
of tanga * begin,' but the Jorce of the termination is not very
clear: it can scarcely be reversive (Smith, p. 130).

** Dimwi * another ' (agreeing with izuba 5 * day,* or some
similar noun, understood), and preceded by the insjirumental
preposition (Smith, p. 224), so meaning * again.'

^^ Same tense as in line 4 — see above, note 7.

^^ Obashanastdwfi, a kind of collective pL, including the
person named and those with him — see above, p. 48, and
Smith, p. 18. This> or a similar idiom seems to be universal
in Bantu — e.g. Sumbwa : nge Bandega^ * ce sont des hommes
de Ndega ' (P. Capus) ; Swahili : kina Hamisi, etc. Oba- is the
plural relative prefix (Smith, p. 108).

^■^ Izuba 5 'sun' — here used for *day.' The same f«rm of
the word is found in Tonga (Zambezi), and cf. Nyoro ixobut
Konde ilisuba^ Ganda enjuba^ etc. Other forms are lyuwa,
dzuwa, riua, jua^ iruwa, eyuva^ loba, etc. The pronoun for
Class 5 is in Ila di, Dia is "the form with past tenses.

^^ Dimwi agreeing with izuba understood.

^^ K%va 17 {kii- with the past tense) is the ' indefinite subject,'
equivalent to * it ' or ' there ' (' there was darkness ').

APPENDIX I. 269

^ Idiomatic use of mana * finish ' (see Smith, p. 187), mean-
ing * they all died together.* The seqnel shows that * died ' is
not to be taken literally.

^ Wa omitted after mwana.

^ Past tense of verb * to be ' (di^ Smith, p. «oo), preceded
by relative particle 0,

" wo for wa : a becoming before the verb ompolola (see
Smith, pp. 12-13). The tense is the * aorist * (Smith, p, 150).

^* Aorist of ^a * go,* followed by infinitive ku-fwa, Wezo is
th« demonstrative pronoun of the first class meaning * that '
(already referred to),

"* hula * lack,* ' be without,' sometimes followed by a noun,
as ndabula shidyo ' I have no food,' sometimes, as hare, by the
infinitive preceded by a relative particle. * He was without
arriving '=' he failed to arrive.*

^ leteUla, * Doubib Relative ' (Applied) form of leta : Ut-ela

* bring to,' Ut-el-ela * bring to * a person * for * his use.

^ 3rd pers. sing. Imperative of the irregular verb kweza
{z=ku iza or ku iza) *come ' — see Smith, pp. 182, 183.

^ lapwihy Applied (' Relative ') form of lapula * spit ' — see n,
Smith, p. 120. We should have expected ku-ba-lapwila. \

^ Immediate Future Tense (Smith 155).

^ ba is the verb * to be,' also used in the sense of * become '
(Smith, p. 184). Translate * What has become of you that
you did not arrive ? '

'^ PI. of. mwanichi (or mwaniche) * youngster.' The ordinary
word for * child ' is mwana,

82 =ngon'awo : * substantive locative pronoun '=(* the place)
just there' combined with the demonstrative awo 16 (Smith,
p. 216). Here used as an adverb of time, *just then,' or

* immediately.'

»• budto * merely.' Smith suggests that it may be a noun of
Class 14 meaning * nothingness.' But the fourteenth prefix is

* the basis of a number of adverbs of manner ' (Smith, p. 217)
and possibly -dio might be explained as a pronominal stem
agreeing with some 5th class noun understood.

" Future Subjunctive used as ImperatK^e.

»* Another form of the Future Subjunctive— (see Smith, p.
162).

^ 1^ is the form assumed by the locatives mu and ku before

270 APPENDIX I.

nouns which already begin with those prefixes — e.g,, u-kubokOt
for ku-kuboko or (as here) u-mukalo for mu-tnukalo,

'^ BUj used as a conjunction and meaning * since/ is
probably a pronoun, perhaps agreeing with busena 14 * place/
understood.

•^ Negative Future (Smith, p. 171).

w Kwiba=kuiba ' steal/ Cf. Zulu (e)ba, Nyanja ba, Swahili
iba (in the northern dialect jepa^ which may preserve a trace
of the lost initial consonant).

4ft ist pers. pi. Imperative (Second Form : Smith, p. 163).
Zuba ' hide * (intr.) as it takes a direct object of the person,
must mean * hide from ; ' but we should have expected the
Applied Form.

*^ Second Augmented Form of the Present Subjunctive,
with the particle a prefixed (Smith, p. 163).

^ Future Subjunctive of yayila, which is the applied foon
of yaya * kill.' The force of the Applied Form is not obvious
here, as tuyayilc would ordinarily mean * kill .... for
us,' and no second object is expressed —or, indeed, required
by the sense.

^^ Locative demonstrative emphasised : * just on that
place).' (Smith, p. 91.)

Connected Translation

[This story is not very clear as it stands, but it seems
to be a confusion of two different tales, both of which
are widely distributed in Africa: that of the race
between the Tortoise and the Hare, in which the former
wins by planting out his family along the track (cf.
Uncle Remusy * Mr. Rabbit finds his match at last Oi
and one where all the animals join together to dig a
well : the Hare refuses, and is not allowed to draw
water, but does so by a trick, which is finally detected
and frustrated by the Tortoise. This latter story is
found in Jacottet's Contes Populaires des Bassoutos
{Le Chacal et la Source), in Theal's Kaffir Folk-Lore,
in the Swahili collection entitled Kibaraka {Sungurana

APPENDIX I. 271

Ugomba and Hadilhi ya Vinyama), in Mrs. Dewar's
Chinartfwatiga Slories (' The Rabbit and all the other
Animals ') and elsewhere. All details of the trick bjr
which the water was stolen and that by which the thief
was captured ace here omitted.]

Once upon a time, when all the animals were dying

with thirst, they said to each other : ' Let us run swiftly

lod see who reaches the water first.' But the Tortoise,

who had borne very many children, went on burying

them in the ground (along the course), and one child she

buried beside the water. So the animals said, ' Let ua

race each other, and when we reach the river, we shall

Irink the water.' They started, they all ran, they said,

Let us see who will be the first to arrive.' They ran

igain, and the Tortoises went on saying, ' Forward I

Forward! Mr. Hare and his friends!' Again they

ran, again they said, ' Forward ! Mr. Hare and his

friends I ' The sun set once more, and they went on

dumting, ' Once more it has become dark. Forward !

' Next day the animals all

I tortoise who was beside the

orward I ' as before. The

without reaching the water.

fas beside the water brought

th, in order to spit it out for

is you who were spiteful,

ise, we have outrun him."

you that you did not arrive ?

am a grown man — I have

are children I ' Thereupon

cb was in his mouth. They

remained, sad and silent.

* Let us dig a water-hole,

ak.' So they dug. But

tiie others said : ' Since

all not drink any water.

d In the HDM of bdng ' Ult

272 APPENDIX I.

You shall all of you die of thirst.' When it was dark,
those who had refused to dig went to the water-hole
and stole water. So the other animals said, * Let us
lie in wait for the hares, so that we may see them.* So
they saw them and caught them and bound them. But
they (the hares) said, * Since you have tied us, now we
repent. Carry us to our burrow, that you may kill us
just there.'*

4. Nyanja

The Story of the Cock and the Swallow\

Tambala ndi namzeze a-na-palana

Cock and swallow they made-with-each-other

chi-bwenzi/ ndipo namzeze a-na-ti,^ 'Koma'

friendship, and swallow he said, * But

u-dze^ kwatu."' Ndipo tambala

you (must) come to our (house). And Cock

a-na-muka, a-na-ka-peza^ namzeze, a-li pa nsanja/

he went, he found swallow, he is on nsanja.

Ndipo mkazi wa namzeze, a-na-pula^ ma-ungn,

And wife of swallow, she took-ofF pumpkins,

ndipo namzeze a-na-lengalenga,^ a-na-tenga

and swallow he-flew-up-aloft, he took

• This seems inconclusive, but no doubt the sequel is omitted as
too obvious : viz. , that the too credulous animals did as they were
asked. Brer Rabbit more subtly entreated Brer Fox not to * fling
me in dat briar-patch.'

t MS. collecte'd at Blantyre, from a boy whose home was in the
neighbourhood of the Murchison Falls, on the Shire River. Mr.
R. S. Rattray has published a longer version of the same story
(from Central Angoniland) in Sotm Folk-Lort^ Stories and Songs.

APPENDIX I. 273

maungUy na-patsa^^ tambala, ndipo tambala a-na-ti,

pumpkins, and-gave (to) cock, and cock said,

' Udze kwatu.'* Ndipo tambala a-na-nka

* You (must) come to us.' And cock went

kwao/ na-uza mkazache^^ kuti/^ ' u-ndi-ika^'^ ine

home, and told his- wife saying, * you-me-put me

mu mpika^^ wa mponda/^ 'ndipo a-na-m-pika

into pot of gourds,' and she-him-cooked

pa moto. Ndipo namzeze a-na-dza, na-peza

on fire. And swallow he came, and found

tambala a-li mu mpika/^ ndipo namzeze a-na-ti,

cock he is in pot, and swallow he said,

' Pulani^^ mponda, ndi-funa ku-nka kwatiu' Ndipo

* Take-ofF gourds, I want to go home.' And

mkazi wa tambala a-na-pula mponda, ndipo

wife of cock she took -off gourds, and

a-na-peza tambala, a-ta-fa,^ namzeze

she found cock, he-was-already-dead, swallow

a-na-bwerera^^ kwao wo-sa-dya^ mponda.

he-returned home not-having-eaten gourds.

NOTES

* Chi-bwiftzi 7, from hwcnxi 5 * friend ' (see p. 55). Ndipo,

properly the copula joined with the pronoun of the i6th

locative) class, is very commonly used in Nyanja for * and,'

' and so,* * and then.* In Swahili it is more often found in its

briginal sense of * that is where,* * that is how,* etc.

' Nyanja has the verb ti * say ' conjugated in all, or most,
of its tenses, while keeping its original force, unlike Zulu,
where it is apt to pass into adverbial, etc., senses. This is
the past tense in -na-. See Hetherwick, Manual,* p, .50.

^ Koma * but,' often begins a sentence in this way, where
there seems to be no adversative meaning ; but perhaps a
Hind of polite deprecation is implied.

274 APPENDIX I.

* u-dxe^ subjunctive (used for imperative) of dza * come.'

** Kwatu possessive pronoun of Class 15, ist person plural.
Chez nous is a closer parallel than any we have in English.
But it should be noticed that it is always kwatu, never kwangaj
even when the speaker is referring to himself only. It is the
same in the second and third persons — cf. kwao (chcz lut),
lower down, where I have translated it simply by *home.'
Some nouns of relationship are always used with a plural
possessive in the Bantu languages — cf. udade wctu * my sister,'
umne waho ' his elder brother,' in Zulu.

^ For this tense see H«therwick, Manual, pp. 150, 156. It
here seems to indicate the interval between the act of starting
from home (muka) and * finding ' the Swallow — as though we
had to understand ' and, when he arrived, he found.' . . .
Peza, as here used, involves a sort of bull ; it is not meant
that the Cock saw the Swallow sitting on the nsanja (see next
note), — but that he did not see him : he found him not there,
he being on the nsanja. It is very common for Africans to
lay, * I saw him not there,' or the like — which, after all, is not
very different from ' I found him already gone,' as we often
say — illogically, perhaps, but not irrationally.

^ Nsanja is a kind of staging erected over the central fire-
place in a hut, on which meat is placed to be smoke-dried,
and seed-corn, beans, etc., to protect them from the attacks
of mice and insects. It forms a little loft under the point of
the conical roof.

^ Pula * to take a cooking-pot off the fire,' is often used, by
an extension of meaning for *dishing-up food,' and in
European households generally means * bring in dinner.' —
Ma-ungu, plural oi dz-ungu 5.

^ He would, as a matter of fact, have come down from the
nsanja, but having descended (probably at the back) under
cover of the smoke, he would then fly up, as if emerging from
the boiling pot.

^0 ' And ' in Nyanja, is ni or ndi, not, as in some other
languages na. This na- is made up of ni and the pronoun a,
and is often found in continuous narrative, prefixed to the
second of two consecutive verbs. Cf. below, na-uza, na-peza,
etc.

" mkazache. Nouns expressive of relationship are often
combined with the possessive in this way : Nyanja : amako
* thy mother,' amache ' his mother ' (but in some dialects mni
wake) ; Swahili mkco * thy wife,' mkewc * his wife,' etc. The

APPENDIX I. 275

rule does not apply uniformly, for Nyanja has ataU wako * thy
father,' while Swahili has babangUt babakoy babakc (often
further abbreviated into bake) as well as mamangu, etc. (See
Hetherwick, p. 87).

^' Literally ' to say ' ; equivalent to * that,' but often used
(as here) where ' that* would be superfluous in English.

13 We should have expected u-ndi-ikct and possibly the MS.
is wrong. Ine * me ' follows for emphasis : * But, as for me, you
must put me.' . . In Mr. Rattray's version, the correspond-
ing sentence runs: * Mawa (to-morrow) u-pikc maungu^ ndi-ka-
itana (and then I will call) bwenzi langa, ndipo ins u-ndi-ike m*
mpika tnomo,* ,Here the position of ine is varied for still
greater emphasis. Momo is a strengthened form of mo * in it.'

" This is written without a hyphen, because the mu really
has prepositional force. Had it still been felt as the locative
prefix jmu-mpika, or tn'pika * the-inside-of-the-pot ') it would
have been followed by mwa^ not wa, as the possessiv.e particle.

1* Mponda are a small kind of gourd, not unlike the species
known to cultivation as * custard-marrows,'— very delicate if
properly cooked.

18 Here, again, it is not meant that the Swallow saw his
friend in the pot, otherwise what follows would lose all point.
Of course the meaning is * He did not find him, for he was in
the pot.'

^^ In Nyanja and some other languages, such as Makua and
Venda, the plural of the second person is used instead of the
singular where special politeness is intended. But this idiom
does not seem to be very general in Bantu.

1^ The verb ta * finish ' is used as an auxiliary, particle to
indicate * complete action.' See Hetherwick, p. 161.

19 Bwer-eraj applied form of bwera * return,' appears to
imply a return fronts though only the place to which he
returned is expressed in words.

'^ Wo-sa-dya for waku-sa-dya, literally * of to-not-eat ' is a
kind of negative participle in very common use. In the Likoma
dialect, where the ordinary negative serves to express the
future (si-ni-chite * I shall do ') this participial form is almost
the only one, and is used without reference to person or time :
wO'Sa-chita, pl.o-sa-chita * not doing,' wo-sa-lima, * not cultivating,'
etc., etc., see pp. 118, 169.

276 APPENDIX I.

Connected Translation

The cock and the swallow made friendship with each
other, and the swallow said, * But you must come to my
house.* And the cock went, and did not see the
swallow, for he was sitting on the staging over the
fireplace. And when the swallow's wife took the
pumpkins off the fire, the swallow flew up (through the
smoke, as if he had come out of the pot) and took of
the pumpldns and gave them to the cock, who said
* you must come (in return) to my nouse.' And the
cock went home and told his wife to put him into the
pot of mponda gourds (which she was going to cook for
the guest). So she cooked him over the fire, and when
the swallow came, he did not see the cock, who was
inside the pot. (After waiting for some time), the
swallow said, * Please dish up the gourds, for I want to
go home.' She did so and found the cock already dead
(in the pot). So the swallow went home, without
having eaten any of the gourds.

5. SWAHILI
{a) Lamti Dialect (Kiamu).
Stories about the People of ShelU^^

I. Pa-li-kuwa na^ mtu «a Shela,' hH-amkuIiwa'

There was a man of Shela, he was called

Bwana Mgumi, a-ka-twaa^ kibarua'

Mr. Mguipi, and he took a day-labourer

ku-m-tilia^ maf katika^ kasikfy na kasiki

to pour for him water into a jar, and jar

♦ Pictated by Muhamadi bin Abubakari (Kijuma)

APPENDIX I. 277

hiyo'' hu-ngia mi-tangi'' esherii^. Ule''

that one there go in jars twenty. That

kiba-rua a-ka-tia mai, hatta kasiki i-ka-yaa,"^

labourer and he poured water, till the jar it was full,

a-ka-mwambia, 'Bwana, kasiki i-me-ziye

and he said to him, ' Master, the jar it has exceeded

kn-yaa.'^^ Ka-mwa-mbia, 'Shindilia^ mal,

to be full. And he said to him, * Press down the water,

twaa mti^° huu, u-ka-shi-ndilie.'^^

take pestle this, that you may press down.*

A-ka-m-pa mti, ule akapiga,

And he gave him the pestle, and that (man) struck,

kasiki i ka-vundika'' tini'' • (kasiki ile

the jar it was broken below (jQX that

i-me-zikwa tiati^ nusu), mai

it was buried (in) the ground half), the water

ya-ka-shuka ; akamwambia, ' U-me-ona,

it went down ; and he said to him, * You have seen,

ongeza^^ tena basi^ mail' Hatta^ mai

add again then water ! ' Until the water

yakashnka kwa tini,^ ndipo a-lo-po-yna"

and it went down from below, that is where he knew

kasiki ime¥«uidika. Ndiye akatoa^ habari

the jar it is broken. It is he (who) put forth the news

kibarua.

the labourer.

II. Hngwana^ wa Shela* mmoya, a-li-weka

Gentleman of Shela one, he put away

baruti, i-ka-ngiwa^ mai, akamwambi^

gunpowder, and it was entered (by) water, and he told him,

mtumwake,^ 'Twaa kikaango,^ weke motoni,

his slave, * Take frying-pan, put on fire,

na-taka kn-kaanga barati yanga,

I want to roast (dry) i powder my,

278 APPENDIX 1.

i-me-n£iwa mai, na-taka kukaan^a mimi

it has been entered by water, I want to dry (it) I
mwenyewe " wewe hu-to-yW^ kwa uzuri.'"

myself, you will not know properly/

Mtwmwake a-ka-twaa kikaango,

His slave and he took the frying-pan,

kaweka motoni kamwambiay 'Bvana,

and put (it) on the fire and said to him, ' Master,

tayari!' Kenda^ bwana, akatia .

ready ! ' And he went, the master, and he poured

baruti kikaangoni, baruti

the powder into the frying-pan, the powder

i-ka-m-teketeza uso'^ na ndevu zake.^° Hini'^

and it burnt him the face and beard hiS. This

habari ya-tendeka Shela.

affair is done (at) Shela.

III. Mwinda kungu^ a-li-pata kungu,

A hunter (of) bush-buck, he got'(caught) a bush-buck,

a-ka-m-funga kisu na ukambaa^

and he tied (on) him a knife with (his) girdle

ka-m-wambia, * Enda kwa Hwana^

and said to him, * Go to the Mistress, (tell her)

a-ku-tinde/^ nso na ini a-ni-vekee

she is to kill you, kidneys and liver let her put by for

mimi, kiya, nitwelee^^ mkakambe.'^

me, when I come, that I may add (them to my) porridge/

A-ka-mw-eta^^ kenenda ale, kisa^

And he sent him and went that one, afterwards

a-ka-Fudi, mwinda akenda nyumbani

and he returned, the hunter and he went to-house

kwake^^ ; mke wake ka-mu-pa mkakambe mtupu/^

to his ; wife his and gave him porridge bare,

kamwambia, 'Nso na ini 11^ wapi?'

and he said to her, * Kidneys and liver is where ? '

APPENDIX I. 279

Akamwambia, * Ha-ku-eta/

And she said to him, * You did not send ' (them),

kamwambiay ' Ni-me-m-tuma Bwa' Kungu,^

and he said to her, * I have sent him, Mr. Bush-buck,

ni-me-m-funga nkumbuu na kisu';

I have tied (on) him a girdle and a knife ' ;

kamwambia, ' Ha-kn-ya ' ;

and she said to him, * He has not come ' ;

a-si-le'^ mkakambe, katoka

and he did not eat the porridge, and he went out

kenda ku-m-zengea,'^^ ^ a-si-mu-one. Basi,

and went to seek him, and did not find him. So,

hatta sasa watu wa Shela a-ki-v-amkua ' Bwa'

until now the people i)f Shela if you call them * Mr.

Kungu, hu-teta.

Bush-buck,' they quarrel (with you).

NOTES

* Pa is the pronoun of Class i6 (locative), and it is quite
easy to translate pa-Ii-kuwa * there was,* but the na which
follows seems superfluous. We must remember, however,
that the pronoun represents some noun meaning * place ' (no
doubt the obsolete pantu, which has been replaced by fiahali
dr mahali) and that the construction is, literally, * Thfi place it
was with ' — i.«., * it had * — of. the French use of avoir in il y
avail*

* Shela is a town within a half-hour*s walk of Lamu, but
the people consider themselves quite distinct, and the Lamu
men affect to look down on them as stupid and ignorant, and
tell numerous tales against them, of which the three given in
the text are specimens. They resemble those of the exploits
attributed to the men of Gotham, or the mutual taunts of
' Hampshire hogs ' and * Wiltshire moon-rakers.'

B Amkua, elsewhere meaning * salute' is used at Lamu for
* call.' A Mombasa man would have said huitwa or aliitwa.
The * habitual tense ' in hu- (see Steere, Handbook of thi

280 APPENDIX I.

Swahtli Language, p. 126), which has no distinction of number
or person and may refer either to present or past, is more
freely used in the Lamu dialect than in the more southerly
ones.

* Twaa ' take,' here means * hire,' * engage.* It is the same
word as the Zulu twala, which, however, means * carry' (on
the head) — a good illustration of how identical roots may
diverge in meaning.

'^ Kibarua, literally * little letter,' has come to mean, first,
the ' ticket ' given to people hired by the day and handed in
when their wages are paid, and, then the person so hired.

^ Tilia, applied form of Ha, * put,' * pour ' — Zulu tela,

^ Mai (mayi), Kiamu for maji. See yaa, yua, mmoya, etc.,
later on.

^ Originally kati ka * the middle of ' (perhaps a trace of the
ka- class which has disappeared from Swahili). Used like a
preposition in the sense of * in,' * on,* etc.

^ Kasikif a large earthen jar, three feet or more in height,
sometimes seen at the door of a small village mosque, instead
of the usual tank {birika), which holds the water for ablutions.

^° Hiyo, demonstrative, CI. 9 ; here=* the aforesaid.*

" Plural of m-tungi 3 ' water-jar ' ; the usual size holds
about a gallon. Esherini {ishrin, ishirini) is Arabic, like the
other words generally used for the higher numerals.

^* Ule, Kiamu iox yule. Distant Demonstrative of Class i.

^^ i- pronoun, agreeing with kasiki 9; -ka-, sign of the
Narrative tense (Steere, Handbook, p. 134). Yaa=jaa in
Mombasa and Zanzibar Swahili : cf. Nyanja dxala and Zulu
zala ' be full ' (dist. from zala ' bring forth ').

^^ An idiom implying ' not only full but overflowing.* Ziye,
for the more usual zidi (Arabic) ' be abundant,' * exceed,* etc. —
Kamwambia ; the initial pronoun of the ka- tense is sometimes
omitted.

^^ Shindilia (doubly applied form of shinda * conquer,* of
which the original meaning was, probably, *beat down,') —
used for pressing down grain into a basket or measure, to
make it hold more.

^^ Mti, with dental t (Zanzibar mchi) seems to be a distinct
word from mti ' tree,' which has the cerebral t and does not
change in the Zanzibar dialect. The * pestle * used for

Eounding grain is a pole of some heavy wood, about four or
ve feet long and of a thickness to be easily grasped in the

APPENDIX I. 281

hand. The pestle used in Nyasaland (munchi, munsi) is much
thicker and is raised between the open hands which do not
meet round it.

" For the subjunctive 'with -ka-, see Steere, Handbook,
p. 141.

^8 Neuter-passive of vunda (Zanzibar,*vw»;a). The implica-
tion is that * it was in a state of being broken/ — * it was found
to be broken ' ; if the man's agency had been emphasised, i-ka-
vundwa would have been used.

^^ Zanzibar, chini : it is really the locative of nti (nchi)

* earth,* * ground.' Cf. the Zulu adverb pa-nsi^ which has
survived the introduction of the locative in -ni and the loss of
the noun -nsi.

^ Tiati * earth,' only found in Lamu and other northern
dialects. I have been unable to arrive at its derivation.

'^ Causative of ongeut the intransitive verb meaning

* increase,' no doubt the applied form of onga, not in use.

^> Bast, sometimes spelt bassi (but it is better to avoid
double consonants in writing Bantu words), is the Hindustani
bass * enough ! ' — constantly used in a variety of ways, #.^.,
•that's all ! '— * well I '— * and so '— * so then '—etc. The
position here is unusual.

^ Arabic for * until,' but often used for * even,* or (in
narrative) as a mere connective.

^* See note 19. Kwa might be taken here as having some-
thing like an instrumental force, indicating the way by which
the water disappeared.

** a-lo-po-, Kiamu form of the relative (alipo). Yua iovjtk
see note 7. Ndipo is the i6th pronoun combined with the
copula, to form the kind of demonstrative (see Steere, Hand'
book, pp. E 16- 1 17), which means * This is he, it, etc. '; in this
instance * this is that (place) where ' — t.e., * the time when.'

^ For the various meanings of toa, primarily * put out,'
* take out,' see Madan's Swahili-English Dictionary, s.v.

^ Mngwana * a free man * (not a slave) and therefore often
used to denote an educated or civiflsed person, — or a man of
good position. Also mungwana, and, on the southern Mrima,
or among inland tribes mulungwaiM, though it seems doubtful
whether a derivation from Mulungu could be made out. The
word is not in Krapf. Mmoya, see note 7.

^ ngia, sometimes heard as ingia, but in the north at any
rate, the former seems to have better authority. The con-

282 APPENDIX I.

struction illustrates the Bantu use of the passive in cases where
it would be unexpected, or even impossible in a European
language : cf. also amefiwa ni mume for ' her husband has
died,* and amekwenda kwitwa * ke has gone to be called ' — ».r.,

* some one has gone to call him.*

^ For mtumwa wake. Such coo tractions are mostly con-
fined to words denoting relationship, e.g., babake, mamake,
mumeo, nduguzi, etc.

^ Kikaang§ (from kaanga, * roast,* * fry ') is used for a
European frying-pan, but in native households denotes a
shallow earthen pipkin, which serves a similar purpose.

" When following a pronoun this word means * myself,*

* yourself,* etc. : it is really a contraction of mwenye wak$ * the
owner of it * (j.tf ., it is to be supposed, of the identity expressed
by the pronoun).

" Hu-tO' negative future prefix of the 2nd pers.sing., instead
of ha-U'ta-, See Steere, Handbook^ p. 149, where this form is
only recognised as used with the Infinitive and is derived
from toa * take out.' Comparison with other Bantu languages
suggests that it may have had a different origin.

^ Vizuri is often used in the sense of * rightly,* etc. ; at
Lamu, the abstract noun (uzuri) preceded by the instrumental
kwa, is preferred.

" For a-ka-tnda. The subject, by a not unusual exception,
follows the predicate.

" The idiom here is more easily parallelled in French than
in English ; (la poudre) lui brUla Ic visage. See Steere, Swahili

Exercises J p. 20 : the possessive, in a similar sentence, is seldom>
if ever, used in Swahili,

^ zake agrees with the second noun only. Ndevu 10 is
really the plural of udevu 11, which means * one hair of the
beard.*

" Kiamu form of the ninth pronoun (hii). Tendeka^
perhaps because no agent is mentioned ; otherwise one would
have expected the passive. But perhaps the meaning is

* Such things arc (only) possible to be done at Shela ! *

^ Usually the noun- agent formed by prefixing m- to the
unaltered verb-root is followed (as here) by a noun as object
— so that it might almost be called a participle. Occasionally,
however, a noun of this kind is found standing alone, as
mgema (not tngemi) * palm-tapper). *

^^ * A girdle made of a narrow cloth ' (Steere). The con-

APPENDIX I. 283

struction <he bound his knife on him' is similar to that
mentioned in note 35.

^ Mwana^ used for ' mistress,' * lady/ and, with a woman's
name, as the equivalent for * Mrs.' or *Miss' — e.g., Mwana
Sotnoye, Mwana Esha, etc. This is sometimes called the
feminine of Bwana and is practically employed so to a certain
extent, though hibi is more usual at Mombasa and nana
(originally * grandmother ' at Lamu). Krapf enters this
mwana as a different word from mwana 'child' (which, in
Swahili, seems to be confined to the meaning * son '). It is
possible that they may he either (i) different words which by
phonetic change have become identical in form, or (a) the
same word which has become differentiated in meaning. But
Burton's suggested derivation from the Arabic umtnand * our
mother' (see Taylor, African Aphorisms, p. 31), seems very
doubtful.

** Tinda, Zanzibar chinja * slaughter '—especially in the
correct Moslem fashion. Probably it was the time required
for this ceremony that made the hunter unwilling to stop.

^* TweUa (spelt by Krapf toelea) is to add the fish, chickes,
or other kitoweo to the rice or porridge.

*^ Old word for * porridge ' (sima or ugali).

^* eta, Kiamu for leta, which means * bring * or • send '
(a thing) according to circumstances {tuma is used of sending
a person), kcnenda for a-ka-enenda : enda and entnda are
synonymous. Ule, of course, is the kungu,

^'^ Momhaisai kisha, for a-ki-isha; ^ when he had finished,*
but now practically an adverb. Good Swahili speakers at
Lamu prefer it to the Arabic khalafu (halafu),

*• Locative concord: in Nyanja it would be ku nyumba
kwache ; the ku, implying motion towards, has been replaced
by the locative -ni in Swahili.

*^ 'tupu * bare,' * naked ' is often used thus (• porridge and
nothing more,' — whereas it is always eaten with some < relish '
— kitoweo or nttuzi), Cf. the line from a popular song :

* Wanipa maji matupu kunisonga moyo*

* You have given me mere water (the barest minimum of

hospitality), to twist my heart.'

^ Pronoun agreeing with ini 5, the last subject. {Ns9 10,
cf. Zulu izi-nso*)

'^ A common shortening of Bwana in the Siu and
neighbouring dialects.

284 APPENDIX I.

•° Subjunctive, because the action follows and is in a sense
dependent on what goes before : he did not eat because he
had been told that the buck had not come. Similarly, in
next line asimuone * without finding him ' (* so that he did not
find him '). Ha-ku-ya (Kiamu for ha-ku-ja) : Negative Past
which can be used either for * did not ' or * has not.'

" Zc'igea, used at Lamu instead of tafiita * seek.'

Connected Translation

I. There was a man of Shela who was named Bwana
Mgumi, and he engaged a day-labourer to fill a large
jar, holding about twenty gallons, with water. The
man poured in water till the jar was full and then said,

* Master the jar is full and running over.* The master
answered, * Take this pestle and press it down ' — giving
him a pestle, with which he pounded the bottom of the
jar (which was buried in the ground for half its height),
till it cracked, and the water began to go down. So the
master said, * Do you see ? — now pour in some more
water ! ' And he did so, and it was only when the
water kept running away at the bottom that he knew
the jar was broken. It was through the labourer that
this story got about.

II. A certain gentleman of Shela had put away some
gunpowder, and (after a time, found that) the damp
had got into it, so he said to his slave, * Take a fryisg-
pan and put it on the fire ; I want to dry my powder,
which has got damp ; but I want to do it myself, as you
will not know how to do it properly/ So the slave
took the frying-pan and put it on the fire and said,

* Master, it is ready.' Then the master went and
poured the powder into the pan and it (blazed up and)
scorched his face and his beard. This is the sort of
thing that happens at Shela.

III. A hunter caught a bush-buck and tied his knife
round it with his girdle and said to it : * Go to my wife
and ask her to kill you and put by the liver and kidneys,

APPENDIX I. 285

SO that I can eat them with my porridge in the evening.'
So he let him go, and the buck disappeared. In the
evening, when the hunter returned home, his wife gave
him nothing but porridge for supper, so he said to her,
* Where are those kidneys and that liver.* She said to
him, * You did not bring any * ; anS he said, * I sent
Mr. Buck and tied a knife round him with my sash'* —
but his wife said, * He has not come.' He would not
eat his porridge, but went out to look for the bush-buck
and could not find him. And so, to this day, the Shela
people get angry with you if you address them as 'Bwa^
Kungu,*

(b) Kimvita {Mombasa Dialect)

Story of the Man who did not know when he was

well off A

Alikuwako mtu mmoja maskini sana, akaketi

There was man one poor very, and he sat

siku hiyo/ akasema, ' Ni-ta-kwenda kwa

day that, and he said, * I will go to

Hwenyiezi HuungUy ni-ka-ombe ni-pave'

Almighty God, that I may pray I may be given

riziki^ yangu, kwani n-na^ dhiki sana.'

living my, for I have trouble greatly.'

A-ka-ondoka a-k-enda zakweS akaflOka

And he rose up and he went his (ways), and he arrived

mbali sana, akaona ziwa li-na^ maji mangL

far very, and he saw a lake it has water much.

Akaoga, kisha akmda zakwe.

And he bathed, afterwards he went , his (way).

* As a rule, in telling this story, the narrator repeats the speech
in full. In dictation, it was given more concisely.

f Dictated by Muhammad bin Ma«alim '1 Betawi, at Mombas^i.

286 APPENDIX I.

Akenda, akamwona^ simbay ha-oni,

And he went, and he saw him a lion, he does not see,

a-na-konda^ na ndaa, akamvambiay

and he was thin with hunger, and he said to him,
' Mwana Adamu, wenda wapi ? ' Akamwambia,

* Child (of) Adam, you go where ? ' And he said-to him,

' Nenda kwa Hwenyiezi HuongUy^ nenda omba'^

* I go to Almighty God, I go pray

nipawe nami riziki.'

I may be given I too a living.'

Akamwambia, ' Ukenda^^ ni-ombea

And he (the lion) said to him, * When you go pray for me

na mimi, ni-fonuke mato yangu,

also me, I may be opened (as to) eyes my,

ni-pate na chakula ni-le.' Akamvambia,

I may get also food (that) I may eat.' And he said-to him,

'Yyema.' Akenda zakwe. Akamvona

* Good.* And he went his (way). And there saw him

nyoka, a-ka-mw-uliza, 'Wenda vapi?'

a snake, and he asked him, * You go where ? *

Akamwambia 'Nenda kwa Haungu, nenda

And he said to-him * I go to God, I go (to)

omba riziki yangu.' Akamwambia,

pray (for) living my.* And he said-to him,

'Ukenda, niombea na mimi; joa

* Where you go, pray-for me also me ; the sun

li-na zidi/^ sipati chakula; basi, nataka

has exceeded, I do not get food ; well, I wish

mvua i-nye tu-pate chakula.'

rain may fall, (so that) we may get food.'

Akenda zakwe. A-ka-tokea^*^ mji

And he went his (way). And he appeared (at) town

mkubwa, akamwona surutani mwanamke,

large, and he saw the sultan, a woman,

APPENDIX I. 287

akam wambia, ' Wenda wapi ? ' Akamwambia

and she said to him, * You go where ? * And he said to her

' Nenda kva Muungu, nenda omba riziki yangu.'

* I go to God, I go (to) pray (for) living my.*

Akamwambia ' Ukenda niombea na mimi

And he said-to him * When you go pray-for me also me,

mimi surutani, mwananike, raia zangu

I (am) a sultan, a woman, subjects me

ha-wa-ni-sikizi, na mji ha-w-ishi^^ vita. Basi,

do not obey me, and town does not finish war. Well,

nataka ya-ondoke haya.'^*^ Akenda

I wish they may go-away, these (matters).* And he went

zakwe.

his way.

Akafika, akamwambia Mwenyiezi

M And he arrived, and he said-to Almighty

^ Muungu, ' Himi, n-na-ku-ja, na-ona dhiki sana

God, * As for me, I have come, I see trouble much

kwa umaskini, nnakuja omba

through poverty, I have come (to) pray

u-ni-wasii^^ kwa riziki/ Akamwambia,

you (to) me assign for (my) living.' And he said to him,

'Riziki^^ zako sasa nyingi sana,

' (means of) living thy now many very,

zamwayika.' Akamwambia, ' Ni-li-po-ku-ja

they are being wasted.* He said to him, * When I came

huku, na-li-mw-ona mwanamke, a-me-ni-ambia,

hither, I saw a woman, she said to me,

*' na mimi, niombea kwa Mwenyiezimgu, mimi

" and me (too), pray for me to Almighty God, I

ni mfalme, raia zangu hawanisikizi, na

am a queen, subjects my do not obey me, and

mji wetu hawishi vita."' Akamwambia,

town our does not end war/' * And be said to him,

288

APPENDIX I.

'Mwambie, "wewe ni mwanamke, pata mume

* Tell her, " you are a woman, get a husband

a-ku-oe/^ ya-ca-ondoka,

that he may marry you, they will go-away,

yote hayo." '

all these (things).*"

n-na-ona nyoka,

I saw a snake,

hawapati

they do not get

Akamvambia,

And he said-td him,
iliyo kitwani,

Akamwambia : ' Kisha

And he said to him : * Afterwards

ameniambia, jua

he has told me, the sun

chakula, ataka

food, he wants

* Na-tue'^

* Let him put down

ni lingi,

is much,

mYua.'

rain.*

johari

the jewel

i-ta-shuka mvua

nyingi

which is in (his) head, it will come-down rain much

Sana.' Akamwambia, ' Kisha na-li-ona simba

very.* And he said-to him, * Then I saw a lion

ha-oni, akanambia,

he does not see, and he said-to me.

Mwenyiezimgu

Almighty God

kisha

(and) then (that)

Akamwambia,

He said to him,

yakwe mat::2i,

nipate

that I may get

nipate

I may get

' Hwambie

"niombea kwa

" Pray for me to

mato yangu,

eyes, my,

chakula." '

food.*' *

apake mate

* Tell him he is to smear spittle

yatafunuka mato, na

his on his eyes, they will be opened, the eyes, and

a-taka-cho-ona^

that which he sees

yakwe.'

his.*

mbele na-le, ndio

before (him) let him eat, ' that-is

Akamwambia, ' Hewallah ! '

And he said-to him, * Hewallah ! *^

Akamwambia yule surutani

riziki

living

akenda zakwe.

and he went his (way). And he said-to her that queen

kama a-Ii-vyo-ambiwa.^

Jike (that) which he had been told.

Hwanamke

The womai)

APPENDIX I. 289

akamwambia, 'N-oa^ wewe, utapata mail

said-to him, * Marry me you, you shall get property
mangi ; Msha^ u-ta-ku-wa mfalme we we.'

much ; (and) then you shall be king you.'

Tale akasema, 'Sitaki mail wala

That-one and he said, * I do not want property nor

sitaki ufalme, mali mimi nayo mangi

I do not want kingdom, property I with it much

Bana, na-pawa, ni Muungu.'^

very, I am being given (it), it-is God.'

Akenda zakwe. Akamwona nyoka,

And he went his (way). And he saw him the snake,

akamwambia Eana^ aliyyoambiwa. .^

and he said to him like (that) which he had been told.

Nyoka akamwambiai ^waa wewe hli

The snake said to him, * Take yourself this

johari.' Tule maskini akasema, 'Si-i-taki,

jev/el.' That poor man he said, * I do not want it,

mimi, mimi mali yangu ni mangi

for my part, I property my is much

Sana, ni-li-o-pawa, sitaki tena.'

very, which I was given (it), I do not want again.'

Akenda zakwe. Akamwona simba,

And he went his (ways). And he saw him the lion,

akamwambia, ' Hwenyiezimgu akwambia,

and said to him, * God Almighty says to you,

" Paka mate yako, mate yako ya-ta-funuka.

" Smear spittle your, eyes your will be opened.

Cliakula chako u-taka-cho-ona mbele."'

Food your (is) that which you will see in front (of you)."'

Akapaka mato yakwe, yakafunuka.

And he smeared eyes his, and they were opened.

Aka-mwona yeye anasimama,'^

And he saw him him (where) he stood,

290 APPENDIX I.

akapeleka mkono^ akamshika, akasema,

and he stretched out paw and seized him, and said,

' Nitapata wapi chakula chengine, mimi? ' Tale

* I shall get where food other, I ? * That

mwana Adamu akasema, 'Mimi na-ku-ombea,

son (of) Adam, he said, * As for me, I pray for you,

yanafunuka mato yako, sasa wataka

they have been opened eyes your, now you want

nila ? ' Akamwambia, ' Sijui^

eat me ? ' And he said to him, I do not know (but),

mimi, nitakula, nitimize maneno

as for me, I will eat you, that I may fulfil words

yakc' Akamla. Hadithi inaflka

your.* And he ate him. The story it has arrived

hapa.^

here.

NOTES

1 Hiyo is the demonstrative implying *that previously
referred to '— here meaning the day to which the story relates.

* Pawa, Kimvita passive of />a (Lamu^<?wa, Za.nziba.r pewa)
Omba is used for * pray ' in the sense of making a definite
request (also used for *beg') -ku-sali means to repeat the
ritual prayers.

* From the Arabic raxaqa * provide,* (hence er-Razxaq, one
of the names of God) ; — it is used for * subsistence,* * daily
bread,' ' rations,' etc.

* For nina : the contraction of this pronoun is specially
common at Mombasa. Cf. Stigand, pp. 29-30.

* -akwt for -ake^ the Kimvita form of the possessive 3rd
pers. sing. Stigand unaccountably says (p. 29), *this is not
often heard.' The expression cnda zako {zake^ ttc.) has njia
(ndia) (pi.) understood after it, and corresponds exactly to the
Scottish provincial * go your ways,*

* li is the pronoun agreeing with xiwa 5 (Nyanja dxiwe 5,

APPENDIX I. 291

Ila i'Zhiba 5). Zulu and Ganda have the same word with the
prefix of Class 7: isi-xiba, tki-diha, Mangi^ Kimvita — more
southern dialects mengi,

^ The construction leaves it uncertain whether the lion saw
the man or vice versa ; the insertion of the objective pronoun
would favour the former view, as this usually indicates that
some definite person or thing is meant (performing to a
certain extent the oflfice of the definite article), while, on the
other hand, it is obvious that, if the lion was blind he could *
not see any one. However, ona is often used for * meet * or

* find,* as well as * see,' and this rendering seems to suit the
context best.

^ A -na-konda, not, as in the Zanzibar dialect, a present, but
a perfect, cf. H-na-xicfi later on.

' Kwa only used in this sense before nouns denoting
persons, like the French chez. Really the possessive particle
of the locative ku- class (17) with a noun understood ; {nyum-
bani=ku-ttyumba) kwa. The instrumental kwa (as in kukata
kwa kisu), though the same in origin, is, in usage quite
distinct. Mwenyeezi, compounded of mwenye * owner * and m,
{enzi^ Arabic Hzz)^ * power,* ' authority,* is never used unless
followed by Muungu {Mungu, Mngu or Mgu as below). The
name Allah is not often used by Swabili Moslems, except when
sQ^aking Arabic ; it seems to be confined to expressions like
Hewallah ! — which is now nothing more than a form of assent,
and Allah Allah! originally an adjuration — * for God's sake,'
— but generally used to mean * be sure you don't forget,' * be
quick, whatever you do,' etc.

^ Nenda omba. The infinitive following a finite verb '
(especially after enda, ja and isha) often drops the ku, thus
constituting a seeming exception to the rule that the verb-
stem is never found without a prefix, except in the Imperative.

" Both -ka- and -ki- are frequently contracted before mda.
Here the sense requires -ki-,

^^ This looks like the present in -na-i, but that tense is not
used at Mombasa, where the -mi- tense has a perfect force
^i.e,j it implies an action which has taken place in the past,
but whose effects are still continuing. Cf. anakonda (note 8),
which means * he became thin and is (or was at the time when
the events occurred) thin.* Cf. also nnakuja, lower down.
The perfect in -me-t however, is also used at Mombasa.

" tokea, applied form of toka, * come out,' properly means to

* come out to or for some one * — i,e,, appear to him (it is there-
fore used of ghosts, etc.) and always implies a spectator or

292 APPENDIX I.

spectators. Here the meaning is * he came in sight of (the
inhabitants of) a town.'

" Hazvishi for hau-ishi: u agreeing with the subject mji 3.
Isha^ is here used actively.

" Hoya "demonstrative 6 agreeing with mainho understood.

" More usually wasia (from the Arabic was j)— properly,

* make a will,' * give testamentary directions,' and thence

* appoint,' ' assign.' Some word like viiu or mali is understood
after it.

*7 riziki is here treated as a plural. Mwaya (also tnwaga

* spill,' ' empty.' The neuter-passive, mwayika^ is best
rendered by 'are going to waste,' or * are lying unused.'

^^ §a * marry' (only used of the man, olcwa is the word
applied to the woman and oza^ * give in marriage ' is said of
the parents or guardian), is the same word as the Zulu lobola^
and illustrates the degree of attrition stems may undergo in
Swahili through the loss of medial consonants.

^® tua * set down,' as a load off the head, also (Madan)* settle
down,' ' rest,' etc. ; hence the applied form tulia * be calm,'

* be quiet.' Cf. Zulu tula • be silent,' etula * take off* (as a hat,
or a pot off the fire), wliich are probably the same word, the c
having been introduced to differentiate the latter. (Of the
fairly numerous Zulu verbs in e some have lost an initial
consonant and are in process of shedding the vowel, as cmhti^
or mha ' dig,' in others the c seems to be an accretion (as
above). — Na tue^ less usual than katuc (Steere, Handbook^ p.
140). — The jewel in the snake's head seems to be taken for
granted as if possessed by all snakes, but it may be less
summarily treated in the original story.

*° For the construclion of the Objective Relative, see Steere,
Handbook^ p. 119. A- is the pronoun of the 3rd person agree-
ing with the subject (simba), -taka- the sign of the future, -clo-
the relative pronoun, object, agreeing with kitu understood.
We should, however, have expected the object-pronoun to be
inserted as well as the relative : a-taka-cho-kt-otta. For nale^
see last note.

" See above, note 9.

^^ The full form would be vitu alivyoviambiwa * the things
which he had been told them,' but the pronouns of the 8th
class are often used without reference to a subject — cf.
the adverbial use of vizuri,

^ It is more usual to substitute the Subjunctive for the
Imperative when there is an object-prononn (e.g., mpe * give
him '), but we also find nipa ' give me.'

'* Kisha^ in this case, * moreover,* * besides * — not * after-
wards.'

^ If a connective particle is expressed after the Passive
(there is sometimes none) it is oftener ni than na which
would be the natural word to use, according to European
ideas. The literal rendering of the ni construction is — eg,,
in this passage : * I am being given — it is God (who gives).*

^ Kanay equivalent to kamtit but not so common.

'^ anasimama^ Perfect in -na- : so, too, yanafunuka and
inafikUj lower down.

^ mkono, properly used of human beings, but also of
quadrupeds when the paw is — as here — used like a hand.

*^ Meaning, * The story having arrived at this point, it ends
here.'

Connected Translation

There was once a very poor man, who, on a certain
day, said to himself, * I will go to (the house of)
Almighty God and pray to him to give me enough to
subsist on, for (as it is) I am in great distress. So he
rose up and went his way, and when he had reached a
place a long distance off, he saw a lake containing much
water. He bathed and then went his way. As he
went, there met him a lion who was blind and very thin
with hunger and said to him * Son of Adam, where are you
going ? * So he said, * I am going to the abode of God,
to pray that I may be given enough to live on.* And
the lion said, * When you go, pray for me also that I
may have my eyes opened and get food to eat.* *The
man replied, * Very well * and went his way. Th^ he
saw a snake who asked him, * Where are you going ? *
and he said, * I am going to God to pray for sustenance * ;
and the snake said, * When you go, pray for me also ;
there has been such a drought that I cannot find
anything to eat, so I want the rain to come that we may
get food.' The man went on till he reached a large
town, where the Sultan, who was a woman, saw him

294 ' APPENDIX I.

and said to him * Where are you going ? * [He
answered as before.] She said, * When you go, make a
request for me also. Though I am the Sultan, I am a
woman, and my subjects do not obey me, so that the
quarrelling and fighting in my town never cease. My
prayer is that this state of things may come to an end.'
So he went on.

And he arrived and said to the Almighty, * I have
come, because I am in great trouble through poverty — I
have come to beg you to assign me sufficient means of
living.* And He said to him, * You have abundance to
live on now, but it is being wasted.* The man then
said, * On the way here I saw a woman who said to me,
" Pray for me also to the Almighty : I am a queen, but
my subjects do not obey me and war ne\ er ends in our
town." * He said * Tell her ; " You are a woman, you
had better get married, then all these troubles will
cease.*' * The man then said, * After that, I saw a snake
who told me that, because of the drought, his people
cannot get food — he would like it to rain.* The Lord
answered, * If he lays aside the jew^el which is in his
head, the rain will fall abundantly.* The man went on,

* After that I saw a lion who was blind and who asked
me to pray that he might recover his sight and also be
provided with food.' The Lord said, * Tell him to
smear his eyes with his spittle, and they will be opened,
and then let him eat whatever he sees before him, — that
is (assigned him for) his subsistence.* So the man said

* Hewallah ! ' and went his way. When he came to
the queen, he gave her the message with which he had
been charged, and she said, * Marry me yourself, you
will acquire much wealth, and you shall be king.' But
the man answered, * I do not want your wealth, nor do
I want the kingdom, I for my part have very much
wealth of my own, which is being given me by God.'
So he went on. When he came to the snake, he
likewise gave him his message, and the snake offered
him the jewel out of his head, which the man refused,
saying * I have just had a large property given me, I do
not want any more.' Then he went on and came to the

APPENDIX I. 295

lion, and delivered the message as it was given him.
The lion did as directed and recovered his sight, and,
seeing the man standing before him, stretched out his
paw and seized him, saying, ' Where shall I get any
other food than this ? * The man said to him, * Why, I
prayed for you, and your eyes have been opened, and
now are you going to eat me ? * And the lion said, * I
don't know about that, but I have to eat you in order
to carry out your directions.* So he ate him. And the
story ends here.

6. Ganda*
The Story of Ndyakuhi and Ndalakuhi

Awo^ o-lwa-tuka' omu-saja

Well then, which arrived (there was a) man

eri-nya-lye* Ndya-kubit' ne-ba-ta*

name his Ndya-kubi, and they made

omu-kago ni Ndalakubi. Awo Ndalakubi

blood-brotherhood with Ndalakubi. So Ndalakubi

n-a-gamba Ndyakubi* nti,^ ' 0-ja-nga '^

and he said (to) Ndyakubi, saying, * Come '

n-0-n-daba ' f awo Ndyakubi n-a-genda

and me see * ; so Ndyakubi and he went

n-a-tuka ewa° Ndalakubi. Ndalakubi

and he arrived at (the house of) Ndalakubi. Ndalakubi

n-a-gamba mu-kazi-we,^° nti, 'Genda

and he said (to) wife his, saying, * Go (that)

o-fumbire^^ omu-genyi emere.'^^ Awo omu-kazi

you may cook for guest plantains.* So wife

• From Engtro za Bagmda, p. 38. A slightly different version
is given in Manutl dc lau^ui Luganda^ p. 237.

296 APPENDIX I.

n-agenda a-fumba^^ emere n-e-gya^'

and she went she cooked plantains and they were done

n-a-gi-reta/^ omugenyi n-a-lya

and she them brought (to) guest and he ate

na-ta-kuta.^^ Nagamba Ndalakubi

and he was not satisfied. And he said (to) Ndalakubi

nti, ' Muna-nge^^ sikuse.'^^ Ndalakubi

saying, * Friend my I am not satisfied.' Ndalakubi

nagamba omukazi nti 'Gen^a ofombe

and he said (lo) wife saying * Go that you may cook

emere, omugenyi ta-kuse, ofumbe

plantains, guest is qot satisfied, (see) that you cook

nyingi.' Awo omukazi nagenda afumba

man 31.' So wife and she went she cooks

emi-wumbo^^ gy-emere e-tano, na-gyo*'

bundles of plantains five, and those

n-a-gi-reta Ndyakubi, n-a lya

and she brought them (to) Ndyakubi, and he ate

n-a-gi-mala-wo,^^ era'^ natakuta.

and when he had finished them still he was not satisfied.
Nagamba Ndalakubi, nti, 'Munange,

And he spoke (to) Ndalakubi, saying, * My friend,

sikuse.' Ndalakubi nagamba

I am not satisfied.* Ndalakubi and he spoke (to)

omukazi nti, * Genda ewa munange

wife saying, * Go to (the house of) my friend

gundi,^® o-n-sabire-yo** emere, nze"

so and so, that you may beg for me there plantains, I

e mpwede-ko.^^ Omukazi nagenda asaba

they are finished for me. Wif^ and she went she begs

emere, nagireta, nafumba

plantains, and she brought them and she cooked

emiwumbo kikumi,^^ nagireta ; Ndyakubi

bundles 1 00, and she brought them ; Ndyakubi

APPENDIX 1. 297

nalya emere nagimalawo

and he ate plantains and when he had finished them

natakuta. Nagamba, ^ Ndalakubi

he was not satisfied. And he spoke, Ndalakubi

nti, 'Munange, sikuse/ Ndalakubi

saying, * My friend, I am not satisfied." Ndalakubi

^n-a-damu,^ nti 'Emere empwedeko.'

and he answered, saying 'Plantains are finished for me.'

Ndyakubi nagamba nti, 'Kale^

Ndyakubi ind he spoke saying, * All right,

ka-n-gende enjala, munywanyi'^ wdo^e,

let me go (with) hunger, dearest friend my,

n-fire ku kubo^^ ,^ enjala.'

that I may die on road (with) hunger.'

Na-dayo ewu-we. Na

And he returned there to his (own house.) And

Ndalakubi ya-laba*" a-genze,^ naye nagenda

Ndalakubi he saw he has gone, he too and he went

oku mu-kyalira, « natuka ewa

to visit him, and he arrived at (the house of)

Ndyakubi. Ndyakubi nagamba omukazi

Ndyakubi. Ndyakubi and he spoke (to) wife

nti, ' Genda ofumbe emere

saying, * Go that you may cook plantains

y-omugenyi.' Omukazi nagenda

of guest.' Wife and she went

nagifumba, negya

and she cooked them, and they were done,

nagireta; Ndalakubi n-a-lya-ko*^'

and she brought them ; Ndalakubi and he ate of them

katono. Awo obude^ te-bwa-lwa

a little. So time of day it did not delay

ne bu-ziba. Ndalakuki nagamba

and it is stopped up. Ndalakubi and he spoke

298 APPENDIX 1.

Ndyakubi nti, ^ 'Nasulawa?'"

(to Ndyakubi saying, * I shall pass the night where ? *

Ndyakubi nagamba nti, ' Na-ku-segulira^^

Ndyakubi and he spoke saying, * I will remove for you

ku-kitanda^ kwange kw-o-no-sula.'

from bedstead my where you will pass the night/

Ndalakubi nagamba nti, ' Si-gya-wo/^^

Ndalakubi and he spoke saying, * I do not get-in there.*

Ndyakubi nawangulawo empagi,

Ndyakubi and he pulled out there a post,

Ndalakubi nagenda yebaka/^ Nendyakubi

Ndalakubi and he went he slept. Ndyakubi too

neyebaka. Yali yebase, Ndalakubi

and he slept. He was he is asleep, Ndalakubi

na-mu ita, nti, 'Munange,

and he called him, saying, * My friend,

we-n-suze^^ si-gya-wo ebi-gere,

where I have put up I do not get in (as to) my feet,

bi ri, bweru.' Ndyakubi nagamba

they are outside.* Ndyakubi and he spoke (to)

mukaziwe nti, 'Genda ewa gundi,

his wife saying, * Go to (the house of) so and so,

a-m-pole^^ emuli.'^^ Omukazi nagenda

that he may lend me reeds.* Wife and she went

na-zi-reta. Ndyakubi na-kokera'^

and she brought them. Ndyakubi and he pushed out

enyumba ekiro ekyo. Ndalakubi nagenda

house night that. Ndalakubi and he went

yebaka, bwe-yebaka^^ ebi-gere bya-gukira

he sleeps, when he slept feet they projected

bveru. Naita Ndyakubi nti,

outside. And he called Ndyakubi saying,

'Munange, bwe-wa-ja ewange wa-lya

* My friend, when you came to my (house) you ate

API>ENDIX 1. 299

emere nyingi, laba nze kakano, ebigere biri,

plantains many, see me now, feet are

bweru, ebi-solo bi-ja ku-n-dya bigere.'

outside, animals they are going to eat me the feet.*

Ndyakubi njekgamba nti, 'Si-ri-ko^

Ndyakubi and he said saying, * 1 have not

we-na-gya * muli zimpwedeko,

where I shall takeout reeds they are finished for me,

nemiti si-ri-na.' Ndalakubi nagamba

and poles I have not.' Ndalakubi and he spoke

nti, 'Bwe-wa-ja ewange ba-ka-fambira

saying * When you came to my (house) they cooked for you

emere nyingi, nolya nogana

plantains many, and you ate and you refused

okukuta emere, ne-zi-gwa-ko

to be satisfied (with) plantains, and they were finished

n-0-ng'amba nti, 'Munywanyi wange,

and you spoke to me saying, * Dearest friend my,

kang'ende enjala' nange kale! leka

let me go (with) hunger * and I — well ! let (be) — .

ebisolo bindire^^ ebweru, munywanyi

animals they may eat me outside, dearest friend

wange/ Ndyakubi nagamba nti,

my.* Ndyakubi and he spoke saying,

'Hunange, wefunye,^ leka kulanama,^

* My friend, draw up (your legs), cease to stretch out,

nange bwe-na-ja-nga'^ ewuwo na-lya-nga-ko

and I whenever I come to your (house) I will eat

katono, m-onerede.*'^ Ndalakubi nagamba

a little I have repented.* Ndalakubi and he spoke
nti, ' To-kola-nga''^ bwotyo, nze

saying, * Never do like that, I

bwe-na-kw-etondera'^ nti, " Emere

when I admitted to you saying, Plantains

300

APPENDIX I.

empwedeko/' wa-yomba

are finished for me," you quarrelled .

nange no"^ leka nefunye,

and I — just let me draw up (my legs),

bvojanga ewange,

whenever you come to my (house)

0-gi-pya-nga bulungi/ "^

you shall eat them decently.*

buyombi,"

a quarrelling,

nawe

and you

emere

plantains

NOTES

^ ^te'o is here a mere connective, equivalent to * and so,' or
the like. It seems to be a distinct word from the locative
awo,

* Tlie subject of olwatuka is olu-naku ii * day ' understood :
(on) the day which arrived ' being equivalent to * once upon
a time.'

^ -lye^ possessive 5 : in Ganda the possessives of the 2nd
and 3rd persons singular are usually suffixed to the noun.

* Ndyakubi means * I eat badly,' (the / of lyM> becoming d
after n) and Ndalakubi (from lala) ' I sleep badly.* Lala does
not seem to be used in this sense now, having been replaced
by ebaka,

^ This is the 'narrative tense' (Pilkington, p. 18) of the
verb '/a, which properly means * kill,' but is used idiomatically.
Okn'ta omukago appears to be the technical term for * making
blood- brotherhood.' See Roscoe, The Baganda, p. 19. The
3rd person plural is here (as often) used impersonally, like
the French on,

^ nti seems to be the only trace left in Luganda of the
verb ti ' say,' unless the adverb otyo is connected with it, as
suggested in EUments of Luganda Grammar^ p. 206.

7 Tlie Imperative with -nga suffixed is called in Elements
(p. 68) the ' Far Future Imperative,' but it is doubtful wh'ether
it can be restricted to distant time. With a Negative
Imperative, -nga has the force of ' never.'

® 2ud person singular, narrative tense of luba * see,' for
na-u-n-laba, Na-\-ii contracts into //o, and / becomes d after
-W-, which is the object-pronoun of the hrst person.

APPENDIX I. 301

^ Ewa is the locative particle, corresponding to pa and kwa
in other Bantu languages and equivalent to the French chez.
Kwa does not seem to be thus used in Ganda, though we do
find it as the possessive particle of the rsth class : oku/a kwa
kabakaMhe death of the king.' Ewa is a double locative:
wa=pa, while « is a separate prefix meaning * at * or * to * (see
Elements^ p. 97) and possibly connected with the Zulu
locative prefix {antCf p. 83). It is often found with suffixed
possessive — ewa-ngc, twu-wOj etc.

^° -we suffixed possessive, 3rd person. Gamba is the vero
found in Swahili as amba (generally used in the applied form*
ambia ' say to,' * tell'). From it we get eki-gambo 7 * word,' cf.
Yao magambo 6 ' discussion.'

" 2nd person singular subjunctive of the applied form of
fumba * cook.' Contrary to what we find in Zulu, Swahili,
Nyanja, etc., it is accented fujubire. This diff*erence in
accentuation and an apparent preference for short vowels
make the sound of spoken Ganda very puzzling to one
accustomed, e.g, to Swahili or Nyanja.

" etnere^ 9, properly • steamed and mashed plantains,* but
used for *food' in general, this being the staple dish of the
Baganda. (See Roscoe, pp. 435-6).

" 3rd person singular, present tense (used for past).

" gyci * be cooked,' * be done,' etc ; Nyanja psya (pya),
Herero pya^ etc., originally, had the sense of * burn,' like the
Zulu tsha. It must be distinguished from two other verbs
both of which occur further on in this e'xtract : gya * take out *
and gya * get into ' (a space).

15 reta=Zu]n (and other languages) Uta, Herero eta^ etc.
(r and / are to a certain extent interchangeable in Ganda,
the former being heard before a, and w, and the latter before
c and i). -gi- is the object-pronoun of cl., g the subject-pronoun
being e- or y-. It is very rare to find, except in Class i, the
object-pronoun differing from the subject ; its position seems
to have preserved the initial consonant, which has been worn
away at the beginning of a word.

^^ The k in kuia ' be satisfied ' is the * exploded ' or * long '
consonant (see Elements , pp. 14, 15) indicated in C.M.S.
books by a prefixed apostrophe (*kuta)f and in those of the
French Fathers by doubling the consonant {natakkuta) : the
former method seems preferable. The sound is really a
combination of a consonant with the glottal stop, which is
very common in Hamitic languages (eg, Galla). These
* exploded ' consonants are not marked in the text from which
our extract is taken and it has not been thought necessary

302 APPENDIX I.

to distinguish them here. Nataktita is negative narrative
tense.

" mnna means * one of* and is therefore never used without
a possessive pronoun or a noun following : niuna-ft * one of
us,' muna-Budu * a man of Budu.' Properly it should not be
used with a singular pronoun, but it has acquired the sense of

* friend,* * companion,* etc.

*<♦ si ktise, Negative Perfect of kuta, 2nd person tu-kuse, 3rd
ta-kuse, ta is the negative particle corresponding with the

Swahili ha,

*^ omU'Wumbo 3 (from wumba * wrap up for cooking in a
leaf ') is a bundle of plantains, which are always prepared in
this way. In the Manuel de Langiie Litganda, it is translated

* marmites^* but this is evidently a mistake — gyemerc for gya
emere— note gya 4, agreeing with emiwrnnbo.

^ {^)-^y<^i demonstrative, agreeing with emi-wumbo : the -gi-
in the next word has the same agreement, and is consequently
4 not 9.

'^ Narrative tense, followed by the locative relative -wo
(here=* when,* like -po in Swahili). mala * finish,' with iti
derived forms malira^ maliza^ is found in Swahili (though here
almost ousted by isha), Nyanja, Yao, etc.

^ era seems to be used eiiher as an adverb or as a conjunc-
tion. It may also mean • and,' * besides.*

^ gundiy used like goa in Polcomo and fnlani (Arabic) in
Swahili, to designate some one whom one cannot or will not
name.

" 2nd person singular subjunctive of sabira^ applied form
of saba *ask ' : — o- (before a vowel w-) subject-pronoun, 2nd
person singular; -«-, object-pronoun, ist person singular ; yo-
locative suffix, equivalent to * in that place ' (Elements, p. 70) :
the whole word meaning ' where you may request food for
me.'

'^ nze, separable pronoun, ist person singular — here used
for emphasis=* as for me.*

"^^ Perfect (wede) of gwa * come to an end,' agreeing with
emere 9 and followed by the locative pronoun -ko. The -mp-
represent5i».the object-pronoun of the first person, this being
the loiui assumed by n before w. The construction suggests
a common Irish idiom, ^.^., * He's lost it on me * (Jane
Barlow, Irish Idylls,)

27 Note the difference between ekumi and kikumi, Lukumi
is 1,000 and kakumi 10,000,

APPENDIX I. 303

^ da * return ' seems in damn * answer' to be compounded
with mu in a way not quite easy to explain, but probably
growing out of the usage by which va-mu {e,g,) means * get out
from inside.' (Elements y p. 71).

^ ^a/^, interjection of * exhortation,' here equivalent to 'Oh!
very well 1 ' or the like, kang'tttde subjunctive, preceded by
kuy which is generally added to the ist person singular and
plural {Eltments, p. 69). Note ng'tnde, not ng^nde — n and g
combining into ng\

^ munywanyi a term of endearment, sometimes equivalent
to * light of my eyes,' ' darling,' etc.

•* (e) kubo 5 is * a path trodden down,' possibly connected
with kuba * beat.'

•* ya-laba^ 3rd person singular (note the difference in the
pronoun) of the * Far Past ' Tense (Elements^ p. 37).

^ -genxfj perfect of ginda.

^ This it the * Partitive ' use of -ko (like French en) — see^

Elements^ p. 70.

^ obude 14, constantly used in indications of time. Obud4
buziba is, literally * the time of day becomes stopped * (as a
bottle with a cork : the Manuel de Langue Luganda renders,
* le moment se bouche ' U-bwa-lwa), Negative [Far Past, agreeing
with obude. The wliole phrase means ' it was not long before
it got dark.'

^ wa, adverb, indicative of ' place generally,* used interro-
gatively for * where ? ' (Elements, pp. 46, 51). It is the
locative pronoun pa, a primitive p becoming w in Ganda.

^7 Segulira should properly be the applied form of a
reversive verb derived from sega, which, however, does not
occur in the vocabu]:iries in any meaning that would be
appropriate. Seguka, intr. is * move one's position.* Na-ku-
segulira here means, not ' I will make room for you ' on my
bed, but * I will give up my bed to you.'

"8 Ku-kitanda 17, treated as one word and therefore followed
by the possessive kwange, Kwonosula^kuo-no-sula : and. pers.
sing, of the Near Future, preceded by ^M=on (which). Note
the distinction between sula ' pass the night ' and ebaka, used
of actual sleep.

- "• This is gya * get into a space ' — see Note 14 above.

*^ ebaka, properly a reflexive verb, e being the reflexive
pronoun (Zuli zi, Swahili ji, Nyamwezi », etc.). But many
such verbs have acquired distinct meanings of their own.
(Elements, p. 117.) As it begins with a vowel, the Past is
y -ebaka, ior ya-ebaka.

304 APPENDIX I.

♦
*^ suze, perfect of sula ; we- adverb corresponding to the
ocative wa i6 {Elepttents^ p. 96), as in wano we-n-tambula^
here where I walk.'

** For a-n-woU^ from wola ' lend.* The nasal n preserves
the p sound elsewhere lost in Ganda and is itself modified by
the influence of the p into w.

*^ emuli 10 plural of olu-muli 11. Reeds are used in
thatching a house, the thatch reaching down to the ground.

** Ndyakubi, having previously pulled out one of the
supports in order to give his friend more room, now makes
an extension to the thatch with the borrowed reeds. Huts
being round, the foot of the bedstead (placed so that, in
a square room it would be parallel with the wall), would
necessarily come in contact with the thatch.

^^ hwc^ relative =* when ' agrees with obude 14 understood.

*° na understood after W, as often in the negative. Gya
* take out,' as from a store.

*7 For bi'ii-lirej applied form of lya,

^^ efuiiya, reflexive of fitnya * clench ' (the fist), *foId' etc. —
used here of drawing up the knees. \Vefunye=0'efunye, 2nd
person singular of the Subjunctive.

*^ lanama, by its form and sense is evidently a stative, but
no verb lana appears to be in use.

*o The ^n^x-nga may denote either present, past or future
action, so long as it is repeated or habitual. {Elements^ P«9i')
Here it is equivalent to * whenever I come.' ^

^^ For n-honercde, perfect of bonera, * repent ' ; b, after changing
n to w, disappears.

^^ Negative Imperative : -nga suffixed to this mood implies
a general prohibition (Elements^ p. 35) ; -otyo is an adverb
meaning ' just so ' and bw (tf)V how,' depends on some implied
14th class noun meaning * state ' etc. (Elements^ pp. 94-106.)

^^ etonda ' confess a fault and be sorry for it ' (Blackledge) ;
etond-era ' confess to (any one) ' here used of the regretful
admission that his provisions are exhausted.

*^^ That is ' merely quarrel,' * do nothing but quarrel *; — ^for
this peculiar use of the 14th prefix, see Elements, p. 107.

^^ no is an ' intensive interjection '; leka, * let, '* allow,' often
used before the subjunctive^ like our * let ' though its primary
meaning seems to be ' leave' ('let, alone.') Some languages
have it with the meaning * stop ' (intr.)

^ Abstract noun, (from -lungi ' good ') used as an adverb
(Pilkington, p. 69.)

APPENDIX I. 305

Connected Translation

Oace upon a time there was a man whose name was
Ndyakubi, and he made brotherhood with Ndalakubi.
And Ndalakubi said to him, * Come and see me (some
day.)' So Ndyakubi went, and arrived at Ndalakubi's
house, and the latter said to his wife, * Go and cook
food for the guest.' So the wife went and cooked food,
and, when it was done, she brought it, and the guest
ate, but he was not satisfied, and he said to Ndalakubi,

* My friend, I have not had enough.' Ndalakubi said
to his wife * Go (again) and cook a great deal of food,
for our guest is still hungry.' She went and cooked
five bundles of food and brought them also to Ndyakubi,
and he ate it, and when he had finished he still
had not had enough and said to Ndalakubi, * My
friend, I am not satisfied.' Ndalakubi said to his wife,

* Go to my friend so and so and ask him for some
plaintains, for mine are all finished.* The wife went
and asked for plantains and brought them and cooked
a hundred bundles. Ndyakubi ate the food and when
he had finished it, he was still unsatisfied and said
. . . [as before.] Ndalakubi answered, * I have
no food left,' so * Ndyakubi said, * Never mind, I
will go away hungry, my dear friend, and die by the
roadside (if I must).' So he returned home. Ndalakubi
saw that he had gone, and (some tirrfe afterwards), he,
too went to pay a visit to him, and when he arrived at
Ndyakubi's house, the latter said to his wife * Go and
cook food for the guest.' His wife went and cooked it
and brought it when it was done, and Ndalakubi ate a
little of it. Soon after this it grew dark. Ndalakubi
said to Ndyakubi, * Where am I to sleep ? ' Ndyakubi
answered, * I will give you my bedstead so that
you can sleep.* Ndalakubi said * There will not
be room for me,' so Ndyakubi pulled out one of the
posts of the house, and Ndalakubi went and lay down to
^leep. Ndyakubi also slept. When he was asleep,

306 APPENDIX I.

Ndalakubi called him and said, * My friend, in the place

you have given me to sleep in, there is no room for my

feet, they are outside.* Ndyakubi said to his wife, * Go

to so and so and borrow some reeds,* and the woman went

and brought them, and Ndyakubi made an extension to

the house that night. Ndalakubi went and slept, but

when he was asleep (he thrust) his feet (through the

thatch and awoke and found that they) were projecting

outside. So he called out to Ndyakubi, * My friend,

when you came to my house you ate large quantities of

plantains — now, see how my feet are outside, and the

wild animals will come and eat them.* Ndyakubi said,

* There is no place where I can get any more reeds

they are all done and I have no poles.* Ndalakubi

said, * When you came to my house, they cooked for

you an enormous amount of food, and you ate, and yet

you kept on saying you had not had enough, and when

the food was all finished, you said to me, * My beloved

friend ! let me go away hungry ! ** — and so I say,

** Never mind, dearest friend — let the wild beasts eat me

outside your house ! ** * So Ndyakubi said, * Oh ! my

friend, just draw up your legs and don*t stretch them

out ; and I, too, next time I come to your house, I will

only eat a little ; I am truly sorry for my behaviour.'

Ndalakubi answered, * Never act again as you did when

I told you, very much to my regret, that there was no

more food in the house, and you did nothing but quarrel

with me. Well, let me just draw up my knees (till the

morning), and when you come to my house again,

remember to eat like a decent human being.*

A free version of this lale is to be found in Roscoe,
The Baganda, p. 482. The point of it lies in the
mutual obligations of blood-brothers, on which Ndyakubi
presumes beyond all permission.

APPENDIX II: BIBLIOGRAPHY

This Bibliography makes no attempt at completeness,
beings intended merely as a guide to the books available
for the study of the more important Bantu Languages.
Continental works not easily accessible have only, as a
rule, been indicated where no English ones appeared' to
exist.

Languages marked '" are those into which the whole
Bible has been translated ; those marked t possess
complete versions of the New Testament. These
versions are of unequal linguistic value, but as a
rule are welcome aids to the student. (Most of them,
though not ail, are published by the British and
Foreign Bible Society.) Many others, besides those
marked, have translations of separate parts of the
Scriptures, and school reading -books, etc.^ which will
often be found useful.

Books marked * are to be found in the library of the
African Society (open to members) at 64, Victoria
Street, S.W.

1. General

*Anthropos. Revue Internationale d'Ethnologie et de
Linguistique, Salzburg (Zaunrith).
From 1906 onwards. Separate ♦^items under Congo
(Kiyombe, Kanyoka), Fang, Fipa.

W. H.J. Bleek. Comparative Grammar of the South
African Languages. Part L (Phonology), 1862*

308 APPENDIX II.

Part II. The Concord. Section I. The Noun.
1869. (No more published.) London (Triibner
and Co.)

C. G. Biittner. Zeitschrift fiir Afrikanische Spracben.

Berlin (A. Ascher and Co.), 1887-90.

Contains many valuable contributions, some of which

are entered as separate items in the Bibliography. The

periodical was discontinued on Dr. Buttner*s death in

1890.

*R. N. Cust. A Sketch of the Modern Languages of
Africa, 2 vols. London (Triibner and Co.), 1883.

Journal of the African Society. (Quarterly.) London
(Macmillan and Co.) From 1902 onwards. Contains
some valuable linguistic articles.

J. T. Last. Polyglotta Africana Orientalis. London
(S.P.C.K.), 1885.
Contains vocabularies of over fifty East African
Languages (including a few non-Bantu). They are not
very full, but form useful starting points for languages
not already studied.

'''C. Meinhof. Die modeme Sprachforschung in Africa.
1910, Berlin : Berlin Evangelical Missionary Society
(Georgenkirchstrasse) .

* An Introduction to the Study of

African Languages. (Translated by A. Werner.)
London and Toronto (Dent), 1915.
Being the English edition of the preceding.

* Grundriss einer Lautlehre der Bantu-

sprachen (Second edition). Berlin (Dietrich
Reimer) (Ernst Vohsen), 1910.

^^ Grundziige -^iner vergleichenden

Grammatik der Bantusprachen. Same publisher.
Berlin, 1906.

Das Dahlsche Gesetz. Zeitschrift der

deutschen morgenldndischcn Gesellschaft Bd,
LVIL, p. 302.

APPENDIX II. 309

An exposition of the important law of Dissimilation
referred to on p. 229.

C. Meinhof. Linguistische Studien in Ostafrika.
Berlin, 1904-8. Mitteilungen des Sem. fur orient.
Sprachen. Bd. VII-XI.

Phonetic Studies of Swahili, Shambala, Nyamwazi,
Sukuma, Digo, * Nika,* Pokomo, Bondei, Zigula, Mbugu,
Dzalaino, Makua, Yao.

* Mitteilungen des Seminars fiir orientalische Sprachen
an der koniglichen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat
zu Berlin, etc. Berlin (W. Spemann, afterwards
G. Reimer), 1898, etc.

These * Transactions' appear annually in three sections,
of which the third is devoted to Africa, under the title
of Afnkantsche Studien. Some of the more important
items are entered separately, under the several languages.
Referred to as Mitt. B. Sem. Or. The series of hand-
books {Lehrbiicher des Seminars fiir orientalische
Sprachen) issued by the same institution contains a
number of valuable works, entered under tlje separate
languages.

Another series of which several volumes will be found
entered under various langi;ages is the Archiv fiir das
Studium deutscher Kolonialsprachen (same publisher),
1895.

'^'B. Struck. Collections towards a BiWiographiy of the
Bantu Languages of British E. Africa. Journal of
the African Society, London, 1907.

J. Torrend, S. J. A Comparative Grammar of the
South African Bantu Languages, comprising those
of Zanzibar, Mozambique, the ^Zambezi, etc., etc.
London (Kegan Paul, Trench," Triibner and Co.,
Ltd.), 1891.

*Zeitschrift fiir afrikanische und oceanische Sprachen.

Berlin (Dietrich Reimer), 1895-1903.

Edited by A. Seidel; 5 vols, square royal 8vo., appeared

between January, 1895 and January, 1900. Publication

was then suspended, but resumed (in a smaller /orma^) in

310 APPENDIX 11.

1902, and ceased with the first issue for 1903. Some
important contributions are entered under special
languages, «.g., Sumbwa, Tabwa. 4 vols, in African
Society's Library.

Zeitschrift fiir Kolonialsprachen. (Quarterly.) Berlin
(D. Reimer) and Hamburg (Boysen). From 1910
onwards.

II. Special Languages

Aduma (Duma). Spoken along the Ogowe River in
the northern part of French Congo.

R. P. Dahin. Vocabulaire Adouma-Fran9ais. Part I.,
French- Aduma, pp. 72. Part II., Aduma-French,
pp. >2. Kempten (Bavaria), (Jos. Kosel), 1895.

Angola. See Mbundu.

Bangala. See under Congo Languages.

Bangi. See under Congo Languages.

*Bemha, Between the Lualaba and Lake Nyasa.

*W. G. Robertson. An Introductory Handbook to the
Language of the Bemba People. London (L.M.S.),
1904.

* Father SchoefFer. Grammar as spoken in North-east
Rhodesia. Edited by J. H. West Sheane. Arranged
with Preface by (the late) A. C. Madan. Oxford
(Clarendon Press), 1907.

Benga, (Corisco Bay, West Africa.)

*J. L. Mackey. Grammar of the Benga Bantu
Language, revised by R. H. Nassau. New York
(American Tract Society), 1892.
The original edition of Mackey's Grammar was

published at New York (Mission House, 23, Centre

Street), in 1855.

APPENDIX II. 311

C. Meinhof. Das Zeitwort in der Benga-Sprache.
Berlin, 1890. Zeitschrift fiir Afr. Sprachen, Vol.
III., pp. 265-284. Benga und Duala, ib. 11., pp.
190-208.

Bondei, Spoken inland from Tanga in East Africa.

G. Dale. Bondei Exercises. Holy Cross, Magila, 1892.

*H. W. Woodward. Collections for a Handbook of
the Bondei Language. London (S.P.C.K.), 1882.

Stories in the Bondei Language

with some Enigmas and Proverbs. Written by
Native Students and edited by the Rev. H. W.
Woodward. (S.P.C.K.)

Bube, (Fernando Po.)

John Clarke. Introduction to the Fernandian Tongue.
Berwick-on-Tweed (Daniel Cameron), 1848.

R. P. Joaquin Juanola. Primer Paso a la Lengua
Bub6, pp. 190. This seems to be the most
complete grammar hitherto published. Madrid
(A. Perez Dubrull).

*Sir H. H. Johnston. George Grenfell and the Congo,
Vol. 11., Appendix 1., p. 882. London (Hutchin-
son and Co.), 1908.
This work contains specimen vocabularies of a great
many other West African Languages, and a discussion
of the various Bantu migrations. The greatest amount
of space is devoted to a comparison of numerals.

Bunda. See Mbundu.

Chaga. (£aga, Dsagga, Djaga, etc.) The Wachaga

live on Kilimanjaro.
*J. Raum. Versuch einer Grammatik der Dschagga-

Sprache (Moschi-Dialekt). Archiv. fiir d. Stud.

deutscher Kolonialsprachen, Vol. XI. Berlin

(Georg Reimer), 1909.

H. A. Fokken. Das Kisiha. Mitteil. des Sem. fur
orient. Sprachen. Jahrg. Vlll., Abt. 3. Berlin,
pp. 44-93, 1905.
Siha is a dialect of Chaga.

312 APPENDIX II.

Chasu (also called Pare).

*E. Kotz. Grammatik des Chasu in Deutsch, Ostafrika*
Berlin (G. Reimer), 1909. Archiv fiir das Studium
deutscher Kolonialsprachen, Vol. X.
Spoken in the mountains south of Kilimanjaro.

Chinamwanga. See Namwanga.

Chinyanja, See Nyanja.

Chiswiua and Chizwina, See Karanga.

^Chwana (Sechwana, Secwana).

It is practically identical with Sutu (Sotho, Sesuto),
and works relating to both are entered under this
heading.

James Archbell. A Grammar of the Bechuana
Language. Graham's Town (Meurant and
Godlonton), 1837.

J. Brown. L.M.S. Secwana Dictionary. Frome
(Butler and Tanner), 1895.

E. Casalis. Etudes sur la Langue Sechuana. Paris
(Imprimerie Royale), 1841.
This is really Sutu. The book is interesting as being
one of the earliest on the subject, and the Introduction
gives a valuable account of the establishment of the
French Mission in Basutoland and its relations with
Moshesh.

*W. Crisp. Notes towards a Secwana Grammar, 1900,
reprinted 1905. (S.P.C.K.)
A useful book, though not very well arranged. The
dialect is that of the Barolong.

K. Endemann. Versuch einer Grammatik des Sotho.
Berlin (Wilhelm Hertz), 1876. •

* Worterbuch der Sotho-Sprache, Vol.

VII. of Abhandlungen des Hamburgischen Koloni-
alinstituts. Hamburg (L. Friedrichsen and Co.),
1911.
These are really Chwana rather than Sutu, which is

noticed as a dialect under the name of * Siid-Sotho.*

APPENDIX II. 313

£. Jacottet. Practical Method to learn Sesuto. Morija
(Sesuto Book Depot), 1906.

Elementary Sketch of Sesuto

Grammar, 1893. Published with Mabille's
Vocabulary, which see.

E. Jacottet. Treasury of Basuto Lore, Vol. I. (Sesuto

Book Depot), Morija, Basutoland, 1908. London
(Kegan Paul).

A valuable collection of Native Tales. Subsequent
volumes were intended to contain historical traditions,
songs, accounts of customs, etc.,^ but no more have yet
been issued^

D. Jones and S. T. Plaatje*' Sechuana fleadcr.
University of London Press (H odder and
Stoughton), 1916.

F. H. Kruger. Steps to Learn the Sesuto Language

(Fourth edition). Morija (Sesuto Book Depot),
1905.

A. Mabille. Sesuto- English and English-Sesuto
Vocabulary. (Preceded by Jacottet's Grammar ^
which see.) (P. E. Mission Press), Morija, 1893.

A. Mabille and H. Dieterlen. Sesuto- English Dictionary.
Revised and considerably enlarged. (Sesuto Book
Depot), Morija.

*S. T. Plaatje. Sechuana Proverbs with Literal
Translation. London (Kegtn Paul), 1916.

Puisano ea se-Sotho le se-£nglish. Phrase-Book.
Sesuto- English. Morija (Sesuto Book Depot), 1908.

A. J. Wookey, L.M.S. Secwana Grammar, with
Exercises. Frome (Butler and Tanner), 1905.

Congo (languages of). The languages included under
this heading are :

\Bangiy ^[Bobangi, Kibangi, Kiyanzi). On both
banks of the Congo, from the confluence of the
S^nkuru to that of the Lulongo.

314 APPENDIX 11. •

Kanyoka^ between Lulua and Upper Sankuru.

Kele^ below Stanley Falls/

"^KongOf (Congo, Fiote.)

^LolOf (Mongo, Lunkundu) — on the Equator,

within the great northern bend of the Congo.

Lulua, on one of the Kasai tributaries.

Ngala, (Bangala, Lingala). Middle Congo,
between the "confluences of the Mubangi and
the Mongala.

Ng^ombe, west of the Ba-ngala.

Poto, at and near Bopoto (Upoto), at the top of
the Congo bend.

SokOf near the mouth of the Aruhwimi.

Teke, north of Stanley Pool (also called Ifumu).

Yombe, (Kiombe) in the Mayombe country, North

of the Lower Congo, and inland from the Ba-

vili.

An excellent bibliography of all publications dealing

with the Congo languages up to 1906 (the work of

Professor Starr), was issued by the University of

Chicago' in 1908.

J. Barfield. Concords of the Congo Language, as
spoken at Palaballa. (East London Mission
Institute), Harley House, Bow, 1884.

W. Holman Bentley. Dictionary and Grammar of the
Kongo Language. • London (Triibner and Co.),
1887.

Appendix to the Dictionary, etc.

(Same publishers), 1895. v.

De Boeck. Grammaire et Vocabulaire du Lingala ou
Langue du Haut Congo, 1904.

^ Not to be confused with Di-kele, the language of a different
tribe of Ba-kele, living near the Gabun estuary.

' Department of Anthropology, Bulletin V.

APPENDIX n. 315

Fra Giacinto Brusciotto di Vetralla. Regulae quaedam
pro difficillimi CongeDsium idiomatis faciliori captu
ad grammaticae nor mam redactae. Romae, 1659.

* Brusciotto di Vetralla. Grammar of the Congo
Language, as spoken 200 years ago, translated from
the Latin, and edited, with a preface, by H.
G rattan Guinness. London (Hodder and
Stoughton), 1882.

*R. P. J. Calioch. Vocabulaire Francais-Ifumu
(Bat6k6), precede d*el6ments de Grammaire, 1911.

R. P. Cambier. Essai sur la langue Congolaise*
Brussels (Imprimerie Polleunis and Ceuterick)»
1891 (Boko dialect of Ngala).

*H. Craven and J. Barfield. English-Congo and Congo-
English Dictionary. London (Harley House)»
Bow, 1883.

A. Courboin. ^ * Bangala,' Langue Commerciale du Haut-
Congo, Elements, Manuel de Conversation, Lexique.
Paris (A. Challand), 1908.

•

R. P. A. Declercq de la Congregation du C% I. de Marie,
Missionnaire au Congo beige. E16ments de la
langue Kanioka (Kanyoka.) Vanves prfes. Paris
(Imprimerie Francisc^me Missionnaire), 1900.

Vocabulaire Fran9ais - Kanioka.

(Same publishers), 1901.

Vocabulaire" Kanioka - Fran9ais,

(Same publishers), 1901.

Grammaire du Kiyombe. Anthropot^

Vol. II., pp. 449-466, 761-794. 1907.

R. P. A. Declercq. Grammaire de la Langue des Bena
Lulua. Brussels (Polleunis and Ceuterick), 1897.

L6gendes des Bena Kanioka (Text,

with interlined French translation). Anthropof,
Vol. IV., pp. 71-86, 449-456, 1909.

*L. M. Hailes. Kilolo- English Vocabulary. (East

316 APPENDIX II.

London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions),
Harley House, Bow, 1891.,

H. H. Johnston. The River Congo. (Sampson Low),
1884, Second ed., 1895.
Contains vocabularies of Kongo, Teke, Buma and
Bangi (Yanzi).

J. and F. T. McKittrick. Guide to the Lunkundu
Language. (A dialect of Lolo.) (East London
Institute for Home and Foreign Missions), 1897.

*A. T. Ruskin. Proverbs and Similes of the Bamongo
(Mongo is a dialect of Lolo.) (East London
Institute for Home and Foreign Missions), 1897.

^ Outlines of the Grammar of the

Lomongo Language.

A. Sims. Vocabulary English- Kibangi (Bangi).
London (East London Institute) : Boston (American
Baptist Mission Union), 1886.

A. Sims. Vocabulary English- Kiteke and Kiteke-
English (Teke), 1«86.

*W. H. Stapleton. Comparative Handbook of Congo
Languages, being a Comparative Grammar of the
eight principal languages, with appendices on six
other Dialects (Baptist Mission Press), Yakusu,
Stanley Falls, 1903.
The eight languages included in this book are : Kongo,

Bangi, Lolo, Ngala, Poto, Ng'ombe, Soko, Kele.

The six noticed in the Appendix are: Teke, Sakani

(a dialect of Lolo), Lomongo (Mongo, also a dialect of

Lolo), Boko (a dialect of Ngala), Lulua, and Mpombo,

which is not Bantu.

*W. H. Stapleton. Suggestions for a Graifimar of
Bangala (the Lingua Franca of the Upper Congo),
with 2,000 words and many useful phrases. Yakusu
(Baptist Missionary Society), 1903.

R. P. Ussel. Petite Grammaire de la Langue Fiote,
Dialecte du Loango, pp. 85. Loango (Mission

Press), 1888.

APPENDIX II. 317

(This is spoken by the Ba-vili, whose countr^ is
somewhat to the north of the Congo estuary. The
author is a missionary of the Congregation du St. Esprit.)

R. P. Alexandre Visseq. Dictionnaire Fiot (French-
Kongo), 1889.

Dictionnaire Fiot (dialecte Sorongo),

1890.

Dictionnaire Fiot (dialecte du Kakongo),

1890.

Grammaire (Sorongo dialect spoken at

St. Antonio). Paris (Mission of the Congregation
of the Holy Ghost), 30 Rue Lhomond, 1889.

J. Whitehead. Grammar and Dictionary of the Bobangi
Language. London (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner
and Co.), 1899.

Th. Christaller. Handbuch der Duala-Sprache.
Grammar and exercises ; story with^literal interlined
translation ; dialogues ; vocabulary. Basle, ^892.

C. Meinhof. Die Sprache der Duala in Kamerun, "Viol,
III. of Deutsche Kolonialsprachen, 1912.

W. Lederbogen. Duala-Marchen. Mitt. B. Sem.Or. IV,
y, VI, Abt. 3, 1901-3.

A large collection of . tales, with German translation
in parallel columns.

A. Saker. Grammatical Elements of the Dualla
Language, with vocabulary. Cameroons (Mission
Press), 1853.

A. Seidel. Leitfaden zur Erlernung der Dualla-Sprache
(with readings and vocabulary). Berlin (Carl
Heymann), 1892.

Die Duala-Sprache in Kamerun. System-

atisches Worterverzeichnis und Einfiihrung in die
Grammatik. Julius Groos' Verlag. Heidelberg,
Paris, London, Rome, Petersburg, 1904,

318 APPENDIX II.

Duma. See Aduma.

Dzalamo (Zaramo, Zalamo). East Coast, South of
Zanzibar.

A. Worms. Grundzuge der Grammatik des Ki-Zaramo
in Deutsch-Ost-Afrika. Zeitschr. fiir afr. u.
ocean. Sprachen III, p. 289, 1897.

C. Meinhof. Linguistische Studien in Ostafrika, No.
XII., Mitt. B. Sem. Or. X., Abt. 3, pp. 90-110, 1907.

Ediya, see Bube.

Fan (Fang, Fanwe, Pahouin, Pamwe, etc.). West
Equatorial Africa, North of the Ogowe.

*"Rev. H. M. Adams. Fanwe Primer and Vocabulary.
Compiled by the Rev. R. H. Nassau, M.D.,
Gaboon and Corisco Mission [from the MSS. of
the Rev. H. M. Adams.] New York (printed by
E. G. Jenkins), 1881.

V. Largeau. Encyclopedie Pahouine, 1901.

Includes Grammar and French- Fan Dictionary,
containing many valuable anthropological notes and
also texts with translation.

R. P. L. Lejeune. Dictionnaire fran9ais-fang. Paris
(Favre and Teillard), 1892. With a Grammatical
Sketch.

*A. Osorio Zabala. Vocabulary of the Fan Language
(Fan-Spanish.) London (S.P.C.K.), 1887.
A number of stories, with French translation were
published by P. Trilles in Anthropos. Vol. IV., pp.
945-971, Vol. v., pp. 163-180.

Fernandian {See Bube).

Fiote (Kongo. See under Congo).

Fipa (East side of S. part of L. Tanganyika).

B. Struck. Die Fipa-Sprache (Deutsch-Ostafrika).
Anthropos, Vol. VI., 1911, pp. 951-993. Gram-
matical Sketch.

"^^ Vocabulary of the Fipa Language. Journal

of the African Society, October, 1908 (Vol. VIII.).

APPENDIX II. 319

*Ganda (Lugarida).

*G. R. Blackledge. Luganda- English and English-
Luganda Vocabulary (S.P.C.K.), 1904.

*H. Wrig^ht Duta. Engero za Baganda (Proverbs in
the Luganda Language.) (S.P.C.K.), 1902.

* Elements of Luganda Grammar (Exercises and
Vocabulary.) By a Missionary of the Church
Missionary Society in Uganda. (S.P.C.K.), 1902.

*C. W. Hattersley and H. W. Duta (eds.). Luganda
Phrases and Idioms. (S.P.C.K.), 1904.

*Sir H. H. Johnston. The Uganda Protectorate, 2 vols.
London (Hutchinson), 1904.
Vol. IL contains vocabularies of a number of languages
besides Ganda.

Apolo Kagwa. Engero zabaGanda (Folk-stories).
Mengo (C.M.S. Press), 1901.

*Ekitabo kyo Bakabaka beBuganda (Book of the
Kings of Uganda). London (Headley Brothers),
printed, n.d. [1900 ?]

*G. L. Pilkington. Handbook of Luganda. London
(S.P.C.K.), 1892 (last edition, 1911).

White Fathers. Manuel de Langue Luganda, par L.L.
et C. D. des P^res Blancs (Grammar and Tales).
Einsiedeln, Switzerland (Benziger and Co.), 1894.

"^Giryatna,

W. E. Taylor. Grammar of the Giryama Lang^uage
(out of print).

Giryama Vocabulary and Collections

(Grammatical notes, and two tales, with translation).
London (S.P.C.K.), 1891.

Gisu (Masaba). Spoken on and near Mount Elgon.

*Rev. J. B. Purvis. A Manual of Lumasaba Grammar
(S.P.C.K.), 1897.

\Gogo, Ugogo (the country of the Wagogo) is about
half-way between Zanzibar and Tabora and is
traversed by the Dar-e3-Salaam railway.

320, APPENDIX II.

G. J. Clark (C.M.S.) Vocabulary of the Chigogo
Language. London (Gilbert and Rivington), 1877,
pp. 58.

Zimbazi ze Zifumbo, Nhandaguzi ne Zisimo ze Cigogo

(Gogo Reading Book — Native Proverbs, Riddles

and Fables). London (S.P.C.K.), 190L

Collected and written out by Andereya and Nhonya.

C.M.S. native teachers at Mpwapwa. Preface in

English, signed J. E. B [everley] .

Gwamha, A dialect of Thonga, spoken in N. E.
Transvaal.

P. Berthoud. Grammatical Note on the Gwamha
Language [1885] . Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society, Vol. XVI., Part L

P. Berthoud. Le9ons de Si-Gwamba. (Imp. J.
Chappins), Lausanne. 46 pp., lithographed, 1883.

Hehe. About 300 miles north of Lake Nyasa and to
the south of the Gogo country.

C. Velten. Die Sprache der Wahehe. Mitt. B. Sem.
Or. Vol. II. Vol. III. contains a Hehe-German
and German- Hehe Vocabulary, by P. Cassian
Spiss, O.S.B.

iHcrero,

P. Brincker. Worterbuch und kurzgefasste Grammatik

der Otji-Herero Sprache. Leipzig (T. O. Weigel),

1886.

The Appendix contains some tales, with literal' and

free translation into German. Some additional tales,

collected by Biittner, are published in Ztschr. fur afr.

Sprachen.

P. H. Brincker. Deutscher Wortfiihrer fiir die Bantu-
Dialekte, Otji-Herero, Oshindonga, und Oshi-
Kuanjama in S. W. Afrika. Elberfeld (R. L.
Friderichs & Co.), 1897.
A very full German- Herero, etc., dictionary, in fouT

columns.

APPENDIX II. 321

C. Hugo Hahn. Grundzuge einer Grammatik des
Herero, pp. X+^97. Berlin (W. Hertz) ; London
(Williams and Norgate), 1857.

F. W. Kolbe (L.M.S.) English- Herero Dictionary,

with an Introduction to the Study of Herero and
Bantu in general. Cape Town (Juta), pp. LV. +
569, 1883.

*C. Meinhof. Die Sprache der Herero in Deutsch
Siidwest-Afrika (Deutsche Kolonialsprachen, Bd.
I.). Berlin (Dietrich Reimer), 1909.

*A. Seidel. Praktische Grammatik der Haupt-sprachen
Deutsch Siidwestafrikas (Nama, Otji- Herero,
Oshindonga), Vienna, Leipzig (Hartleben), 1892.

G. Viehe. Grammatik des Otjiherero (with Vocabulary).

Vol. XVI. of Lehrbiicher des Seminars fiir

orientalische Sprachen.

Stuttgart, Berlin (W. Spemann), 1897.

Ifumu (Teke). See under Congo.
\Ila (Seshukulumbwe).

*E. W. Smith. Handbook of the Ila Language.
Oxford (University Press), 1907.

Isuhu, Bimbia Peninsula, Cameroons, north of the
Duala.

C. Meinhof. Das Verbum in der Isubu-Sprache.
Zeitschrift fiir Afr. Sprachen. Vol. III., pp. 206-
234, Berlin, 1889-90.

Joseph Merrick. A Dictionary of the Isubu Tongue.
(No publisher's name given in the British Museum
copy), 1854. Part I. Isubu- English, only completed
as far as I.

A Grammar of the Isubu Tongue. Unfinished.

This is out of print and no doubt rare. The British
Museum copy (Press mark 12907 bb. 22) is bound up
in a volume of * Philological Tracts.'
Kafir. See Xosa.

322 APPENDIX n.

Kaguru (Kimegi). One of the dialects of Usagara,
lying east of Ugogo.

J. T. Last. Grammar of the Kaguru Language.
London (S.P.C.K.), 1886.

Kamba, Spoken in Ukambani, E. Africa — the district
in which Nairobi is situated.

E. Brutzer. Handbuch der Kamba-Sprache. Berlin,
1906. Mitt. B. Abt. Sem. Or. IX., 3, pp. 1-100.

*H. Hinde. Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu
Languages. (Cambridge University Press), 1904.

*J. T. Last. Grammar of the Kamba Language, pp.
40. London (S.P.C.K.), 1885.

*A. D. Shaw. Vocabulary of Four East African
Languages. See under Swahili,

C. G. Biittner, Deutsch-Kikamba Worterbuch.Ztschr.
f. afr. Spr. Vol. I., pp. 81-123, 1888.

Kami, Spoken in the Ukami country, of which
Mrogoro, on the Dar-es-Salaam railway, is the
centre.

A. Seidel, in Ztschr-fiir afr. u. oc. Spr. IL, 1, p. 20.
(Grammatical sketch and short vocabulary).

C. Velten. Die Sprache der Wakami 1n Deutsch-
Ostafrika. Mitt. B. Sem. Or. III., Abt. 3,pp. 1-56,
1899. Grammatical Sketch and Vocabulary,
A few words and phrases are to be found in Last's
Polyglotta Africana Orient alts, pp. 69-72.

Kanyoka. See under * Congo.*

i KarangaiChmOfChisw'ma., Chizwina, Mashona, Shuna).

E. Biebler (S.J.) English-Chiswina Dictionary, with
Outline Grammar. Roermond (j. J. Romer and
Sons), 1906.

Four Methods of Teaching English

to the Maswina. Roermond (same publishers), 1906.

Testamente. (Bible Stories). Roermond

(same publishers), 1906.

APPENDIX II. 323

Rev. H. Buck. A Dictionary with Notes on the
Grammar of the Mashona Language, commonly
called Chiswina (Compiled at St. Augustine's
Mission, Penhalonga.) (S.P.C.K.), 1911.

W. A. Elliott. Dictionary of the Tebele and Shuna
Languages, 1897.
The second edition of this book (1911) which omits
the * Shuna * edition is entered under * Zulu.*

Louw, Mrs. C. S. A Manual of the Chikaranga
Language (Grammar, Exercises, Useful Phrases
and Vocabulary), p. 397. Bulawayo (Philpot &
Collins), 1915.

Rev. A. M. Hartmann (S. J.). Outline of a Grammar of
the Mashona Language. Cape Town, 1893.

Kels, (Lokele). See under * Congo.'

Kele (Dikele). Spoken near the Gabun Estuary,

Missionaries of the A. B.C. P.M. A Grammar of the
Ba-kele Language. New York, 1854.

Kikuyu.

*A. R. Barlow. Tentative Studies in Kikuyu Grammar
and Idiom. Edinburgh (Blackwood), 1914.

Rev. Father A. Hemery. English-Kikuyu Handbook.
Zanzibar-Nairobi (Roman Catholic Mission), 1903.

*A. W. McGregor (C.M.S.) English-Kikuyu Vocabulary.
(S.P.C.K.), 1904.

— ■ — A Grammar of the Kikuyu Language. London
(Clay and Sons, printed), 1905.

H. Hinde. Vocabulary {See Kamba),

King a,

*R. Wolff. Grammatik der Kinga-Sprache (Deutsch-
Ostafrika, Nyassagebiet), nebst Tex ten u. Worter-
verzeichniss. Berlin, 1905. Archiv fiir das
Studium deutscher Kolonialsprachen, Vol. 3.

Kintassa, Se^ Nyanja.

Kiyanzi (=Bangi, Kibangi). See under * Congo.*

324 APPENDIX II.

Konde. North end of Lake Nyasa.

C. Schumann. Grundriss einer Grammatik der
Kondesprache. Berlin, 1899.

Kongo {Sec under * Congo.*)

Kwanyatna. Spoken by a branch of the people called
Ovambo, in S. W. Africa.

P. H. Brincker. Lehrbuch des Oshikuanjama in
Verbindung mit Oshindonga. (Stuttgart) Berlin,
1891.

Deutscher Wortfiihrer fur

...

Otji-herero, Oshj-ndonga, u. Oshi-kuanjama. {See
also under Herero.)

*H. Tonjes. Lehrbuch der Ovambo- Sprache Osikuan-
jama. Lehrb. d. Sem. f. or. Spr., Vol. 24.

* Worterbuch der Ovambo- Sprache. lb.,

Vol. 25. Berlin (G. Reimer), 1910.

Lala-Lamba, Spoken to the south of Lake Bangweolo.

*A. C. Madan. Lala-Lamba Handbook. Oxford
(Clarendon Press), 1908.

* Lala-Lamba-Wisa-English, and

English-Lala-Lamba-Wisa Dictionary. Oxford
(Clarendon Press), 1913.

*Lenge, Also called Chopi and Tswa. Spoken in
Portuguese S. E. Africa, between Inhambane and
the Limpopo.

*Bp. Smyth and J. Matthews. A Vocabulary with a
short Granymar of Xilenge. London (S.P.C.K.),
1902, 1912.

Lenje, North-Western Rhodesia ; allied to Ila,
which adjoins it on the west, and Tonga, spoken to
the north.

*A. C. Madan. Lenje Handbook. (Oxford University

Press), 1908.

Lolo, See under * Congo.*

Lomongo (Mongoi=Lolo. See under 'Congo.'

APPENDIX II. 325

Luba,

W. M. Morrison. Grammar of the Buluba-Lulua

Language, and Dictionary. Privately printed, 1907.

* The Buluba and the Lulua people . . . together
occupy a large area . . . extending, roughly
speaking, from the junction of the Lulua and Kasai
rivers in a general south-easterly direction into
Garenganze, where the language is called Ciluba'
[Chiluba — elsewhere Bu-luba] . (Preface).

P. A. Declercq. Grammaire de la Langue Luba, with
Vocabulary, pp. 504. Louvain (Istas), 1903.

Grammaire pratique de la Langue

Luba. Brussels (Polleunis and Ceuterick), 1911.

Lulua, See under * Congo.* ^

Lunda, An important language spoken on the water-
shed between the Congo and Zambesi, near the
sources of the Kasai, and to the south of the Luba
country.

H. A. Dias de Carvalho. Methodo Pratico parafallar a
lingua de Lunda. Lisbon (ImprensaNacional), 1890.

Luyi (Rotse). Spoken by the people of Barotseland
(Lewanika's country on the tipper Zambezi.)

E. Jacottet. Etudes sur les langues du Haut-Zamb^ze.
r® Partie. Grammaire Soubiya et Louyi, 1896.
3^°® Partie. Textes Louyi, Contes, L6gendes.
Superstitions et Vocabulaires. Paris (Ernest
Leroux), 1901.

Machame, A dialect of Chaga spoken by about 16,000
people Hving on the western side of Kilimanjaro.

* Julius Augustiny. Kurzer Abriss des Madschame-
dialekts. Berlin, 1914. Archiv. fiir d. Stud,
deutscher Kolonialsprachen. Vol. 16.

Makonde. Spoken in the country north of the Rovuma.
(E. Africa), about as far as Lindi.

E. Steere. Collections for a Handbook of the Makonde
Language. (U.M.C.A.), Zanzibar, 1876.

326 APPENDIX II.

Makua. In Mozambique

*Chauncy Maples.' Collections for a Handbook of the
Makua Language. London (S.P.C.K.), 1879.
Archdeacon Woodward is preparing a new and
revised edition of this little work.

D. J. Rankin. Arabian Tales, translated from Swahili
to Makua. (Tugulu dialect), London, 1887.

Mang'anja. See Nyanja.

Masaba. See Gisu.

Matumbi.

B. Krumm. Grundriss einer Grammatik des Kimatumbi,
1912. Mitt. B. Sem. Or. XV., Abt. 3, pp. 1-63.
Spoken by the inhabitants of the Matumbi hills, inland
from Kilwa. Vocabulary, ib. XVI. Abt. 3, pp. 1-57.

Mbundu (Bunda, Kimbundu, U^ibundu, Angola.)
Spoken in Portuguese W. Africa, south of the Congo.

B. M. de Cannecattim. Diccionario da Lingua Bunda
ou Angolense. Lisbon (impressSo Regia.), 1804.
Three parallel columns : Portuguese, Latin, Mbundu.

Collec^ao de Observa9oes grammaticaes

sobre a Lingua Bunda ou Angolense, 1805.
Appended to this is a brief Dictionary in four columns.
Portuguese, Latin, Mbundu, Kongo. Second
edition, 1859.

*H. Chatelain. Kimbundu Grammar (Grammatica
elementar do Kimbundu ou lengua de Angola.)
(Port, and English), Geneva, 1889.

Gfundziige der Kimbundu-Sprache, 1890.

Published in Ztschr,fur afr, Sprachen^ avowedly as an

abstract of the precedmg, though the author says he
has introduced some new points.

* Folk-tales of Angola. Boston, New

York, 1894.
Published by the American Folk-Lore Society.
Mbundu text, with English translation on opposite page.

APPENDIX II. 327

W. H. Sanders, W. E. Fay and others. Vocabulary

of the Umbundu Language, comprising, Umbundu-

English and English-Umbundu. Boston (Beacon

Press), A.B.C.F.M., 1885.

Contains 3,000 words of the dialect spoken inland in

Benguela.

W. M. Stover. Observations upon the Grammatical
Structure and use of the Umbundu. Boston, 1885.

Mongo ( = Lolo). See under * Congo.'

Mpongwe, See Pongwe.

Namwanga, Spoken by the Winamwanga, N. W. of
Lake Nyasa.

E. H. Dewar. Chinamwahga Stories (with English
translation.) (Livingstonia Mission Press), 1900.

\N donga. The language of one of the tribes known
collectively as Ovambo, in the northern part of
. * Damaraland.*

*P. H. Brincker. Lehrbuch des Oshikuanjama in
Verbindung mit Oshindonga. Lehrbiicher des
Seminars fiir orient. Sprachen, Vol. VI IL Berlin^
1891. See also Kwanyama.

P. H. Brincker. Deutscher Wortfiihrer fiir die Bantu-
dialekte . . . Oshindonga, etc. See under
Herero and Kwanyama.

*A. Seidel. Grammatik des Oshindonga, etc. Also
entered under Herero,

Ngombe, See under * Congo.*

Nika (more correctly Nyika).

There is no language properly called by this name,
which is applied to the Rabai, Giryama, Duruma, Digo
and five smaller tribes.

*J. L. Krapf and J. Rebmann. A Nika-English
Dictionary. Edited by T. H. Sparshott. London,
1887.
The words in this book are chiefly Rabai.

328 APPENDIX II.

A. D. Shaw. See Vocabulary of four E. African
Languages v. Swahili.

\Nyamwe%i. Spoken over a large area to the south of
Lake Victoria. Sukuma and Sumbwa are dialects
of it.

*E. Steere. Collections for a Handbook of the
Nyamwezi Language. London (S.P.C.K.), n,d.

R. Stem. Eine Kinyamwesi Grammatik, Berlin, 1906.
Mitt. B. Sem. Or. IX. 3, pp. 129-258.

*C. Velten. Grammatik des Kinyamiiesi (with
Vocabulary). Gottingen. (Vandenhoeck and
Ruprecht), 1901.*

*Nyanja (Chinyanja, Mang'anja, Nyasa, Chinyasa).

Is also virtually identical with Sena, and very
similar to Nyungwe (Tete).

*Rev. H. C. R. Barnes. Nyanja-English Vocabulary.
London (S.P.C.K.), 1902.
This is an enlaiged edition of Miss Woodward's
Vocabulary of 1892, 1895, q.v.

V. J. Courtois, S.J. Elements de Grammaire Tetense
(Lingua Chi-Nyungue). Coimbra (University
Press), 1900.

G. Henry. A Grammar of Chinyanja. Aberdeen,
(G. and W. Frasej:), 1891. Second edition, 1904.

A. Hetherwick. A Practical Manual of the Nyanja
Language. London (S.P.C.K.), second edition, 1912.

R. Laws. English-Nyania Dictionary. Edinburgh
(James Thin), 1894.

*R. S. Rattray. Some Folklore, Stories and Songs,
with . English translation and notes. London
(S.P.C.K.), 1907.

*J. Rebmann. Dictionary of the Kiniassa Language.

Edited by L. Krapf. St. Chrischona, near Basle,

1877.

(Ki-nya$a=Chi-nyanja. The Anyanja are called

Anyasa by the Yaos and Swahili, Rebmann obtained

his materials from released slaves in East Africa.)

APPE^IDIX II. 329

*Rev. D. C. Scott. Cyclopaedic Dictionary of the
Mang'ktija Language. Edinburgh (Foreign
Missions of Church of Scotland), 1892.

*M. E. Woodv/ard. English-Chinyanjaand Chinyanja-
English Vocabulary, 1892, reprinted 1895
(S.P.C.K.)
Another edition, revised and enlarged by the Rev,

H. Barnes, appeared in 1913.

* Exercise-book (S.P.C.K.), 1898, 1909.

Nyika. See Nika.

*Nyoro (Uganda Protectorate).

*H. E. Maddox. Elementary Lunyoro Grammar, with
Lunyoro- English Vocabulary. London (S.P.C.K.),
1902.

Nyufigwe (Tete), Spoken in the country about Teteon
the Zambezi. Very similar to, if not identical
with Nyanja.

V. J. Courtois. Diccionario Cafre-Tetense-Portuguez,

1900.

Diccionario Portuguez-Cafre-Tetense,

1900.

Elementes de Grammatica, 1909.

A. V. d. Mohl, S. J. Grammatik der Bantusprache von
Tete. Mitt. B. Sem. Or. VIL Abt. 3, pp. 32-85,
1904. Vol. VIII. 3 (1905), contains a collection of
tales with German translation.

Pahouin, See Fan.

Pogoro. Spoken in E. Africa, somewhat east of the
north end of Lake Nyasa, and north of the Rovuma.

*J. Hcndle (O.S.B.). Die Sprache der Wapogoro.
Berlin (G. Reimer), 1907. Archiv fiir deutsche
Kolonialsprachen, Vol. VI.

^Pokomo, Tana River, British East Africa.

*C. Meinhof. Linguistische Studien in Ostafrika. No.
VII. Mitt. B. Sem. Or. Jahrg. XIV., Abt. 3.
Berlin, 1911.

330 APPENDIX II.

Pokomo-Grammatik mit Uebungsstiicken. (The work
of one or more of the Neukirchen missionaries, but
no author's name appears.) Neukirchen, Missions-
buchhandlung (Stursberg und Cie), 1908.

*F. Wiirtz. Worterbuch des Ki-tikuu und des Kipo-
komo. PubHshed in Zeitschrift fiir afrikanische
und oceanische Sprachen, Vol. I., p. 193.
This is a German-Tikuu and Pokomo Dictionary.

(Tikuu is a Swahili dialect. See under Swahili).

Grammatik des Pokomo, ib. Vol. II., pp.

62, 168.
Vol. 1. of the same periodical contains some Pokomo
songs, and Vol. II. some traditions (all with German
translation).

Some grammatical notes (1889), and a Pokomo-
German vocabulary had previously been published by
F. Wiirtz in Biittner's Zeitschrift fiir Afrikanische
Sprachen.

Pongwe (Mpongvve). Spoken in the country adjoining
the Gabun estuary, French Congo.

J. R. Wilson (a late Missionary). Heads of the Mpongwe
Grammar, containing most of the principles needed
by a learner. New York (Mission House, 23,
Centre Street), 1879.

R. P. Le Berre. Grammaire de la Langue Pongouee.
Paris (Maisonneuve et Cie), 1873.

Missionaires de la Congregation de Saint Esprit.
Dictionnaire Fran9ais-Pongu6, 1877-81. Diction-
naire Pongue-Fran9ais, 1881. Paris (Maisonneuve

et Cie).

Missionaries of the A.B.C.F.M. Gaboon Mission. A
Grammar of the Mpongwe Language, with
Vocabularies. New York (Snowden and Prall),

1847.

Poto, See under * Congo.*

\Ronga (Shironga). A branch of the Thonga language,
spoken in the neighbourhood of Delagoa Bay.

APPENDIX II. 331

H. A. Junod. Grammaire (with Ronga-French-English-
Portuguese Vocabulary and Dialogues). Lausanne
(Bridel), 1896.

Nouveaux Contes Ronga. Neuchatel

Imprimerie (Paul Attinger), 1898. See also Thonga.

Rotse, See Luyi.

Ruanda, N. end of L. Tanganyika.

*P. Eugene Hurel. Manuel de Langue Kinyaruanda.
Mitt. B. Sem. Or. XIV., Abt. 3, pp. 1-159, 1911.

Rundi, Between Tanganyika and Lake Kivu, on the
north. Very similar to Ruanda.

R. P. J. M. van der Burgt, des P^res Blancs. Diction-
naire Frian9ais-Kirundi. Bois le Due, 1900-1903.

* Elements d'une Grammaire Kirundi.

Mitt. B. Sem. Or. V., Abt. 3.

R. P. F. Menard, des P^res Blancs. Dictionnaire
Fran9ais- Kirundi et Kirundi-Fran9ais. Paris
(Guilmoto), 1909.

Grammaire Kirundi. Same publisher,

1908.

Sena (Lower Zambezi, virtually identical with Nyanja).

*W. G. Anderson. Introductory Grammar of the Sena
Language (S.P.C.K.), 1897.

J. Torrend, S.J. Grammatica do Chisena. Grammar
of the Language of the Lower Zambezi. Chipanga,
Zambezia. (Mission Press), 1900.
In parallel columns, Portuguese and English.

Senga (Middle Zambezi).

*A. C. Madan. Senga Handbook. Oxford (Clarendon
Press), 1905.

\Shamhala, Usambara, East Africa, inland from Tanga.

P. E. Horner. Kleiner Leitfdden zur Erlernung des
Kischambala. Mariannhill (Natal), 1900.

*K. Roehl. Versuch einer systematischen Grammatik
der Schambaiasprache. Hamburg, 1911.

332 APPENDIX II.

Frau Rosier and F. Gleiss. Schambala-Grammatik
und Worterbuch. Berlin, 1912. Vol. XIII. of
Archiv fur das Studium deutscher Kolonialsprachen.

E. Steere. Collecttons for Handbook of the Shambala
Language, 1867. Revised by Archdeacon
Woodward. (U.M.C.A.) Msalabani, 1905.

Shangaan, See Thonga.

Shiifia, See Mashona.

Siha (Kisiha). See Chaga.

Soko. See. under " Congo."

Suhiya (Upper Zambezi).

E. Jacottet. Grammaires Soubiya et Loujii, 1896.

Textes Soubiya, 1899. See also Luyi.

Stiktima, (On the south-eastern side of the Victoria
Nyanza. A dialect of Nyamwezi.)

*Capt. Herrmann. Kissukuma, die Sprache der
Wassukuma. Mitt. B. Sem. Or. I., Abt. 3, pp. 146-
1 98, 1898. Gram. Sketch, with Vocabulary and Texts.

A. Seidel. Das Kisukuma. Grammatische Skizze
(with Vocabulary), 1894.

Sumbwa, Spoken in a district of the N.W. part of
Unyamwezi, between Usukuma and Uha, south
of Lake Victoria, but separated from it by Uzinja.

*A. Capus (of the White Fathers). Grammaire de
Shisumbwa (Ztschr. fiir afr. u. oc. Spr. Vol., IV.,
pp. 1-123), 1898.
The preceding volume of the same periodical contains

(pp. 358-381) ten stories and some songs and proverbs,

with literal French translation.

Dictionnaire Shi sumbwa- Fran9ais, pp. 147.

Saint-Cloud (Impr. Belin Fr^res), 1901.

Swahili,

H. W. M. Beech. Studies in Ki-Swahili London
(Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co.), 1918.

APPENDIX II. 333

E. Brutel. Vocabulaire Fran9ais-Kiswahili et Kiswahili-
Fran9ais, 2 ed. Brussels, 1913.

Mrs. F. Burt. Grammar and Vocabulary (Mombasa
dialect). (S.P.C.K.), 1910.

C. G. Biittner. Worterbuch der Suaheli-Sprache.
2 pts. Stuttgart (Berlin), 1890.

Suaheli-Schriftstucke in arabisther

Schrift. Vol. X. of Lehrbiicher des Seminars fiir
orientalische Sprachen. (W. Spemann), Stuttgart
and Berlin, 1892.

Anthologie aus der Suaheli-Litteratur.

(E. Felber), Berlin, 1894. Texts (prose and poetry)
with translation into German.

Hahari za Waktlindu Pt. I., n,d. Pt. II. 1904.
Pt. III., 1907. (U.M.C.A.), Msalabani. Traditions
of the Washambala written in Swahili by Abdallah
bin Hemed bin Ali Liajjem.

R. P. A. Hemery de la Congregation du St. Esprit
et du Saint- Coeur de Marie. Vocabulaire Fran9ais-
Swahili-Teita. Zanzibar (Mission Catholique).
Paris (30 Rue Lhomond), 1901.

W. K [isbey] . Notes and Corrections of Swahili. I.-IV.
Zanzibar (U.M.C.A.), 1898-1899.

Kiharaka. Zanzibar. (Univ. Mission Press), 1896.
Stories written or dictated by natives.

J. L. Krapf. Outlines of the Elements of the Kisuaheli
Language, with special reference to the Kinika
Dialect. Tubingen (Friedr. Fues), 1850.

A Dictionary of the Suahili Language,

with Introduction, containing an outline of a Suahili
Grammar. London (Trubner & Co.), 1882.

*A. C. Madan. English-Swahili Dictionary. Oxford
(University Press), 1894. Second edition, 1902.

Swahili -English Dictionary. Oxford

(University Press), 1903.

334 APPENDIX II.

*A. C. Madan. Swahili Grammar. Oxford (University
Press), 1905.

C. Meinhof. Die Sprache der Suaheli. Berlin (Dietrich
Reimer (Ernst Vohsen)), 1910. Deutsche Kolonial-
sprachen Bd. 2.

W. Planert. Die syntaktischen Verhaltnisse des Suaheli.
Berlin (W. Siisserott), 1907.

Ch. Sacleux. Dictionnaire Fran^ais-Swahili. Zanzibar
(Mission des P. P. du St. Esprit.) Paris (30 Rue
Lhomond), 1891.

Grammaire des Dialectes Swahilis. Paris

(Procure des Pferes du S. Esprit), 1909.

This book obtained the Prix Volney from the Institut
de France.

'''A. Downes Shaw. Pocket Vocabulary of Four E.
African Languages. (Ki-Swahili, Ki-Nyika, Ki-
Taita and Ki-Kamba; with vocabulary of Kibwyo
dialect). London (S.P.C.K.), [1885].

*E. Steere. A Handbook of the Swahili Language, as
spoken at Zanzibar. London (S.P.C.K.) First
edition, 1871 ; second edition, 1875 ; third edition
revised and enlarged by A. C. Madan, 1884 ; fourth
edition, 1913.

Swahili Exercises. (S.P.C.K.), 1894-

1908.

Swahili Tales, 1889. Reprinted, 1906 and

1917. (S.P.C.K.), London.

Practical Guide to Use of the Arabic

Alphabet in writing Swahili, 1892. (Out of print.)

Capt. C. H. Stigand. Grammar of Dialects in the
Kiswahili Language (with Introduction by the Rev.
W. E. Taylor). Cambridge (University Press),
1915.

W. E. Taylor. Groundwork of the Swahili Language
Tabulated. London (S.P.C.K.), 1898.

APPENDIX II. 335

W. E. Taylor. African Aphorisms, or Saws from
Swahililand. London (S.P.C.K.), 1891.
Swahili Proverbs, translated and annotated. Some
Rabai and Giryama proverbs are appended.

C. Velten. Suaheli-Worterbuch (Part I. Swahili-
Oferman). Berlin. Published by the Author, 1910.

Praktische Grammatik der Suaheli-

Sprache. Berlin (W. Baensch), 1905.

Praktische Anleitung zur Erlernung der

Schrift der Suaheli. Gottingen (Vandenhoeck und
Ruprecht), 190M910.

A useful guide to the reading and writing of Swahili
in the Arabic character.

Safari za Wasuaheli, Gottingen, 1901.

Narratives of journeys into the Interior (and in two

cases to Europe), written or dictated by natives.

* Desturi za Wasuaheli. Gottingen, 1903.

A very full account of native customs, written by
natives, in Swahili.

Marchen und Erzahlungen. Stuttgart

(Spemann), Berlin, 1898. Vol. 18 of Lehrb. d.
Sem. fiir orient. Sprachen.

Prosa und Poesie der Suaheli. Berlin

(Published by the Author), 1907.

Contains tales, proverbs, dialogues, poems {mashairi)
and popular songs.

Tahwa, Spoken in the Marungu country, between
Tanganyika and the Lualaba.

*G. De Beerst. Essai de Grammaire Tabwa. Berlin,
1896. Published in Ztschr. f. afr. u.oc. Spr. Vol.
II., Nos. 3 and 4.

Taita (less correctly, Teita). Spoken in the Taita Hills,
120 miles N.W. of Mombasa.

*J. A. Wray. Elementary Introduction to the Taiia
Language. London (S.P.C.K.), 1894.
A Taita Vocabulary is included in A. D. Shaw, Pocket

336 APPENDIX II.

Vocabulary. See under Swahili. Also in Hcmery,
Voc. Fran9ais-Swahili-Teita. See under Swahili.

Tehele, See under Zulu.

Teke, See under Congo.

*Thoftga, Spoken over a large area between St. ♦Lucia
Bay and the Sabi River and including among its
branches Ronga, Hlanganu, Gwamba (now isolated
in the Transvaal), Johga, etc. Not to be confused
with Tonga, q.v.

*C. W. Chatclain and H. A. Junod. Pocket Dictionary

Thonga-(Shangaan) -English and English-Thonga.

Preceded by an Elementary Grammar. Lausanne

(Georges Bidel et Cie), 1904.

Shangaan (properly Hlanganu) is the name by which

the Delagoa Bay natives in general are known at the

Johannesburg mines. This book, while not * limiting

itself to any particular dialect * of the Thonga language,

applies more especially to that spoken in the Spelonkcn

and Leydsdorp district of E. Transvaal.

Tonga (Zambezi). The Tonga (Gitonga) of Inhambane,
identical with Lenge (q.v.) or Chopi, is distinct
from this. So is the Tonga found on the W. side
of L. Nyasa.

J. R. Fell (of the Baila-Batonga Mission). A Tonga
Grammar. London (S.P.C.K.), 1918;

A. W. Griffin. Chi tonga Vocabulary of the , Zambezi
Valley. Oxford (University Press).
This Tonga language has been very fully studied by
Father Torrend, who gives some annotated texts in the
Appendix of his Comparative Grammar. The people
are also called (by the Bechwana) Batoka.

Tugulu, See Makua.

Tumbuka, Spoken W. of Lake Nyasa.

W. A. Elmslift. Notes on the Tumbuka Language.
Aberdeen (G. and W. Fraser), * Belmont ' Works,

1891.

APPENDIX II. 337

W. A. Elmslie. Table of Concords and Paradigms
of Verb. Aberdeen (Eraser), * Belmont * Works,
1891.

Venda. Spoken in N. Transvaal, within the bend oj.
. the Limpopo. Sometimes spelt Wenda ; the people
are variously called Vavenda, Bavenda, Wawenda,
etc.

C. Meinhof . Das Tsi venda. Leipzig, 1901. Reprinted
from Z.D.M.G.

Th. and P. Schwellnus. Die Verba des Tsivenda. Mitt.
B. Sem. Or. VII. Abt. 3, pp. 12-31. Berlin, 1904.

Vili. Spoken on the Luango (Loango) coast, north of
the Congo. See also " Congo.**

P. C. Marichelle. Dictionnaire Vili-Fran9ais, 1902.

Methode Pratique pour I'Etude du

Dialecte Vili, 1907.

Xilenge (Shilenge, or Chopi). See Lenge.

"^Xosa (* Kafir *). Spoken in the eastern part of the
Cape Province, and closely allied to (though not
quite identical with) Zulu.

W. Appleyard. The Kafir Language, comprising a
Sketch of its History . . . Remarks upon its
Natute and a Grammar, pp. 390. King William's
Town, London. (J. Mason), 1850. (Printed for
the Wesleyan Missionary Society.)

J. Aylifif. A Vocabulary of the Kafir Language.
London (Wesleyan Mission House), 1846.

W. B. Boyce. A Grammar of the Kaffir Language.
London (Wesleyan Missionary Society and J.
Mason). First edition, 1834; second edition
(augmented and improved), 1844 ; third edition,
(augmented and improved with Exercises), 1863.
The Exercises were added to the third edition by
W. J. Davis.

C. J. Crawshaw. A first Kafir Course, pp. 133.
Lovedale, Cape Town (Juta). Third edition, 1897 ;

338 APPENDIX II.

fourth edition, 1901 ; fifth edition, 1903. Grammar,
Exercises and Vocabularies. (These are appended
to each exercise, but can be easily consulted by
means of an index at the end.)

Wm. J. Davis. A Dictionary of the Kaffir Language;
including the Xosa and Zulu Dialects. Part I.,
Kaffir- English. London (Wesleyan Mission House),

1872.

An English and Kaffir Dictionary,

principally of the Xosa-Kaffir, but including also
many words of the Zulu- Kaffir Dialect. London
(Wesleyan Missionary Society), 1877.

I. Bud-Mbelle, Interpreter to the High Court of
Griqualand. Kaffir Scholar's Companion. (Love-
dale Missionary Press), 1903 *
Contains lists of words, idioms, proverbial expressions,

and a variety of n^iscellaneous information not always

easy to find elsewhere.

A. Kropf. A Kaffir-Enghsh Dictionary', pp. iv., 486.
(Lovedale Mission Press), 1899.

J. McLaren. A Concise Kaffir-English Dictionary.
London (Longmans, Green & Co.), 1915.

A Grammar of the Kaffir Language.

London (Longmans, Green & Co.), 1906.

C. Meinhof. Hottentottische Lautc and Lehnworte im
Kafir. (Z.D.M.G.), 1905.
Discusses the question of how far Xosa borrows
sounds and words from the Hottentot language, and in
particular, the origin of the clicks.

W. B. Rubusana. Zenk'inkomo Magwalandini.

Second edition. Frome and London (Butler and

Tanner), 1911.
Traditions and songs of the Xosa, Gcaleka, Tembu
and other tribes, collected by a native' minister of the
Congregational Church.
J. Stewart. Outlines of Xosa Grammar, with practical

exercises. (Lovedale Mission Press), South Africa,

1901.

APPENDIX II. 339

J. Stewart. Kaffir Phrase Book and Vocabulary.
Third edition. (Lovedale Mission Press), 1901.
The late Dr. Stewart is well-known as the founder
and first Principal of the Lovedale Institution.

J. Torrend. Outline of a Xosa Kafir Grammat, with a
few dialogues and a Kaffir Tale. Grahamstown
(T. and G. Sheffield), 1887.

tVao (Chiyao, Kihiau). Spoken in the mountains S. E.
of Lake N^sa, and in the Shire Highlands.

*A. Hetherwick. Introductory Handbook and Vocabu-
lary. (S.P.C.K.) Second edition, 1902.
Contains both Yao- English and English- Yao
Vocabulary.

A. F. Pott, tjber die Kihiausprache. (Z.D.M.G.),
VI., pp. 331-348.

*E. Steere. Collections for a Handbook of the Yao
Language. London, 1871.

Yaunde (a branch of Fan).

P. Hermann Nekes. Praktische Grammatik der Jaunde-
Sprache. Vol. XXVI. of Lehrbucher des Seminars
fur or. Sprachen. Berlin, 1911.

Yombe, See under * Congo.*

ZaramoiZa.]B.mo), See Dzalamo.

Zigula. East Africa, near Luvu River, on the mainland
opposite Zanzibar.

*W. H. Kisbey. Zigula- English and English-Zigula
Dictionary. London (S.P.C.K.), 1906.

* Zigula Exercises. "^ London (S.P.C.K.),

1906.

Rev. W. G. Webster (ed.) Zigula Tales. London
(S.P.C.K.), 19 12.
•Twenty-three stories, written down by natives.

H. W. Woodward. Collections for a Handbook of the
Zigula Language. (U.M.C.A.), Msalabani, 1902.

340 APPENDIX II.

Ziha (Lusiba). Spoken in Kiziba and some other
districts adjoining Lake Victoria on the S.W. It
is not very happily named, as the people speaking it
appear to be called Batundu. It is closely related
to Nyoro.

*Capt. Herrmann (formerly of Bukoba). Lusiba, die
Sprache der Lander Kisiba, Bugabu, etc., 1904.
Mitt. B. Sem. Or. VIL, Abt. 3, pp. 150-200.

""Ziilii.

A. T. Bryant. A Zulu-Engli^ Dictionary, with Notes
on Pronunciation, a revised Orthography, etc.
(Mariannhill Mission Press), Pinetown, Natal,
1905.

An important work, somewhat spoilt by its speculative
etymologies which are not based on any sound principle.
The introduction, too, though containing a great deal of
useful information, is of very unequal value, especially
the historical part, which is not free from parti pris.

H. Callaway. Nursery Tales, Traditions and Histories
of the Zulus. (Zulu Text, Translation and Notes).
Springvale,-Natal. London (Triibner & Co.), 1868.

Religious System of the Amazulu. (Zulu

Text, with Translations and Notes*v (Printed,
Springvale), Natal. London, 1870.

J. W. Colenso (Bishop of Natal). First Steps in Zulu-
Kaffir. Pietermaritzburg (Vause & Slatter), fourth
edition, 1903.

^ Zulu- English Dictionary, fourth edition.
Pietermaritzburg (Vause & Slatter), 1905.

Three Native accounts of a Visit to,

Umpande, King of the Zulus. With Translation,
Vocabulary and Notes. Third edition. Pieter-
maritzburg and Durban (Vause, Slatter & Co.),

1901.

Izindab'ezinhle, etc. New Testament

(reprinted, 1897 for Miss Colenso), London. (Dent).

APPENDIX II. 341

J. W. Colenso. Pilgrim's Progress. Inncwadi ka*
Bunyane okutiwa Ukuhamba Kwesihambi. Pieter-
maritzburg and Durban (Vause, Slatter & Co.),
1901.

J. L. Dohne (Missionary to the American Board, C.F.M.).
A Zulu- Kafir Dictionary. Cape Town, 1857.

*W. A. Elliott. Notes for a Sindebele Dictionary and
Grammar, with illustrative sentences. (Sindebele
Publishing Co.), Bristol, 1911.
Sindebele (Tebele) is the dialect of Zulu spoken by

the Matabele in Rhodesia.

Lewis Grout. The Isizulu ; a grammar of the Zulu
Language, with historical introduction. Pieter-
maritzburg, Durban, London (Triibner & Co.),
1859.

James Perrin. English- Zulu Dictionary. Pieter-
maritzburg (p. Davis & Sons), new edition^ 1901.

Rey. C. Roberts. The Zulu- Kafir Language simplified
for Beginners. London (Kegan Paul). Third
edition, 1909.

An English-Zulu Dictionary with

the Principles of Pronunciation and Classification
fully explained. London (Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner & Co.), 1911.

A Zulu Manual or Vade Mecum.

London (Kegan Paul), 1900.
A companion volume to the two preceding works,
containing gramrflatical notes and illustrations of special
idioms, — medical, zoological and botanical vt)cabularies,
etc.

P. A. Stuart. Zulu Grammar, with 400 Useful Phrases,
1907.

INDEX

.bstract nouns, 62.
.djective roots, 120.
.djectives, 118, 122.

— few rtal in Bantu, iit.

— concord of, 124, 128.

— derived from verbs,

120.

— nouns made to do the

work of, 119.

— Nyanja, 125.

— verbs derived from,

130. 154-

— verbs used for, iig.

— which take shortened

prefixes, 126.

— Zulu, 126.

dverbial demonstratives, 99, 114.
.d verbs, 184.

-T- invariable, i86.

— locative, 185.
agglutinative languages, 12.
alliterative concord, 14, 20.
Lngola and Loango languages, 5.
.nimals, names of, 47, 58.
applied verbs, 148.
.rbousset, 7.
Lrticle, 49, 72.
Lssimilation, 226.

— Incomplete, 227.

augmentative class, 56, 66-6t.
Luxiliaries, 174.

)antu, 9.

— family, characteristic fea-

tures of, 14.

— languages, number of

known, 2.

— languages, principal fea-

tures of, 2.

— languages, sounds of, 17.

— name, 3.

— verb, 143.
larlow, 229.
)entley, 116.

Bleek, 3, 8, 9, 13, 49, 86, 219.
Boyce's Xosa Grammar, 7.
Brusoiotto, Giacinto, 6, 13, 31, 32,
Burton, 31. [35, 72.

Casalis, 7.

Causative verbs, 148.

Cerebral t and d, 222.

" Chiswina,'* 42.

Chwana, 4, 16, 47, 48, 52, 95.

— participle, 118.

— relative particle, 105.

— verbal nouns, 208
Class, augmentative, 56, 68.

— diminutive, Duala, 62.

— ^M, 59.

— meaning attached to each,

— three, cjpicords of, 50. [43.
Classes, hints of several other, 68.
Clicks in Zulu and Xosa, 219.
Coltnso, Bishop, 170, 192, 202.
Compound tenses, 173.
Compounds, Htrero, 213.

— Ila, 217.

— Nyanja, 216.

— Zulu.

Concord 'of adjectives, 124, 128.
Concords of Class 3, 50.
Congo, Kingdom of, 31, 43.
Conjunctions, ^3.
Continuative mo^l, 167-S.
Copula, 49.

— combined with pertonal

pronouns, 112.

— old demonstrative root,

— sometimes prefixed to
Cust, 6. [adjectives, 1x4.

Dahl's Law, 228-9.

De Gregorio, 8.

Degrees of Comparison, 131.

Demonstrative, adverbial, 99.

— pronouns, 97, 98

343

344

INDEX

Demonstrative, y«, 48.
Demonstratives, adverbial, 99, 114.
Denominative verbs, 21a.
Dental t and d, 222.
Derived Forms, r44, 146, 156, 192.
Diminutive class, Duala, 62.

— in -anti, 212.

— in k»-, 60.

— plural prefix, Nyanja,
Diminutives, 56. [62.
Dinuzulu, 19.

Dissimilation, 226, 228.
Do Couto, P. Antonio, 6.
Double Agreement, 97.
Duala diminutive class, 62.
— language, 89.

Ewald, 8.

False Analogy, 226.
Fruits, names of, 52.
Fulfulde language, 44.
Future Tense, 172.

Ganda, 16, 25, 26, 66, 68, 295.

— relative particle, 105.

— verb ' to be,' 116.
Gisu, 42, 48, 49, 33, 66.
Grammatical gender, 10, 11.
Grimm's Law, 218.

Hamitic languages, 14.
Herero, 42, 45, 225, 248.

— compounds, 213.

— relative particle, 106.

— verb ' to be,' tt6.
Hetherwick, Dr., 187, 202.
Hottentot language, 9.
Hottentots, 4, 10.

Human beings, names denoting,

[46.
Ila, 264,

— compounds, 217.
Imperative mood, 159.
Incomplete assimilation, 227.
Indicative present tense, 171.
Infinitive mood, 159.
Inflected families of language, 10,
Initial vowel, 48.

— absent in the voca-

tive, 49.

* Inseparable Pronoun,* 88.
Intensive verbs, 149.

* Interjectional roots,' 186.
International Phonetic Associa-
Intonation, 15, 16. [tion, 18.
Invariable adverbs, 186.

— particle, no.
Irregular verbs, 177.
Isolating languages, 12.

Johnston, Sir Harry, 9.

Jones, D., 19.
unod, 186, 197.

•Kafir' (Xosa), 4.

Ki-class, action of a verb, 55.

— collective sense, 55.

— instrumental force, 55.

— 'likeness, fashion^manner,'
Kikuyu, 225, 219. [35.
Kim vita (Mombaia Dialect), 285.
Kinga, 68.

Kongo, 34, 42, 81, 89. •

— relative pronoun, 107.

— verb 'to be,' 116.
Krapf, 7, 31.

Lamu Dialect (Kiamu), 276.
Laterals, 220.

Law of Vowel-Harmony, 228.
Lepsius, 8, 14, 19,
Levy-Bruhl, 187, 188.
Lichtenstein, 4, 6, 9.
Liquids, words denoting, 52.
Locative adverbs, 185.

— class, 76-85, 211.

— prefixes, 66.
Locatives, in m»-, 51.

— suffixed, 8a.
Luganda, see Gandtt.

Marsden, William, 5.

' Mashona,' 42.

Materials, names of, 62.

Mbundu language, 6.

Meinhof, 8, 16, 19, 35, 37, 45, 48,

195. 203. 214. 2*9.

226, 230. 231.
Moffat's translation of the Bible

into Sechwana, 7.
Monosyllabic verbs, 143, 177.

INDEX

345

Mood, Continuative, 167,

— Imperative, 159.

— Infinitive, 159.

— Negative, 160.

— Relative, 168.

— Subjunctive, 160.
Moods, 156-169.
Mozambique language, 5.
Muller, 8.

Negative mood, 160.
Neuter-Passive verbs, 147.
Noel-Armfield, 223.
Noun agent, 200.

— indicating result of an
Nouns, abstract, 62. [action, 205.

— made to do work of adjec-

tives, 119.

— verbal, 200-211.
Numbers, Ordinal, 140.
Numerals, 133.

— distinct words for

' hundred ' and
* thousand,* 137,

- table of, 135, 138. [140.
Nyanja, 16, 17, 42, 44, 46, 48, 62,

63i 98, 22J, 272,

— adjectives, 125,

— compounds, 216.

— no true relative

— verb • to be,' 116.

Object-Pronoun, 89.

' Onomatopoetic vocables,' 186.

Ordinal numbers, 140.

Pacconio, P. Francisco, 6.
Particle, invariable, no.

— relative, loi.
Participles, 105-6, 118, 169.
Passive verbs, 147.

Past tense, 172.

Perfect in -He 154, 158, 166.

Perfect tense, 173.

Phonetics, General, 230.

Pitch, 16.

Place, word for 79.

Pokomo language, 80.

Possessive, 70-75.

— particle, 74.

— pronouns, 74, 92, 93.

Pott, 8.

Prefix, eleventh, lu-, 59. «

— fifteenth, Am-, 65,

— fifth. It', 51.

— ninth, in- or «-, 56.

— ti- in Nyanja, 62.

— ogu-, 66.

— sixth, in Gisu, htima-, 53.

— tenth, 37

— tu-, attached to thirteenth

— twelfth, 60. [clats, 61.
Prefixes, locative, 66, 77.

— not identical with Pro-

noun, 86.
Prepositional verbs, see Applied
Prepositions, 72, 84, ill. [Verbs,

— Pronominal forms

suffixed to, 91.
Principiation of nouns, 13, 32, 33.
Pronouns, 86, it2.

— Demonstrative, 97, 98.

— Inseparable, 88.

— Longer forms of, 91 .

— Object, 89.

— Possessive, 92, 93.

— Prepositional form of,

91. 92, 93-

— Reflexive, 91.

— Relative, 99.

— Separable or Substan-

tive, 92, 94.

Robmann, 31.
Reciprocal verbs, 131.
Reflexive Pronoun, 89-91.
Relative construction, Zulu, 119.

Chwana, 105.

Ganda, 105.

Herero, 106.

Ronga, 106.

Swahili, loi.

Zulu, 104.

— form of Locative Class,

— mood, 168. [211.

— particle, 10 1 et seqq.

— pronoun, 99, 108.
Repetitive verbs, 153.
Reversive verbs, 150.
Rhodesia, Southern, main speech
Ronga language, 54. [of, 42.

»,

>•

>»

t >

346

INDEX

Scott, Revs. D. C. and W. A.,
Semi-Bantu, 2. [196, 203.

Separable, or independent, pro-
nouns, 92, 94.
Smith, E. W., 194, 195.

* Sound-pictures,' 186.
Stapleton, 186, 189.
Stative verbs, 152.
Steere, Bishop, 18.
Stress (accent), 15.
Subjunctive mood, 160.
Substantive pronouns, 94.
Sudan languages, 11, 14, 75.
Suffixes, 199, 204.

Swahili language, 7, 15, 16, 18, 28,

42, 44, 47. 67, lOI.
119, 225, 276.

— verb • to be,' 116.

Tense, 157.

— Compound, 173.

— Future, 172, 173.

— Indicative Present, 171.

— Past, 172.

— Perfect, 173.
Thonga, 17.
Torrend, 186.
Transposition, 226, 330.
Trees, names of, 51.
Tribes, names of, 50.
Tuckey's expedition to the Congo,

[5-

• Uncle Remus,' 10, 47. ^

Van der Kemp, Dr., 7.
Velten, 192.

Venda language, 17, 54, 68.
Verb, Bantu, 143.

— stems beginning with a

— ti, use of, 176. [vowel, 145.

— 'to be,' 109, no.

— ,, Ganda, 116.

— ,, Herero, 116.

— ,, Kongo, 116.

— „ Nyanja, 116.

— ,, Swahili, 116.

— 'to have,' 109.

Verbal nouns, 201, 202, 205, 208.
Verbs, Adjectives derived from, 120

— Applied, 148.

— Auxiliary, 174.

— Causative, 148.

— Compounded forms, 155.

— Denominative, 212.

— derived forms, 144, 146, 156.

— derived from adjectives, 130.

— formed from adjective-

— Intensive, 149. [stems, 134,

— Irregular, 177.

— Monosyllabic, 143, 177.

— ,, primitive, 179.

— Neuter-Passive, 147.

— Passive, -147.

~ Perfect in -t/^, 154, 158, 166.

— Reciprocal, 151.

— Repetitive, 153.

— Reversive, 150.

— Stative, 152.

— used for adjectives, 119.

— which do not end in a

* Vocal Images,' 189.
Vocative, 70.

* Voices,' 146.

Von der Gabelentz, 8.

Westermann, 187, 188.
•Whistlings,' 54.
Whitehead, 186, 190.
Whitney, W. D., 219.
Woodward, Archdeacon, 81.

Xosa, clicks in, 219.

— language, 4, 7, 16.

Yao, 166, 1^7, 225.

Zulu, 15, 16, 20, 44-48, 232.

— adjectives, 126.

— clicks in, 17, 19, 219.

— compounds, 216.

— prepositions, 84.

— relative construction, 119.

— ,, particle, 104.

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