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 land from which the Bantu negroes were subsequently driven by Nilotic invaders from the north. They may be relics therefore of a time before the Pa- prefix of those regions had changed to the modern form of Ha-. In S.W. and N.W. Cameroon the initial p of the 16th prefix reappears in two or three dialects; but elsewhere in North-West Bantu Africa and in the whole basin of the Congo, except the extreme south and south-east, the form Pa- is never met with; it is Va-, Wa-, Ha-, Fa-, or A-. In the Secuana group of dialects it is Fa- or Ha-; in the Luyi language of Barotseland it assumes the very rare form of Ba-, while the first prefix is weakened to A-.

The pronouns in Bantu are in most cases traceable to some such general forms as these:—

The Bantu verb consists of a practically unchangeable root which is employed as the second person singular of the imperative. To this root are prefixed and suffixed various particles. These are worn-down verbs which have become auxiliaries or they are reduced adverbs or prepositions. It is probable (with one exception) that the building up of the verbal root into moods and tenses has taken place independently in the principal groups of Bantu languages, the arrangement followed being probably founded on a fundamental system common to the original Bantu tongue. The exception alluded to may be a method of forming the preterite tense, which seems to be shared by a great number of widely-spread Bantu languages. This may be illustrated by the Zulu tanda, love, which changes to tandile, have loved, did love. This -ile or -ili may become in other forms -idi, didi, -ire, -ine, but is always referable back to some form like -ili or ile, which is probably connected with the root li or di (ndi or ni), which means “to be” or “exist.” The initial i in the particle -ile often affects the last or penultimate syllable of the verbal root, thereby causing one of the very rare changes which take place in this vocable. In many Bantu dialects the root pa (which means to give) becomes pele in the preterite (no doubt from an original pa-ile). Likewise the Zulu tandile is a contraction of tanda-ile.

Two other frequent changes of the terminal vowel of the common root are those from a (which is almost invariably the terminal vowel of Bantu verbs), (1), into e to form the subjunctive tense, (2) into i to give a negative sense in certain tenses. With these exceptions the vowel a almost invariably terminates verbal roots. The departures from this rule are so rare that it might almost be included among the elementary propositions determining the Bantu languages. And these instances when they occur are generally due (as in Swahili) to borrowed foreign words (Arabic, Portuguese or English). This point of the terminal a is the more interesting because, by changing the terminal vowel of the verbal root and possibly adding a personal prefix, one can make nouns from verbs. Thus in Luganda senyua is the verbal root for “to pardon.” “A pardon” or “forgiveness” is ki-senyuo. “A pardoner” might be mu-senyui. In Swahili pataniša would be the verbal root for “conciliate”; mpatanaši is a “conciliator,” and upatanišo is “conciliation.” Another marked feature of Bantu verbs is their power of modifying the sense of the original verbal root by suffixes, the affixion of which modifies the terminal vowel and sometimes the preceding consonant of the root. Familiar forms of these variations and their usual meanings are as follows:—

Supposing an original Bantu root, tanda, to love; this may become

The suffix -aka or -añga sometimes appears and gives a sense of continuance to the verbal root. Thus tanda may become tandaka in the sense of “to continue loving.” The negative verbal particle in the Bantu languages may be traced back to an original ka, ta or sa, ki, ti or si in the Bantu mother-tongue. Apparently in the parent language this particle had already these alternative forms, which resemble those in some West African Negro languages. In the vast majority of the Bantu dialects at the present day, the negative particle in the verb (which nearly always coalesces with the pronominal particle) is descended from this ka, ta or sa, ki, ti or si, assuming the forms of ka, ga, ñga, sa, ta, ha, a, ti, si, hi, &c. It has coalesced to such an extent in some cases with the pronominal particle that the two are no longer soluble, and it is only by the existence of some intermediate forms (as in the Kongo language) that we are able to guess at the original separation between the two. Originally the negative particle ka, sa, &c., was joined to the pronominal particles, thus:—

In like manner sa would become sa-ngi, sa-wu, &c. But very early in the history of Bantu languages ka-ngi, or sa-ngi, became contracted into kai, sai, and finally, ki, si; ka-ku or ka-wu into ku; and kaa or saa have always been ka or sa. Sometimes in the modern languages the negative particle (such as ti or si) is used without any vestige of a pronoun being attached to it, and is applied indifferently to all the persons. Occasionally this particle has fallen out of use, and the negative is expressed (1) by stress or accent; (2) by suffix (traceable to a root -pe or -ko) answering to the French pas, and having the same sense; and (3) by the separate employment of an adverb. If not a few Bantu languages, the verb used in a negative sense changes its terminal -a to -i. The subjunctive is very frequently formed by changing the terminal -a to -e: thus, tanda = love; -tande = may love.

A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages (in two parts, left unfinished), by Dr W. I. Bleek (London, 1869); A Sketch of the Modern Languages of Africa, by R. N. Cust (1882); Comparative Grammar of the South African Bantu Languages, by Father J. Torrend (1894; mainly composed on a study of the languages of the Central Zambezi, interesting, but erroneous in some deductions, and incomplete); In Sir H. H. Johnston’s The Kilimanjaro Expedition (1884), British Central Africa (1898), and The Uganda Protectorate (1902–1904), there are illustrative vocabularies; and in George Grenfell and the Congo (1908) the Congo groups of Bantu speech are carefully classified, also the Fernandian and Cameroon. In the numerous essays of Carl Meinhof on the original structure of the Bantu mother-speech, and on existing languages in East and South-East Africa, in the Mittheilungen des Seminärs für Orientalische Sprachen, Berlin (also issued separately through Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1899), and also in his Grundzüge einer vergleichenden Grammatik der Bantusprachen (Berlin, 1906), a vast amount of valuable information has been collected, but Meinhof’s deductions therefrom are not in every case in accord with those of other authorities. The Swahili-English Dictionary, by Dr L. Krapf (London, 1882), contains a mass of not well-sorted but invaluable information concerning the Swahili language as spoken on the coast of East Africa, especially regarding many words now becoming obsolete. A similar mine of information is to be found in An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Mananja (Mang'anja) Language of British Central Africa, by the Rev. D. C. Scott (1891). Other admirable works are the Dictionary of the Congo Language, by the Rev. Holman Bentley (1891), and The Folklore of Angola, and a Grammar of Kimbundu, by Dr. Heli Chatelain. The many handbooks and vocabularies written and published by Bishop Steere on the languages of the East African coast-lands are of great importance to the student, especially as they give forms of the prefixes now passing out of use. The Introductory Handbook of the Yao Language, by the Rev. Alexander Hetherwick, illustrates very fully that peculiar and important member of the East African group. Vocabularies of various Congo languages have been compiled by Dr. A. Sims; more important works on this subject have been published by the Rev. W. H. Stapleton (Comparative Handbook of Congo Languages), and by Rev. John Whitehead (Grammar and Dictionary of the Bobangi Language (London, 1899). E. Torday has illustrated the languages of the Western Congo basin (Kwango, Kwilu, northern Kasai) in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. There is a treatise on the Lunda language of the south-western part of the Belgian Congo, in Portuguese, by Henrique de Carvalho, who also in his Ethnographia da Expedicaõ portugueza