332 Dr Prichard on the Belations of Ethnology 



general observations on the principal divisions of the human 

 family. 



The languages of Africa are not sufficiently known to be 

 accurately classified or referred to particular groups, which 

 we may consider with any degree of certainty as comprising 

 the whole number. We may, however, reckon several great 

 families. These are, 1. The North-African languages, more 

 or less connected with the Syro- Arabian idioms. To this 

 department are referrible with different degrees of evidence, 

 1. The Abyssinian languages, the Ghiz, Tigre, and Amhara 

 languages, and perhaps also the Galla dialects spoken by no- 

 madic nations through an immense space to the southward of 

 Abyssinia, including the idiom of the Somali on the eastern 

 coast. 2. The Berber, Kabylian, and Shillah languages, which 

 are dialects of the ancient Lybian. Professor Newman, who 

 has studied these languages with greater success than any 

 other person, considers them as a branch of the Syro-Arabian 

 family, correlative with the ancient Hebrew, Phoenician, and 

 Syrian. 



A ^third division in this North- African family is the idiom 

 of the Hausa Negroes in the inland parts of Africa or Sudan. 

 This language, as Professor Newman has proved, has gram- 

 matical affinities to the Syro-Arabian languages. 



A second African family of languages, of perhaps equal 

 extent, are the Kafir languages. More or less of affinity, 

 both in words and in grammatical structure, pervades all the 

 known languages of the black woolly-haired nations to the 

 southward of the equator, including all the Kafir nations, the 

 Suaheli on the eastern coast, and the nations of the so-termed 

 Empire of Congo. It must be observed that some of the 

 tribes belonging to this division have Negro features, while 

 others have the Kafir figure and a physiognomy of a very 

 diff^erent type. 



3. The language of the Hottentots and Bushmen constitute 

 a third group. 



4. The languages of the Negro nations of Western Africa. 

 The most correct enumeration of these languages as yet 

 made, classified according to these vocabularies, is that which 



