HOTTEATOT PLACE-NAMES. 345 



(ci) First Oi all one would like to know what authority 

 exists for the statement that " -ra is Bushman rather than 

 Hottentot." Made so definitely, it should surely be capable of 

 actual proof, or shown to be a lef^'itimate inference from already 

 ascertained facts. Where is the proof, or what are the facts 

 from whi(di the inference is made? A careful examination of 

 Bleek's " CVimparative (irammar of the South African 

 Lang'uag-es," of Bleek and Lloyd's " Bushman Folklore," of 

 Bertin's " The Jiushmen and their lianguag'e," and, indeed, 

 of everything- available that would be likely to yield informa- 

 tion on the subject, lias resulted in the discovery of no such 

 Bushman affix, nor of anything- to sug-g-est that there was such 

 an affix. 



There are two considerations which appear to indicate 

 quite the converse of Kingon's statement: — • 



1. Bleek and Lloyd ("Bushman Folklore," p. 144, lb) 

 give -ko as a Bushman " affixed g-enitive particle corresponding 

 witli English 's, Hottentot -di. After a long- vowel its con- 

 sonant is pronounced more softly, almost like g, and after 

 a short vowel more strongly, approaching /i/-." Bertin (" The 

 Bushmen and their Language," p. GO, 188(J) also gives -ha as 

 the mark of the genitive, while on p. (Jl he speaks of the 

 " strong- explosive A." (Bleek and LlDjd, p. 152, give another 

 -ha, a particle indicating, they say, probably the Tierfect or 

 the subjunctive of the verb.) The point is that neither Bleek 

 and Lloyd nor Bertin give the least hint of an affixed particle 

 -ra in the Bushman language ; even the last syllable of the word 

 Quafjfja, in(duded by Kingon in his " -ra Group," has not the 

 guttural sound in the Bushman languag-e. Bleek and Lloyd 

 (p. 122) spell it IKu-ahha. 



2. The particle -.ra in the Hottentot language (so spelled by 

 both Kronlein and Seidel, -glui by Tindall) is explained by 

 Ivronlein as the adjectival ending-, and as indicating the 

 abundance, multitude, size, strength of the quality or thing 

 denoted ; so it is that .raini, a lion, becomes .rain.ra, abounding in 

 lions; herih, a goat; heri/va, rich in g-oats ; llkliuh, a thorn, 

 mimosa; llhhxi.ra, abounding in thorns; and so on. x\s Me 

 have already pointed out, the noun drops the masculine suffix 

 &, or the feminine suffix s, and forms the adjective with the 

 suffix -xa. For these two reasons : (1) That there does not 

 appear to be any record of a Bushman guttural suffix -ra ; and 

 (2) that there certainly is such a Hottentot suffix -xa, or -///(«. 

 it would seem that something- more than the mere assertion 

 that " -ra is Bushman rather than Hottentot " is needed to 

 establish that statement. 



(b) The statement that " -ra is diminutive in force " 

 (p. 758) is undeniable so far as the affix -ra, as used in Kaffir, 

 is concerned, there it is affixed to an adjective to express dimi- 

 nution of the quality indicated by the adjective {e.g., IluL^ilie 

 Uhoiiivura, the horse is reddish : homvu, red), biit does it follow 

 that when -ra is used in Kaffir as the final syllable of place- 

 names that are admittedly other than Kaffir in their origin, it 



