898 LANGUAGES 



word-roots and the forms of most of its prefixes, with the single exception of 

 the sixteenth. In the case of the sixteenth — the " Pa-" prefix — Luganda, 

 having retained the form "Awa-," has departed less from the original "Apa-" 

 than has the Runyoro, where the sixteenth prefix has became " Aha-." The 

 two languages are about as closely allied in form as Spanish and Italian. 

 In both there is a slight tendency (more marked in the pronunciation of 

 the Hima aristocracy) to clip the vowel which must of necessity terminate 

 every word in a Bantu language. This is a change which is also taking 

 place in Zulu. In many respects Luganda and Runyoro, in the full forms 

 of their word-roots, come nearest of living languages to the Bantu mother- 

 tongue. For the purpose of comparison vocabularies are given of the 

 language of Ruanda (the country between Lake Albert Edward and the 

 north end of Tanganyika) and Kabwari, the language spoken on the north- 

 west coast of Tanganyika. Ruanda is in many respects a slightly 

 degenerated Runyoro. Kabwari is a good average Bantu tongue, connected, 

 no doubt, pretty closely with the Runyoro-Luganda group, but also offering 

 rather remarkable resemblances to Kiswahili. The Swahili language of 

 the east coast — as has long been known to real students of African 

 phonology — is not very closely allied to the surrounding Bantu dialects 

 (especially to the north of Zanzibar), than which it is in some respects more 

 archaic in vocabulary if slightly more corrupt in regard to the prefixes. 

 It would almost seem as though the ancestral tongue of the Arabised 

 Swahili dialect was more related to the languages of northern and eastern 

 Tanganyika, and perhaps to the speech of the Kilwa coast, than it is to 

 the indigenous East African dialects round its supposed places of origin 

 (Lamu, Zanzibar). 



The Kavirondo group of languages, which includes the archaic Masaba 

 dialects of West Elgon, offers many interesting features to the student. 

 Not a few old word-roots lost in Luganda and Runyoro turn up here, such 

 as the widespread word "hombe" for "ox."* The tenth prefix, as already 

 mentioned, reappears in the Kavirondo languages in the form of "Tsi-" 

 or " Ci-." On the other hand, the " Ki- " prefix often degenerates into 

 " Si-" or " Si-," and the " Ku-" to " %u-." In fact, in most of these 

 tongues there is an increasing objection to the consonant "k" except where 

 it replaces "g" or "t." Elsewhere it degenerates into "%" or to " ." 

 By a curious perversity, however, in most of these languages, except the 



* It is a curious feature, possessed in common by Luganda, Runyoro, Lukonjo, 

 and their allied dialects, and by Kuamba, Libvanuma, and Kibira, that the old 

 Bantu word for "ox'' ("iiombe") has been lost, and its place taken by "ente," 

 which is a word derived from some of the Nilotic languages, and no doubt was 

 brought into the country by the early Hamitic invaders. "Nombe" reappears in 

 the Mangala of the Upper Congo. It also comes out again in the Kavirondo group. 



