The Bubis, or Edeeyah of Fernando Po. 245 



Dr Tliomson's own vocabularies furnish a comparison ready- 

 made. Here there is no affinity on the surface. 



With the language of the Cameroons River, the same 

 statement holds good, although it must be borne in mind 

 that we have no accessible Cameroons vocabulary of any 

 length. The longest one known to the present writer is one 

 that was for some time in the library of the Asiatic Society, 

 in MS., and which is now in possession of the original col- 

 lector. 



The Gaboon vocabularies are also scanty. Such as they 

 are, however, they afford no signs of any of the Gaboon dia- 

 lects being Edeeyah. 



As to the language of the Delta of the Niger, we have a 

 multiplicity of specimens in various dialects, the Ibo, the 

 Moko, the Old Calabar, &c. collected by Robertson, Mr Kil- 

 ham, Mr Daniell, and others. None of these exhibit any 

 special affinity with the Edeeyah. 



With the Benin and Yaruba tongues, the affinity is still 

 less evident. 



Such is the view of the Edeeyah of Fernando Po, considei'ed 

 in a practical point of view. I have no doubt of its being- 

 unintelligible to every tribe of the Continent. 



Nevertheless, as it may be this, and yet be no more unlike 

 to such languages than English is to Dutch, or Dutch to Dan- 

 ish, the farther question as to its more general affinities stands 

 over. 



Upon this I can safely say that it is by no means an iso- 

 lated language ethnologically speaking. 



It has miscellaneous affinities, with almost all the lan- 

 guages between the Gambia and Gaboon ; in other words, it 

 belongs to that great class which, from comparing the Ibo, 

 Ashantee, and other tongues, I call Ibo-Ashantee. The paper 

 that proves this is at pi'csent in the printers' hands, for the 

 report of the present author upon the present state of Afri- 

 can Ethnographical Philology for the British Association. I 

 have only to add that Dr Thomson's vocabularies both for 

 tlic liimbia and Edeeyah are unique, and that they fill an 

 important hiatus in African philology. 



