^ The Languages of Liberia 



of the Shari River ; perhaps, also, the Musgu, and it may 

 also be related to — 



8. Kanurf, or the language of Bornu. This group perhaps 

 includes the Teda of the Tibbu Negroids. 



9. Hausa. This language has undoubted affinities in the 

 form of its word-roots with outlying dialects of group 7, 

 which are absolutely Negro in their character. But in its 

 grammar and in some other features the Hausa speech is 

 distinctly connected with the Libyan or Hamitic tongues spoken 

 bv races that are rather more Caucasian than Negro. Hausa, 

 like some of the western and eastern members of the Nilotic 

 group, distinguishes gender, an idea borrowed from the 

 Caucasian peoples. 



10. The languages of the Benue region. These offer 

 marked resemblance in their word-roots and in some of the 

 numerals to the' Bantu family, but are in construction of an 

 extremely degraded, broken-up type of language, and are very 

 far from the parent speech which was moulded into Bantu. 

 This Benue group may perhaps extend southwards from the 

 south bank of the Benue River to the Cross River and the 

 interior of the Cameroons and Fan country. 



11. The Ij5 or Bonny group. This is a small isolated 

 family of languages in the eastern half of the Niger Delta, 

 between the main Niger and the Opobo River. They are 

 perhaps distinctly connected with, but older than, the succeeding 

 group. 



12. The Lower Niger languages. A web of tongues 

 stretches along the last third of the Niger course from the 

 country of Nupe to the sea, eastwards along the north bank 

 of the Benue, southwards to Old Calabar and Benin. This 

 group includes such prominent languages as Nupe, Bini, Efik, 

 Jekri, and Ibo. It also offers vague indications of affinity 



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I. 



