■^ The Languages of Liberia 



created in two generations of Negro humanity, while in one 

 generation a dialect may differ as much from its parent or 

 sister language as, for example, does Portuguese from Spanish. 

 Already the Vai language as written and exemplified by Koelle 

 fifty years ago is quite old-fashioned in the ears of the present 

 generation of Vai-speaking people. 



Most of these hiberian languages are destined to disappear. 

 Vai will probably become the dominant form of native speech. 

 Its great similarity with Mandingo will make it unnecessary 

 to cultivate that language also. It is a harmonious tongue, 

 relatively easy to pronounce, and with a grammar that is 

 reasonable and far from difficult. The phonology of the Kru 

 languages is too difficult for their pronunciation by their 

 African neighbours or by Europeans. The only rival to Vai 

 in Liberia during the next hundred years will be English. 

 This is spoken by the Americo-Liberians with a more or less 

 American accent, but it is as intelligible to an Englishman as is 

 the language of the United States. The Grebo, Kru, and many 

 of the coast natives speak a well-known form of " pidgin " 

 English. This dialect is quickly mastered by a European, and 

 it will probably become the trade language of the whole country. 



The Vai people excited much interest in the middle of 

 the nineteenth century by the discovery made in 1 849 by 

 Lieut. -Commander F. E. Forbes, R.N., of H.M.S. Bonetta,^ 

 that there was an alphabet in use at Cape Mount which was 

 neither Arabic nor Roman — a native invention, in fact. The 

 Rev. Sigismund Koelle (the celebrated missionary-philologist of 

 Sierra Leone) went to the Vai country behind Cape Mount 



' Lieut. Forbes's disco%-ery was communicated to the world in a pamphlet 

 by E. Norris (Librarian to the Foreign Office and an eaily student of African 

 languages). 



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