234 ]'ES7'JGES OF THE 



by their pitchos or ]>ublic meetings, by their festivals 

 and ceremonies, as well as by their songs and their 

 constant intercourse. With the isolated villages of the 

 desert, it is far otherwise. They have no such meetings ; 

 they are compelled to traverse the wilds, often to a great 

 distance from their native village. On such occasions, 

 fathers and mothers, and all who can bear a bui-den, 

 often set out for weeks at a time, and leave their chil- 

 dren to the care of two or three infirm old people. The 

 infant progeny, some of whom are beginning to lisp, 

 while others can just master a whole sentence, and 

 those still farther advanced, romping and playing 

 together, the children of nature through the livelong 

 day, become hahitimted to a language of their oivn. The 

 more voluble condescend to the less precocious, and thus, 

 from this infant Babel, proceeds a dialect composed of a 

 host of mongrel words and phrases, joined together with- 

 out rule, and in the course of a generation the entire 

 character of the language is changed''''' I have been 

 told, that in like manner the children of the Manchestei* 

 factory workers, left for a great part of the day, in 

 large assemblages, under the care of perhaps a single 

 elderly person, and spending the time in amusements, 

 are found to make a great deal of new language. I have 

 seen children in other circumstances amuse themselves 

 by concocting and throwing into the family circulation 

 entirely new \\'ords ; and 1 believe I am running little 

 risk of contradiction when I say that there is scarcely a 

 family, even amongst the middle classes of this country, 

 who have not some peculiarities of pronunciation and 

 syntax, which have originated amongst themselves, it is 

 hardly possible to say how. All these things being con- 

 sidered, it is easy to understand how mankind have 



* " Missionary Scenes and Labours in South Africa." 



