NA TURE 



481 



THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1906. 



THE BANTU SPEECH OF SOUTHERNMOST 



AFRICA. 

 A Grammar of the Kafir Language. By J. McLaren, 



M.A. Pp. xiv + 240. (London: Longmans, Green 



and Co., 1906.) Price 5s. 



A FAIR-MINDED critic would start a review of 

 this work by a general verdict of praise for its 

 compactness and usefulness. It is an excellent gram- 

 mar of the Kosa ' language of that southernmost 

 group of Bantu-speaking negroes known unfortun- 

 ately by the most inappropriate term, the Arab word 

 Kafir, or " Unbeliever." The group of Bantu peoples 

 who inhabit the coastlands of the southern extremity 

 of Africa, between the Transkei River in Cape Colony 

 and Inhambane in the Portuguese Province of Mozam- 

 bique, had better be styled generically " Zulu " rather 

 than " Kafir " or " Kafir-Zulu." 



The name Kafir (which, if it is still to be used, had 

 better be spelt as in Arabjc with the single " f ") is 

 derived from the Dutch Caffer and the Portuguese 

 Cafre, and these again from the language of the 

 Swahili Arabs whom the Portuguese encountered as 

 the masters and traders of South-eastern Africa in the 

 beginning of the sixteenth century. These Arabs, who 

 radiated from Zanzibar northwards and southwards, 

 called all the negroes south of the Zambezi delta 

 " Kafir " in the singular and " Kufar " in the plural, 

 and by this name they spoke of them to the Portu- 

 guese, who at first made use of the Zanzibar Arabs 

 as pilots and guides along the eastern coast of Africa. 

 The Cape Dutch borrowed the term from the Portu- 

 guese, and so passed it on to the English. 



The great Zulu race at the present day is divided 

 into three main branches so far as language or dialect 

 is concerned — the Ronga or Tonga section of South- 

 east Africa (including the Abagaza), between Ama- 

 tongaland and Sofala ; the Zulus of Zululand, with 

 their outlying colonies and offshoots in Swaziland, 

 Matabeleland, and across the Zambezi (through British 

 Central Africa to German East Africa) ; and the Kosa 

 Kafirs of Western Natal, Pondoland, and the Transkei 

 territories of Cape Colony. The difference between 

 the Zulu and Kosa dialects is much less than between 

 Zulu and Shi-ronga. Naturally, the Zulu speech that 

 has been dropped down here and there in little colonies 

 in East-Central Africa north of the Zambezi is already 

 departing widely from the Zulu in Zululand, owing to 

 intermarriage with local races. 



The original place of origin in Central Africa of 

 the Zulu-Kafir peoples and dialects is still an unsolved 

 mystery ; their nearest relations at the present day in 

 vocabulary and grammar (though not in phonology) 

 are the great Basuto group of Central South Africa 

 and the Damara (Ova-herero) of South-west Africa. 

 There is not that marked relationship with the exist- 

 ing tongues in Central Zambezia which one would ex- 

 pect to find, though, of course, as these are equally 

 " Bantu " in form and construction they offer a good 



1 It is more convenient to write this word, which begins with a lateral 

 click [=//osa], with a K. It is usually spelt Xosa in South Africa. 



NO. 1899, VOL. 73] 



deal of resemblance to Zulu, but not more so than is 

 shown by the other Bantu languages of East Africa. 

 Here and there in the dialects of Lake Nyasa and 

 even of the tongues of inner East Africa there are 

 hints of resemblances to the Zulu group in vocabu- 

 lary. At the same time, many of the peculiar features 

 in vocabulary and grammar of the Zulu language 

 and its kindred dialects are only to be met with else- 

 where in the Se-suto forms of speech, and perhaps 

 in the Ochi-herero. The Zulu-Kafir language group 

 offers some archaic features in the form of its prefixes 

 and of certain word-roots. But it is not the " Sanskrit 

 of the Bantu," nor nearly so archaic as the languages 

 round Tanganyika and the Victoria Nyanza. 



One of the most marked peculiarities of Zulu and 

 Kosa Kafir is the possession of three "clicks." The 

 Shi-ronga dialects of South-east Africa, though closely 

 related to Zulu in vocabulary and grammatical struc- 

 ture, do not possess these clicks, and no trace of them 

 is met with in Se-suto or Ochi-herero, or indeed in any 

 other Bantu language. The general assumption is 

 that the clicks have been borrowed from the Hotten- 

 tots, and, of course, in the case of the Kosa Kafirs 

 this is conceivable, as for centuries they have bordered 

 on the Hottentot domain. Yet it is rather extraor- 

 dinary that the Basuto peoples, who in history certainly 

 preceded the Kafir-Zulu in the invasion of South 

 Africa, and who, as may be seen by their physical ap- 

 pearance, have anciently inter-bred with the Hotten- 

 tots, should not have borrowed any click from Hotten- 

 tot or Bushman. Likewise the Ova-herero and their 

 allies have been in close contact with Hottentot peoples 

 in South-west Africa without catching the infection 

 of the click. Miss A. Werner, one of the few serious 

 students in Great Britain of Bantu languages, has 

 written several articles on this subject, without, how- 

 ever, arriving at a definite conclusion as to whether 

 the Zulu-Kafir clicks are borrowed from Hottentots or 

 are independent developments of the language, re- 

 cently acquired in situ. The author of the work under 

 review seems to suggest that the three Zulu-Kafir 

 clicks may be explosive pronunciations of the gutturals. 

 If so, they might have developed separately without 

 Hottentot influence. 



It is a pity in the work before us that the author 

 has not had the courage to quit South African pro- 

 vincialism and aim at bringing his grammar into ac- 

 cord with the approved classification of the Bantu 

 languages, and a system of spelling, such as that of 

 Lepsius, which is both scientific and logical. A strong 

 man should come forward, and, by his influence, 

 compel all philologists, the whole world over, to adopt 

 the Lepsius alphabet (with two or three trifling 

 changes) as the standard which all persons must adopt 

 in transcribing the languages of the world not already 

 and anciently expressed in Roman letters ; nay, more, 

 it is to be hoped one day that all the civilised tongues 

 of the world — English, French, German, Russian, 

 Greek, Arabic, and every other speech with a litera- 

 ture — may be written down in one form of lettering, 

 and according to one standard — perhaps the Lepsius — 

 of expressing sounds by letters. 



Meantime, some uniformity of transliteration might 



Y 



