NATURE 



377 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 16 



THE MODERN LANGUAGES OF AFRICA 

 A Sketch of the Modern Languages of Africa, accom- 

 panied by a Language Map. By Robert Needham 

 Cust. 2 vols. (London: Triibner, 1S83.) 



WHY this work has been restricted to the "modern" 

 languages of Africa is not apparent, seeing that 

 there are not half a dozen ancient or extinct African 

 tongues altogether of which science has any knowledge. 

 The limitation is the more remarkable that every one of 

 these ancient tongues is duly recorded and dealt with in 

 its place, partly lest it should "seem to have been over- 

 looked," partly seemingly for no other reason than that 

 the author has forgotten the restriction so needlessly im- 

 posed upon himself Yet when we are told that Gi'z, the 

 most important of them next to Old Egyptian, " may be 

 deemed the Lingua Franca of Abyssinia " ! (p. 88), and 

 when Rinn's remark on the possible reconstruction of an 

 Archaic Berber " offering analogies to the languages of 

 High Asia '' (p. 105) is quoted without comment, one 

 begins to feel that after all it might have been wise to 

 have adhered to the restriction. 



But Mr. Cust does not profess to be critical or even 

 scientific, and although in one place science is declared 

 to be his " sole object," it is elsewhere explained that his 

 " chief motive " is to assist the missionaries, " the pecu- 

 liar outcome, the most wondrous development, and the 

 great glory of the nineteenth century" (p. 461). He 

 hastens even to assure us that personally he knows 

 "absolutely nothing" of the subject, and in one not very 

 clear passage he seems to take the anticipated charge of 

 "his entire absence of training in any school of com- 

 parative philology" as "a compliment " (p. 15). Most 

 people, however, will probably feel that some knowledge 

 of the principles of comparative philology would at aU 

 events have been an advantage, if not an absolute sine 

 qua non, in a writer undertaking to give us " a sketch of 

 the modern languages of Africa." Anyhow, in the 

 absence of such a qualification it is the less surprising to 

 find the hand of the amateur betrayed in almost every 

 page of the present work, which supplies abundant evi- 

 dence that it is written by a person sure neither of him- 

 self nor of his subject. Great vagueness, inaccuracies, 

 and incoherencies of all sorts, commonplace platitudes 

 gravely put forward as important truths, the existence 

 of well-known or historical people, such as the Funj 

 (Fung) of Senaar, referred to as doubtful, such expres- 

 sions as " parallels of longitude," " Hervas, the Father of 

 Comparative Philology " ! and the like, everywhere reveal 

 an essentially unscientific habit of thought. This is 

 strikingly manifested in the treatment of the Bantu pre- 

 fixes, which are described as "an intolerable nuisance," 

 as indeed they must needs have proved themselves to be 

 to a writer ignorant of their very meaning. He refers 

 (p. 12) to "languages of the Hamitic group, such as IVa- 

 Galla," where the form should obviously be A7-Galla, IVa 

 indicating the people, Ki their speech. Hence the diffi- 

 culty presented by these troublesome particles is perhaps 

 not unnaturally met by the naive plan of making a clean 

 sweep of them. Thus we have everywhere Swahili, Suto, 

 Vol. XXIX. — No. 747 



Chuana, Ng'anga (Nyanja), for Ki-S\vahili, Se-Suto, Se- 

 Chuana, Chi-Ng'anga, and so on ; nor can it be denied 

 that at least on the score of simplicity this plan may 

 possibly recommend itself to the ordinary reader. 



To a writer ignorant of comparative philology, the 

 phonetics, structure, and general morphology of the 

 languages must necessarily have proved equally " in- 

 tolerable nuisances." Hence this difficulty is also met 

 by the same simple expedient of elimination, and we are 

 accordingly quietly warned (p. 15) that "it lies outside 

 the purport of this sketch to dwell upon the grammatica 

 peculiarities of languages, or families, and groups of 

 languages," the object being " to give a sketch of the 

 whole subject, not to write an account of each language." 

 Certainly a zoologist might in the satne way undertake to 

 write a " sketch " of the animal kingdom without reference 

 to the comparative anatomy, osteology, general morpho- 

 logy, or other structural "peculiarities" of his various 

 orders and families. But by so doing he would perform 

 a remarkable four deforce, if he thereby either added to 

 his own reputation or conferred any substantial benefit 

 on his readers. 



Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that, heavily handi- 

 capped as he was, Mr. Cust has contrived to produce a 

 work of value to linguistic students. This he has done 

 by wisely restricting himself to what may be called the 

 topography and bibliography of the subject. Abundance 

 of time and means, industrious habits, and the opportuni- 

 ties of procuring information afforded by his connection 

 with a number of learned bodies in England and abroad, 

 have enabled him to deal with these useful branches almost 

 exhaustively. Apparently following somewhat on the lines 

 suggested by the linguistic and ethnological appendi.xes to 

 Stanford's Compendium, he has collected from all quarters 

 copious materials bearing on the history, habitat, litera- 

 ture, bibliography, and classification of almost every 

 known language and dialect still current amongst the 

 African aborigines. The bibliographical references, per- 

 haps the most valuable feature of the work, are reserved 

 for a very full appendix, containing "a bibliographical 

 table of languages, dialects, localities, and authorities." 

 The other materials, generally brought well up to date,- 

 are distributed over the various chapters devoted to the 

 "prolegomena" of the subject, and to the several 

 linguistic families of the African continent. Here the 

 author unfortunately still follows Fr. Midler's classifica- 

 tion, apparently unaware that on some material points 

 this writer's views have lately been completely exploded. 

 Thus the Tibbu of the Eastern Sahara, although clearly 

 shown by Nachtigal (Sahara und Sttdan)\.o be essentially 

 distinct both in speech and physical type from the Negro, 

 are still grouped with that division. The consequence is 

 that in the accompanying coloured language-map by Mr. 

 E. G. Ravenstein, the Negro domain is extended beyond 

 the Sudan northwards to Fezzan and Tripoli, at least 

 7° of latitude beyond its proper limits. The nomen- 

 clature is here also both confused and, as frequently else- 

 where, at variance with the text. Thus we have " Teda 

 or Tibbu " instead of Teda or Northern Tibbu, and below 

 it " Daza or Gora'an " for " Daza or Southern Tibbu." 

 And in quoting Nachtigal's work why does Mr. Cust go 

 out of his way to give us a false prosody (Sahdra), where 

 the author was so careful to write correctly Sahara ? 



