1(3 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



results of the transplantation of languages, whicli have a long history of 

 cultural development behind them, to regions inhabited by primitive 

 peoples. Here there are two sets of phenomena, each with its own special 

 interest. On the one hand, we have the modification of the languages of 

 those European peoples who have established themselves in Africa as 

 permanent settled communities, under pressure of the new linguistic 

 influences into contact with which they have been brought. Of these 

 phenomena the study of Afrikaans ofEers perhaps the best examples to 

 be found in the whole field of linguistics — its importance for the student 

 of comparative philology is very far from being adequately appreciated. 

 On the other hand, we have those cases where European languages have 

 come to Africa as the languages not of settled communities, but of officials 

 and others like them who are but temporarily domiciled in this continent, 

 and leave no descendants behind them to carry on the process of evolu- 

 tion of distinctive forms of speech. Here the phenomena which are of 

 interest to the student of linguistics are to be found in the wealth of 

 deformation and adaptation which the native populations have introduced 

 in their endeavours to speak the European languages of their rulers. 

 Work such as has been done by Schuchardt in Negro-Portuguese and 

 Negro-French opens up a wide area of most attractive investigation. 



But the most important task in the field of African linguistics is the 

 actual recording of the native languages of Africa, our backwardness in 

 respect of which is a reproach to Science. Such study is, of course, im- 

 portant in relation to Africa itself, but of even greater significance for 

 my present purpose is its bearing on scientific problems of wider scope. 

 In that connection I would suggest two points. We are still only at the 

 beginning of the study of Comparative Bantu. That in due course should 

 lead to a knowledge of Ur-Bantu. Such a study and such a knowledge 

 will necessarily be of importance to the comparative philologist, both 

 because of the light shed by the study of one group of languages on the 

 study of other groups, and also because it opens the way to the investi- 

 gation of the relationship of Bantu to the other African tongues, and 

 its place in the general scheme of the languages of the world. But of 

 even greater interest is the study of African languages as throwing light 

 on the inter-penetrations and interactions of primitive peoples. Language 

 is a function of social relationship, and its study is therefore of great 

 value for ethnological and historical investigations. May I give one 

 instance of what I have in mind ? Two millennia back South- West 

 Arabia was the seat of the powerful commercial civilisations of the 



