CHAPTER XX 



LANG UAGES 



rr^HE languages which are indigenous to the territories comprised within 

 -I- the poUtical limits of the Uganda Protectorate in 1901 belong to 

 the following stocks : — 



1. Masai-Turkana-Bari.^j 



1. a. Nandi. vNos. 1 and 2 are distantly connected in origin. 



2. Nilotic. J 



3. Madi. 



4. Lendu. 



5. Mbuba-Momfu. 



6. Bantu. 



For purposes of comparison I have added vocabularies of Somali^ 

 Mundu, and Makarka (Nyam-Nyan). The last three languages are 

 spoken in the Uganda Protectorate by soldiers and traders, and by settlers 

 who have recently left their own lands to settle under British protection ; 

 but the countries to which these languages are at present indigenous 

 lie outside the limits of the Uganda Protectorate. 



The Somali language is a Hamitic tongue, and is closely allied to the 

 dialects which are spoken by the different Gala and Danakil tribes. 

 These Hamitic tongues offer some faint suggestion of distant relationship 

 to the language of the ancient Egyptians: perhaps a less disputable 

 connection with the Semitic family. A glance at my vocabularies will 

 show that there is a slight but recognisable connection between the 

 Somali and the Masai-Turkana, the Nandi, and even some of the Nilotic 

 languages. In the case of the pure Nilotic tongues such as Dinka, Aluru, 

 and Acholi, the influence of Somali is almost non-existent, and such 

 words which may still offer resemblance in the vocabulary are probably 

 borrowed terms. In the case of the Masai and Nandi groups the con- 

 nection is more obvious, and may well have arisen from some such cause 

 as that which I presume to have created the existing JNIasai, Turkana, and 

 Nandi physical types — namely, the ancient invasion of Nile countries 

 by Ethiopan races allied to the Somali and Gala, the mixture of which 

 with the original Negro stock produced (among other developments) the. 



