LANGUAGES 891 



prefixes and the use of a " concord " in which a particle originally answering 

 to and identical with the prefix continually reappears through the sentence, 

 emphasising and " locking " the connection of the subject with the purport 

 of the sentence. Thus, in Luganda : — 



Omu-ti omw-vunsi guli (/w-nagwa ; njagala og'Mteme. 



It tree it rotten it there (that) it will fall ; I wish (that) thou it cut down. 

 (That rotten tree will fall ; I wish thee to cut it down.) 



Throughout this sentence the prefix or particle (the two were once 

 identical in form) " omu- " or " gu-," corresponding with the prefix 

 governing the class of noun to which " omu-ti " (tree) belongs, constantly 

 appears in reference to the subject-object of the sentence—" tree " : " it the 

 tree," " it is rotten," " it is there," " it will fall," etc. In the original Bantu 

 mother-tongue there must have been something like sixteen of these 

 prefixes, which, however, assumed a more ample form— perhaps stretched 

 even to dissyllables— than they do at the present day, except in the most 

 archaic of the Bantu dialects. Among the living tongues, the staple 

 form of the Bantu prefixes in the purest forms of Bantu speech are as 

 follows : — 



Singular. Plural. 



1. Umu (perhaps once Ngumu-) . . 2. Aba- (Baba). 



3. Umu „ „ „ . -i- Imi- (Ngimi). 



5. Idi or Iri- (perhaps once Ndindi-) . • 6. Ama- (Ngama). 



7. Iki- (perhaps once Kiki-) . . . 8. Ibi- (Bibi). 



9 jij. ... 10. Itin- or Izin- 



11. Udu- or Ulu- (Uru) (perhaps once Ndundu) . . .12. Utu (Tutu-). 



13. Aka- (perhaps once Kaka) 



1-'. (Singular and plural sense.) Ubu (perhaps once Bubu-) 



15. Uku . . . . • ■ • 



16. Apa . 



In sach languages as the tongues spoken round the shores of the 

 Victoria Nyanza and the Albert Nyanza ; along the east and south coast 

 of Tanganyika, and at the north end of Lake Nyasa ; in the Lower Congo 

 (200 years ago); in parts of the Zambezi basin, and amongst the 

 Zulu-Kaffirs, the people frequently use (or used) the ampler form of the 

 prefix given in the foregoing list, which commences always with a vowel 

 ("Umu-" for instance, instead of "Mu-"). But it has not been clearly 

 shown even at the present day under what rules the fuller form "Umu" 

 is employed in preference to " :\Iu-," for instance. Perhaps it might be 

 said that the speakers use the fuUer forms "Umu-," "Aba-," etc., when 

 they wish to be speciaUy definite, and that the preliminary vowel answers 

 almost to a definite article. The late Dr. Bleek (formerly Librarian at 

 Cape Town), who has been the only great authority on Bantu languages 

 up to the present time (he first invented the distinguishing name of 



