128 THE BECHUANA LANGUAGE. 



for at least thirty years, lie may be supposed to be better adapted 

 for the task than any man living. Some idea of the copiousness 

 of the language may be formed from the fact that even he never 

 spends a week at his work without discovering new words ; the 

 phenomenon, therefore, of any man who, after a few months' or 

 years' study of a native tongue, cackles forth a torrent of vocables, 

 may well be wondered at, if it is meant to convey instruction. 

 In my own case, though I have had as much intercourse with the 

 purest idiom as most Englishmen, and have studied the language 

 carefully, yet I can never utter an important statement without 

 doing so very slowly, and repeating it too, lest the foreign accent, 

 which is distinctly perceptible in all Europeans, should render 

 the sense unintelligible. In this I follow the example of the 

 Bechuana orators, who, on important matters, always speak slow- 

 ly, deliberately, and with reiteration. The capabilities of this 

 language may be inferred from the fact that the Pentateuch is 

 fully expressed in Mr. Moffat's translation in fewer words than 

 in the Greek Septuagint, and in a very considerably smaller num- 

 ber than in our own English version. The language is, however, 

 so simple in its construction, that its copiousness by no means 

 requires the explanation that the people have fallen from a for- 

 mer state of civilization and culture. Language seems to be an 

 attribute of the human mind and thought ; and the inflections, 

 various as they are in the most barbarous tongues, as that of the 

 Bushmen, are probably only proofs of the race being human, and 

 endowed with the power of thinking ; the fuller development of 

 language taking place as the improvement of our other faculties 

 goes on. It is fortunate that the translation of the Bible has been 

 effected before the language became adulterated with half-uttered 

 foreign words, and while those who have heard the eloquence of 

 the native assemblies are still living ; for the young, who are 

 brought up in our schools, know less of the language than the 

 missionaries ; and Europeans born in the country, while possessed 

 of the idiom perfectly, if not otherwise educated, can not be re- 

 ferred to for explanation of any uncommon word. A person who 

 acted as interpreter to Sir George Cathcart actually told his ex- 

 cellency that the language of the Basutos was not capable of 

 expressing the substance of a chief's diplomatic paper, while every 

 one acquainted with Moshesh, the chief who sent it, well knows 



