in.] SICHUAN A LANGUAGE. 119 



mashume a her a menuana meberi le a coa ha go hera men- 

 uana meberi. The people who live on the Zambesi make 

 counting still more complicated by counting in fives, viz. 

 five of left hand, five of right hand, five of left foot, five of 

 right foot ; so that it soon becomes so long in the description 

 there is no following it." 



Those who speak this language have a curious custom 

 of putting Ma and Ra before the name of the eldest son, 

 and of calling his parents by these newly compounded names 

 respectively. Thus they call Mrs Livingstone Ma-Robert, 

 i. e. the mother of Robert. They would call the father of 

 Sekeletu, if he were alive, ci Ra-Sekeletu." 



A little attention to the following rules will enable 

 the reader to pronounce accurately any of the difficult 

 words occurring in the book of Travels. 



The best way is to compare the language with our 

 own; calling in the aid of any others with which w r e 

 may be acquainted whereby to supply rules on points 

 wherein the English may fail. 



All the vowels are sounded in Sichuana, for example 

 the final e, which is a point of difference from our own. 

 Probably the best rule to follow for pronunciation is that of 

 the Italian, even including £, giving to n the ringing sound 

 of the Spanish n; or putting an i before it, as ing. 



In the following table, compiled from that of Dr Living- 

 stone 1 , combined with some remarks of Mr Moffat's 2 , for 

 the sake of brevity, those letters or diphthongs are 

 only noticed which differ in sound from our own: those 

 which are not here particularized can be read as the 

 English. 



C, sounded as ch, in Church. Ex. caha (chaka) a battle 

 axe. Cisa (cheesa) to cause to dry up or burn. 



1 Analysis, pp. 6 — 8. 



2 Missionary Scenes and Labours, &c. p. 216, note. 



