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Grammatical construction of the Ho language. — By Lieut. Tickell. 



I hope due allowances will be made for the imperfectness of the 

 grammatical details here given, when it is remembered that the Ho 

 language has no written character, nor does there exist a person, 

 native of the Kolehan or otherwise, who could give me the slightest 

 assistance on this point. 



It would be trite to observe that grammar is as inherent and essen- 

 tial to all languages, even the most barbarous, as a vocabulary itself. 

 By first learning a number of the words and sentences arbitrarily, 

 the system on which they are founded may be detected in due time 

 by patient comparisons of them, even when the speakers themselves 

 are unable to give the inquirer the least information on the con- 

 struction of what they are saying. With this difficulty once mastered, 

 it is inconceivable with what ease the most (apparently) complex 

 and difficult languages become familiar. 



The sounds of the Ho language are exceedingly pure and liquid, 

 without strong aspirates or gutturals, and may be well rendered 

 by the English alphabet, or still better the French one, as that admits 

 of the slight nasal inflection which prevails in many words in the Ho 

 dialect. 



Let the following conventions be made to the sound of the vowels, in 

 the ensuing dialogues, &c. 



a as in " father," " rather," 



e „ ''prey," - et6," 



i » "skip," "trip," 



ee ,, " sheep," " peep," 



y » "fly," "try," 



ai or ay ,, longer sound as in '' aye, aye ?" 



o „ " bone," " stone," 



00 „ <' fool," " stool," 



*n (nasal n) „ '' Ton" " Fanfaron," (French.) 

 The long acute vowel sounds, such as oo and ee, also the letter r, 

 are pronounced too liquidly and subtilely to be easily imitated by a 

 stranger, and in some words the inflections of the vowels are in- 

 conceivably complex and mellifluous. The general euphony or cadence 



* Also g, as the French liquid g, in Coulogne, Boulogne. 



