THE 'mrima: 



131 



however, is properly speaking limited to the 

 maritime uplands between Tanga and the Pan- 

 coined out of the dictionary from ' observavit occiden- 



tem solem.' I would also ask how ' Comazinghi is Arabic?' 

 (Geography, art. 15). Similarly, we find (Journal Eoyal Geo- 

 graphical Society, xix. 190) the Somali 1 Aber' (error for Habr) 

 derived from the Arabic (Hebrew ?) Bar, and explained by Benii 

 (sons), when it really signifies mother or old woman. 



It may be noted that in the Kisawahili of Zanzibar, Mrima 

 is applied to the coast generally, especially between Mtangata 

 and the Eufiji Eiver, and it is mostly synonymous with the 

 Arabs' ' Bar el Moli,' whereas MHma means a mountain. From 

 the latter comes the diminutive Kilima, a hillock, also synon- 

 ymous in composition with the French mont. It enters into 

 many East African proper names, e. g. Kilima-njaro, Kilima-ni, 

 &c. 



I cannot agree with Messrs Norris and Beke, despite 

 their authority as linguists, in stripping the national and racial 

 names of their inflections, e. g. Sagara for TJsagara, Zaramo 

 for TJzaramo. Mr Cooley is equally wrong in stating that the 

 £ Sawahily and the Arabs write Nika, Zeramu, and Gogo. The 

 Arabs may, the Wasawahili do not, thus blunder. Captain Guil- 

 lain, I have remarked, is no authority. He confounds (vol. i. 

 p. 231) the land of Wak-wak (the Semitic Gallas) with the South 

 African Wamakua; and, worse still, with the 'Vatouahs.' And 

 (vol. i. p. 281) he writes the well-known 'Abban ' of the Somal, 

 1 Hebban.' He also unduly neglects the peculiar initial quiescent 

 consonant M, e. g. (i. p. 456) ' Foumo ' for ' Mfumo.' The bare 

 root-word, I repeat, is never used by the people, who always 

 qualify it by a prepositive. This, in our language Brit or 

 Brut may be the monosyllable upon which Briton and 

 British are built, but it is evidently barbarous to employ 

 it without suffix. In the Zangian tongues the prefixes are 

 clearly primitive words ; nouns, not as the Eev. J. L. Doehne 

 explains them in his Zulu-Kafir Dictionary (Cape Town, 1857), 

 1 pronouns, in the present state of the language, used as nominal 

 forms compounded with other words. 



