440 



THE KISA W A HILL 



These two great tongues, one extending over half 

 a world, the other through half a continent, are, I 

 believe with Lichtenstein and Mars den, unbor- 

 rowed, indigenous, and marked with all the pecu- 

 liarities which distinguish their inventors. Both 

 are idioms which seem to indicate nice linguistic 

 perceptions and high intellectual development ; 

 history, however, supplies many cases of civiliza- 

 tion simplifying and curtailing the complicated 

 tongues of barbarians, thus making language the 

 means, not the end, of instruction. 



The limits of the South African family may be 

 roughly laid down as extending from the Equator 

 to the Cape of Good Hope. The Equatorial 

 Gaboon on the Western Coast 1 evidently belongs 

 to it; and upon the Congo river I found that 

 whole sentences of Kisawahili were easily made 

 intelligible to the people. 2 Though the language 

 is evidently one in point of construction through- 

 out this immense area, isolation and hostilities be- 

 tween tribes have split it into a multitude of 



1 Grammar of the Bakele language, &c, by the Missionaries 

 of the A. B. C. F. M. Gaboon Station, Western Africa. New 

 York : Pratt, 1854. Also Grammar of the Mpongwe language, 

 &c, by the same. New York : Snowdon and Pratt, 1847. 



2 A Vocabulary of the Malemba and Embomma Languages. 

 (Appendix I. Tuckcy's Expedition to the Kivcr Zaire. London : 

 Murray, 1818.) Also Fr. B. M. de Cannecatim's Diccionario 

 da Lingua Bunda. Lisboa, 1S0L 



