448 



THE KISA W AH I LI. 



bar, 1867), the 'tongue spoken in the country- 

 called in our maps ITsumbara, which is a moun- 

 tainous district on the mainland of Africa, 

 lying opposite to the Island of Pemba, and 

 visible in clear weather from the town of 

 Zanzibar.' 



Kisawahili is at once rich and poor. It may 

 contain 20,000 words, of which, perhaps, 3000 

 are generally used, and 10,000 have been pub- 

 lished. Copious to cumbrousness in concrete, 

 collective, and ideal words, it abounds in names 

 of sensuous objects ; there is a term for every 

 tree, shrub, plant, grass, and bulb, and I have 

 shown that the several ages of the cocoa-nut 

 are differently called. It wants compounds, 

 abstract and metaphysical expressions : these 

 must be borrowed from the Arabic, fitted with 

 terminal and internal vowels, to suit the tongue, 

 and modified according to the organs of the 

 people, harsh and guttural consonants being 

 exchanged for easy cognates. Even the numerals 

 beyond twenty are mere Semitic corruptions. 

 All new ideas, that of servant, for instance, must 

 be expressed by a short description. In the 

 more advanced South African dialects, as in 

 the Mpongwe of the Gaboon, a compound or a 

 derivative would be found to include all require- 



