OF LANGUAGES. 



n 



The addition of terms like " male" or " female" does not 

 affect the gender of any particular word. It only qualifies the 

 noun, as do all adjectives. The gender of the word " child " 

 remains the same, whether it is connected with male or 

 female, small or big, white or black, &c. The sentence the 

 king and the queen eat from the same dish is expressed in 

 Malayan Sangnata laki estri santdp saidangan, i.e., the kings, 

 male and female, ate from the same dish. 110 



The great majority of languages being concrete, the abstract 

 minority only expresses gender. The well known African 

 linguist, the lamented Dr. W. H. I. Bleek, is, so far as my 

 knowledge goes, the first among modern philologists who 

 became aware of the important position which gender occupies 

 in language, and who pointed it out in his excellent essays. 111 

 In this respect Dr. Bleek quite deserves the encomium con- 

 ferred on him by one of the greatest authorities of the day, 

 Professor Max Miiller. In the preface to the sixth edition of 

 the Lectures on the Science of Language we read : " Much has 

 been written during the last ten years on the origin of language, 

 but the only writer who seems to me to have approached the 

 problem in an independent and at the same time a truly scientific 

 spirit, is Dr. Bleek, in his essay Ueberden Ursprung der SpracJie" 

 Dr. Bleek was struck with the very interesting but puzzling 

 system of concords occurring in South African languages, 112 



(110) See: Crawfurd I.e., page 12. 



(111) Compare " Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache von Wilhelm Heinrich 

 Immanuel Bleek," Kapstadt, 1867 ; and his essays in the first volume of the 

 Journal of the Anthropological Institute ' ' On the position of the Australian 

 languages" and on " the Concord, the origin of Pronouns, and the formation 

 of Classes or Genders of Nouns." Unfortunately J could not obtain a copy 

 of Dr. Bleek's Comparative Grammar. — The recent work of Dr. Latham 

 " Outlines on General Philology " has not yet reached me. 



(112) " The euphonic or alliteral concord causes the initial element of the 

 noun, a letter, a syllable, or syllables, to reappear as the initial element of the 

 adjective agreeing with the noun ; requires the pronoun to assume a form 

 corresponding to the initial of the noun for which it stands ; and detaches the 

 important part of the initial of the governing noun, to assist in forming a 

 bond of connection with and control over the noun or pronoun, governed in 

 the genitive ; e.g., izimvu zami zi ya li zua ilizui lawi, literally, (the) sheep of 



10 



