114 
THE BECHUANA LANGUAGE. 
Chap. VI. 
at least tliiiTy years, lie may be supposed to be better adapted 
for the task tlian any man bving. Some idea of the copiousness 
of the language may be formed from the fact that even he never 
spends a week at liis work without discovering new words ; the 
phenomenon, therefore, of any man who, after a few months’ or 
years’ study of a native tongue, cackles forth a torrent of vocables 
may well be wondered at, if it is meant to convey instruction. In 
my ovm case, though I have had as much intercourse vdth the 
purest idiom as most Englishmen, and have studied the language 
carefully, yet I can never utter an important statement without 
doing so very slowly, and repeating it too, lest the foreign accent, 
which is distinctly perceptible in all Europeans, should render 
the sense unintelligible. In tliis I follow the example of the 
Bechuana orators, who, on important matters, always speak 
slowly, deliberately, and with reiteration. The capabilities of 
this language may be inferred from the fact that the Pentateuch 
is fully expressed in Mr. Moffat’s translation in fewer words than 
in the Greek Septuagint, and in a very considerably smaller 
number than in our own English version. The language is how¬ 
ever so simple in its construction, that its copiousness by no means 
requEes the explanation that the people have fallen from a 
former state of civilisation and culture. Language seems to be 
an attribute of the human mind and thought; and the inflections, 
various as they are in the most barbarous tongues, as that of the 
Buslmien, are probably only proofs of the race being human, and 
endowed with the power of tliinkmg; the fuUer development of 
language taking place as the improvement of our other faculties 
goes on. It is fortunate that the translation of the Bible has been 
effected before the language became adulterated with half-uttered 
foreign words, and while those who have heard the eloquence of 
the native assemblies are still living; for the young, who are 
brought up in our schools, know less of the language than the 
missionaries ; and Eimopeans born in the country, while possessed 
of the idiom perfectly, if not otherwise educated, cannot be referred 
to for explanation of any uncommon word. A person who acted 
as interpreter to Sir George Cathcart actually told his Excel¬ 
lency that the language of the Basutos w^as not capable of ex¬ 
pressing the substance of a chief’s diplomatic paper, wliile every 
one acquainted with Mosliesh, the chief wdio sent it, w^ell know^s 
