LANGUAGES 
4^3 
To these sixteen prefixes should perhaps be added the preposition mu- “in,” 
“into,” which in some languages is used as a prefix or pronominal particle, 
as in the Swahili phrase “ M’nyumba-ni mw-ace” = In his house—where the 
In house in it (in) his 
preposition M’ (abbreviation for Mu-) has the particle Mw (Mu) agreeing with 
it and placed before the pronoun -ace. 
Also the prefix in the singular number having a diminutive sense, which is 
found in some of the North-Western 1 Bantu tongues—Fi- or Vi-. This is 
possibly an additional prefix which has come into independent being in that 
rather divergent group. It cannot be traced to derivation from any of the 
other prefixes among the sixteen. It is always used in the singular, and its 
corresponding plural prefix is the twelfth (Tu-). 
The concord may be explained thus 
Let us for a moment reconstruct the original Bantu mother-tongue (as 
attempts are sometimes made to deduce the ancient Aryan from the most 
archaic of its daughters) and propound sentences to illustrate the repetition 
of pronominal particles known as the “ concord.” 
OLD BANTU : 
Abao Bantu babi babaota ; tuAzoga. 
They they person they bad they they-who kill; we them fear. 
(“ They are bad men who kill; we fear them.”) 
Now let us render this into a modern dialect, Luganda of Buganda : 
Bo Bantu babi babota ; tuZwtia. 
They they person they bad they they-who kill; we them fear. 
Or, again— 
OLD BANTU : 
NgU -ti 
This tree 
ngunguo ngugwa ; kungumbona ? 
this this-one this falls; thou this seest? 
(“ The tree falls ; doest thou see it ? ”) 
Rendered into Kiguha of Tanganyika, this would be: 
Mu ti gun o gugwa ; myrmona ? 
It tree this (one) it falls; thou it seest? 
The prefixes and their once identical particles have varied greatly in form 
from the aboriginal syllables as the various Bantu dialects became more and 
more corrupt. The eighth prefix, Bi-, becomes Vi-, Pi-, Fi-, Fy-, Si-,' 2 1 -, By-, Bz-, 
Py-, Ps-, Zi-. Further confusion is caused by the retention and fusion in the 
prefix of the preceding vowel which marked the full definite form when the 
prefix was used as a definite article or demonstrative pronoun. The definite 
forms of the prefixes were these: — i. Umu (Ungu, Unu), 2. Aba, 3. Umu 
(Ungu, Unu), 4. Imi (Ingi, Ini), 5. Idi (Indi), 6. Ama (Anga, Ana), 7. Iki, 8. Ibi, 
9. In-, 10. Ibin- or Izin, 11. Ulu, 12. Utu, 13. Aka, 14. Ubu, 15. Uku, 16. Apa. 
Umu contracts into Um’, M’, U’; Aba into Awa, A’; Idi into Edi, Ei, E’, P, 
and so on. 
The Bantu dialects illustrated in this volume by vocabularies fall into 
groups more or less coincident with the tribal or racial congeries of peoples 
enumerated at the beginning of the chapter on Anthropology; but in drawing 
1 Perhaps also in the Eastern Congo basin. In the form of I- it is seemingly present in Manyema. 
2 Shi-, the F palatalised. 
