LANGUAGES 
485 
the south-western forms of Chinyanja this changes to bzi- or psi- and in 
Central Ci-mananja to zi- ; a parallel to Zulu. The Ci-pozo language repre¬ 
sented in my vocabularies is a very interesting tongue. It is spoken in the 
Zambezi Delta and retains many old roots extinct in adjoining dialects. The 
form of the eighth prefix, pi-, is a rare one shared with the Sena dialect On 
the whole Ci-pozo offers strongest affinities with the Ci-nyanja group though it 
has evidently influenced and been influenced by I-cuambo, the language of 
Ouelimane. This last-named tongue is the most southern representative of the 
Makua group. 
The Makua language and its allied dialects (I-lomwe and others) is a very 
remarkable form of Bantu speech, which has evidently been long isolated in this 
projection of South-East Africa, the Mozambique province, shut in between 
Lake Nyasa, the Ruvuma River, the Indian Ocean, and the Zambezi Delta. 
While preserving many primitive roots, the prefixes have altered strangely; and 
a dislike to certain consonants or combinations of consonants has changed the 
appearance of many familiar words, so much that, until the genius of the language 
has become understood, the Makua dialects are apt to appear more peculiar 
than they really are. Nasal sounds are disliked in combination with labials : 
thus instead of nyuviba, iiombe, mbuzi, they say enupa , mope, epuri. R is con¬ 
stantly substituted for t and z, k for f, and h for s: thus makura, “oil,” instead of 
mafuta; uhiu instead of usiku. Id, also, is constantly substituted for k. On the 
whole, Makua—or I-makua 1 as it is called—is nearest in its affinities to the tongues 
of the east coast on its northern borders, and has some distant resemblance to 
Yao. It may also have been influenced by the proximity of the Ci-nyanja group; 
but it represents an old type of Bantu long isolated. Some of its prefixes are 
well nigh inexplicable. Two curious classes it shares with Yao—words begin¬ 
ning in the singular with Mwa- which in the plural are prefixed by Asi- (Yao- 
Mwa-; plural, aci or aca). Mwa- may be short for Mwana—“child” (of); asi- 
appears to have been derived from a Yao honorific prefix, used both in singular 
and plural— aca or aci, and often reduced in conversation to Ce {eke), as Ce 
Mataka —Mr. Mataka. 
The Yao language and its relative Ci-ngindo of N.E. Nyasaland are con¬ 
nected with the languages of the Swahili coast. Ci-yao is a very difficult 
language to learn, on account of the complicated changes that take place in the 
verb (of which there are some nineteen tenses duplicated by an almost equal 
number of negative tenses) and the clumsy method of dealing with adjectives. 
As regards the changes of the actual root of the verb, these only take place in 
the preterite tense (though there is the usual change of the terminal vowel in 
the subjunctive mood). There is the customary change of the terminal vowel 
in the preterite from a into -ile, which is so widespread in slightly varying forms 
among the Bantu languages (as Menya, beat! past tense— menyile) ; but in 
addition there are some seven irregular forms, which can be studied in the 
Handbook to the Yao language, by the Rev. A. Hetherwick. 
In regard to the adjectives : instead of the simple system in vogue in the 
more primitive Bantu tongues by which the adjectival root is merely preceded 
by the particle in agreement with the noun-class to which the substantive 
belongs—as Mun tu JY«kulu = a great man—we have first the noun’s particle 
man great 
applied to the adjectival root and then the conjunctival particle of the noun’s 
1 For Ki-makua. K is disliked at the beginning of a word. The Ki- prefix becomes I- and the Ku- 
prefix, TJ-. 
