LANGUAGES OF THE KILIMANJARO DISTRICT. 475 
various suffixes to tlie stem, thus imparting a reciprocal, 
causative, or intensitive meaning to the simple root, 
recalls the same method in the Galla and Bantu lan¬ 
guages. 
At the same time, although the Masai group offers 
certain points of agreement in grammatical features 
with the Hamitic and Bantu divisions, there is no 
positive approximation to either. Certain of the 
numerals bear a slight resemblance to those of the 
Galla, and there are also a few words alike in the 
vocabularies of both these groups, but the similarity is 
possibly accidental, or some of the words may have 
been borrowed, one from the other. Masai certainly 
resembles Galla in its recognition of sexual gender, but 
differs from it by the possession of a third or neuter 
class of nouns (the Galla, all Hamitic or Semitic 
tongues beside, only recognizes two genders, masc. 
and fern.). Judging by certain indisputable resem¬ 
blances between the vocabularies of Masai and Bari 
v 
and the Dirika-Siluk tongues, there is a great pro¬ 
bability that the origin of the Masai family of languages 
is to be traced to the basin of the White Nile. Its 
affinities with the Galla branch of the Hamitic group 
raise the same interesting problems as the similarity 
which exists in certain grammatical features between 
the Hausa language of the Niger basin and the Berber 
tongues. On these points depend the solution of 
many difficult questions respecting the origin of the 
Hamitic and Semitic languages, and possibly races. 
I append the following vocabulary of Masai for 
purposes of reference rather than with any idea of 
giving a glossary of the language. This would be out 
of place in a work of this sort, and therefore the 
following list of words is only given for the conveni- 
