LANGUAGES OF THE KILIMANJARO DISTRICT. 489 
of prefix-governed tongues. Many other titles, of 
course, have been suggested. Krapf proposes, firstly, 
“ Miotic,” which is absurd, as only one or two outlying 
members of the family touch the Mle; and Orphno- 
Cushitic, which is utterly unmeaning and very cumber¬ 
some. Another writer suggests se Kaffir-Congo ” as a 
fit appellation, but how is this term to include the 
languages of Kilima-njaro and the Cameroons ? “ Zin- 
gian,” “ Zanjian,” are equally silly and inadequate. 
“ The prefixing languages ” is not sufficiently re¬ 
strictive, as several other African groups are governed 
by prefixes—in short we return to “ Bantu ” as the 
only satisfactory designation of this class of languages 
and of the tolerably homogeneous races who speak 
them. The leading characteristics of the Bantu 
languages have been much misinterpreted by various 
writers on African philology. As a rule one original 
author takes the question up in a superficial manner, 
studies one particular language, or at most a small 
section of the entire group, draws a few hasty conclu¬ 
sions, and those who succeed him in a consideration 
of the subject copy him like unreasoning parrots, and 
spend neither time nor trouble in elaborating an 
opinion of their own. Thus Bleek, who only made a 
detailed study of Kaffir-Zulu, and was (through no 
fault of his,) unacquainted with more recently dis¬ 
covered tongues, states that he considers the Kaffir- 
Zulu to be the most archaic form of existing Bantu 
speech and the nearest approach to the original mother- 
tongue. Other writers succeeding him blindly copy 
the same opinion and parade It as their own, whereas 
had they taken the trouble to make any independent 
researches, using recent material to aid them, they 
would have long since ascertained that Kaffir-Zulu is 
