LANGUAGES OF THE KILIMA-NJARO DISTRICT 491 
roots which are certainly not abbreviations. Such 
are the widespread forms found in nearly every 
member of the group : -fa, 44 dying, to die;” -pa, 44 to 
give;” -ndi and -ha, 44 to be 4a, 44 to slay ;” na ( nya) 
44 to evacuate ;” ya , za, 44 to come,” &c., and number¬ 
less noun-roots, such as 4i (in mu-ti, 44 a tree”—-any¬ 
thing to do with wood; Jca-ti, 44 a little stick;” -lea, 
diminutive prefix), -ntu, 44 an object ” ( mu-ntu , 44 man 
hi-ntn, 44 thing ;” pa-ntu, 44 place,” &c.), and so on. 
We may therefore reduce the real features of the 
Bantu family of languages to these :■—- 
I. They are agglutinative in their construction. 
II. None of their words ever end in a consonant except in rare 
instances, where the termination through contraction becomes a nasal 
sound. 
III. Ho two consonants come together without an intervening 
vowel, except where one of them is a nasal or a labial. 
IY. Substantives are divided into many classes or genders, the full 
number of which is sixteen. These are governed by characteristic 
prefixes, differing in singular and plural, and observing the “ concord ” 
throughout the sentence. 
Y. Ho sexual gender is recognized, but two particular classes of 
prefixes (one singular, and one plural) indicate sentient forms of animal 
life only, though these may also be expressed by nouns bearing other 
prefixes as well. 
YI. The pronominal-particles (which are really identical in origin 
with the prefixes) must always precede the verbal-root, except in the 
imperative mood. 
YII. The verbal-root may modify its termination by change of vowel 
or by suffixing certain particles; or it may even change its radical 
vowel, either to form a tense or to alter the original meaning of the 
simple stem, this being actually inflection. 
YIII. Adjectives and numerals always follow the noun. 
The complete number of prefixes is, as before 
remarked, sixteen. Bleek has made it eighteen, by 
adding two prepositions to the list, which in a few of 
the languages appear to adopt the concord ; but they 
