LANGUAGES OF THE KILIMANJARO DISTRICT 493 
one. The 1st (Mu) always takes the 2nd (Ba) as a 
plural, but the 2nd prefix may occasionally become 
plural to the 9th (N-). The 5th always takes the 6th 
and the 7th and the 8th as plural, but the 6th prefix 
(Ma) and the 8th (Bi) sometimes correspond with 
other singular prefixes. Thus Ma may often be the 
plural of Bu, or of N-, or of Lu. Again, the 12th 
prefix (Tu) is very often the plural of the 13th (Ka), 
and the 10th (Tin or S in) of the 11th (Lu). In some 
languages certain prefixes drop out altogether, and are 
either represented by a hiatus or replaced by another 
prefix. Indeed, there are very few Bantu languages in 
which all the sixteen prefixes are present, and probably 
none in which they all retain their archaic forms. 
In Makonde, a language spoken about Cape Delgado 
in East Africa, the entire sixteen are present, and 
possibly this occurs also in Ki-nyoro, the tongue 
spoken in Bu-nyoro, on the Victoria Nile, Oci-herero, 
of Damara-land, and probably a few languages of the 
Congo basin and the Upper Zambezi possess this 
distinction. On the other hand, there are many Bantu 
tongues in which the number of classes has become 
very much diminished, while some of the prefixes 
have so changed their forms as to become fused into 
others, and no longer recognizable. Thus, in Mpongwe, 
the corrupt tongue of the Gaboon, there are only 
twelve of the original sixteen classes represented, and 
among these the 1st, 3rd, and l'lth assume the same 
form, and can only be distinguished by their corre¬ 
sponding plurals or concord. In Swahili, also, the 
classes are reduced to twelve, and in some other lan¬ 
guages to eleven, and even ten. 
Again, the forms of the prefixes often vary from the 
standard already cited. Thus Ba will become Va, Wa, 
