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Show 58 ON TilE DISTRIBUTION AND that may be called the African family "par excellence," and which extends from the Occidental to the Oriental coasts, re-descending even into the Austral portion. All the languages tbat form part of this group, and in general the tongues of the whole of this portion of the globe, possess one system of vocalization, otherwise termed, a powerful phonology; and sometimes oven a disposition almost rhythmical, which gained for them, on tho part of some philologists, the name of alliteml tongues. 'l'hus, although the consonants in them be often aspirated, and aftcct odd pronunciations, they arc never accumulated together. Double letters are rare, aud in certain tongues unknown. For example, in Gaffr, the vowels have a pl:onunciation clear and precise. In tho major number of the languages of Southern Afl'ica, and in some few of those of Centra.! Africa, .tho words always terminate with vowels, and present regular altcrnat10ns of vowels and consonants. This is above all true of the Cafti·arian languagos.10 M. D'AVEZAO writes about the Yebou or Ebo tongue ~pokcn in Guinea : in regard to euphony, this JanO'u~gc rna; be cons1dcrcd as one of the softest in the world· vowels abound in it; and it is in tbis respect remarkable that ( ex~cpt perhaps some rare and doubtful exceptions) not merely all the words but c~en all the. syllables ~n~ in vowels: the consonants offer no 'roughness in tb01r pronun01at10n; and many are articulated with a sort of qu · t- ( . . . am ness m~g~ardzse), wh10h renders it difficult to seize them, and still more d1.fficult to exprc~s graphically by the letters of our aJphabct.20 ~mo~g s~mc other Afncan tongues, on tho contrary, the termination 1s . ord1~anly nas~l. Amid the mnjority of the languages of northern and m1dl~nd Afr10a, the words finish with a vowel. Such is wl1at one observes m tho Woloe, the Bulom, the Temmani, the Tousnali and the Fasoql. ' tl As concerns th.e system proper of sounds ' and the voca b u1 a ry, 1ey vary gr?a~ly m African languages : and tho harmony, sonorous-nc~ s, and flmd:ty of spec.ch, frequently meet, in certain sounds, with notable exceptions.. It 1s the character of these various sounds that may servo as a bas1s for tho classification of the tongues of Af · All present compound vowels and consonants; amongst which, :ca. m 71b , arc of the .f rcqu. cntcst employment· The du p 1o x consonanpts, n c, n ~' appear hkcwiso. Finally, in some African idioms one en-counters the consonants d g, g b, lc b, b p, b m, lc e, lc h, r 7~, p m'b, b l m.21 19 Sec on this subject The K, rfi L .. JOHN w. APPI.EYARD (IGng w;;r .an;,uage,·18comprzszng a sketch of its ltiatory, by the REv. 20 M, . am s ~own, 50), p. 65 seqq. 21 emotres ~e la So~i~U Et!mologique de Pari8, ii. part 2, p. 50. In these 1llustrnttvo notntions no Mtem t . divcrsifiecl "standttrd alphabets" tl dp . lB made, of course, to follow nny of the rocen 'Y OVISCd fOl' tho IS f M. · · question of tho expediency of such nl 1 b t . 1 o o ISSionnrJos. On this · . P Itt o s, nnd thon· success so f . I · · . w1th the criticism of n very scientific friend p · a1, comc1do ontu·oly ' ltOF. S. S. HALDEMAN (Report on the PresCIIt CLASSIFICATION OF TONGUES. 59 Aspirates and tho sibilants are not rare, any more than tho use, simple or compound, of tho w. Among some languages of this family, the palatal and dental letters are confounded, or at least are not clearly distinguishable. Several tongues are completely devoid of certain letters : for instance, the OdJ'i, and divers others, arc wanting in tho letter l; and replace it, whenever they meet with it in what foreign words they may appropriate, by 1·, or d, or n. The accordances, of different parts of tho discourse, are often regulated by a euphonic system which is felt very strongly in sundry idioms, notably in the Yazouba. The radicals arc more frequently monosyllabic. It is the addition of this radical with a modifying particle (which is most commonly a prefix) that gives birth to the other words. The relations of cause, of power, of reciprocity, of reflectivity, of agent, &c., as well as those of time, number, and sox, are always expressed through a similae system. The radicals, thus united to formative particles, become, in their turn, veritable roots, and constitute tho source (souclte) of new words. One can comprehend, nevertheless, how very imperfect is such a system, for defining clearly the relations, at once so multiplied and so distinct, existing between words. There exist above all some for which African languages arc of extreme poverty; for example, tho ideas of time and motion. And this character approximates them, in a manner rather striking, to the Semitic tongues. As in these latter idioms, African langnaO'cs do not distinguish the present from the fLlturo, or the future from the past: otherwise, they express both these tcusos by one and tl1e same particle. Tho penury and tho vagueness of particles indicative of the prcpositions,-or to speak with grammarians, of the prefixes to propositions-arc again far more pronounced in tho majority of African idioms than amidst the Semitic. They enunciate, by the same particle, ideas as difrcrcnt as those of movement towards a State of otl1' knowledge of Linguistic Ethnology, mauo to tho American Association for the Advnnoomont of Scionco, Aug. 1856). My oxporlonces of tho hopelessness of arriving at any exact countervalues in Europonn oltarncters for Arabic iutonntions !\lone, so 11s to enable a foreigner, who bas not heard Arabs speak, evou to pronounce conoolly, render me vory sceptical as to tho ultim!\to possibility of transcribing, through nny ono series of Alpbnbotio signs, the infinitude of distinct vocalizations utterocl by tl1o divorso groups of humn,n typos; which nrtlculations, as Prof. AaASSiz has so well romn,rkoll, take their original clepnrturo from tho different conformations of tlte throat inhoront in tho ruoe-charactor of cnoh clistinct group of mankind. Shoulcl any one, however, desire to put this universal "Missionary Alphabet" through an experimentum crucis, he ueod not travel fo,r to test its applicability to remote, ttbnormal, and barbarous tongues, by trying its cfllcacy upon three cognate languages close nt hand. Lot 11 Frenchman, wholly unacquainted with English, transo1·ibo into the "Missionnry Alphabot," a short discourse u.s ho hears it from tho mouth of 11 Londoner. Thon, pass his manuscript on to 11 German (of course knowing uoithor French nor Eugli~J,), and lot him rend it aloud to an Englishmn,n. "Le dioble m~mo ue s'y rocounnitroit pus!"- G. R G.] |
