he case with
the Aryan speech. Perhaps in grammatical construction (suffixes taking the
place of prefixes) Fula shows some resemblance; and Fula possesses the
concord in a form considerably like that of the Bantu, as well as offering
affinities in the numerals 3 and 4, and in a _few_ nominal, pronominal and
verbal roots. The Timne and cognate languages of Sierra Leone and the north
Guinea coast use pronominal prefixes and a system of concord, the
employment of the latter being precisely similar to the same practice in
the Bantu languages; but in word-roots (substantives, numerals, pronouns,
verbs) there is absolutely _no_ resemblance with this north Guinea group of
prefix-using languages. In the numerals 2, 3, 4, and sometimes 5, and in a
few verbal roots, there is a distinct affinity between Bantu and the
languages of N. Togoland, the Benue river, lower Niger, Calabar and Gold
Coast. The same thing may be said with less emphasis about the Madi and
_possibly_ the Nyam-Nyam (Makarka) group of languages in Central Africa
_though in none of these forms of speech is there any trace of the
concord_. Prefixes of a simple kind are used in the tongues of Ashanti, N.
Togoland, lower Niger and eastern Niger delta, Cross River and Benue, to
express differences between singular and plural, and also the quality of
the noun; but they do not correspond to those of the Bantu type, though
they sometimes fall into "classes." In the north-west of the Bantu field,
in the region between Cameroon and the north-western basin of the Congo,
the Cross river and the Benue, there is an area of great extent occupied by
languages of a "semi-Bantu" character, such as Nki, Mbudikum, Akpa, Mbe,
Bayon, Manyan, Bafut and Bansh[=o], and the Munshi, Jarawa, Kororofa,
Kamuku and Gbari of the central and western Benue basin. The resemblances
to the Bantu in certain word-roots are of an obvious nature; and prefixes
in a very simple form are generally used for singular and plural, but the
rest of the concord is very doubtful. Here, however, we have the nearest
relations of the Bantu, so far as [v.03 p.0358] etymology of word-roots is
concerned. Further evidence of slight etymological and even grammatical
relationships may be traced as far west as the lower Niger and northern and
western Gold Coast languages (and, in some word-roots, the Mandingo group).
The Fula language would offer some _grammatical_ resemblance if its
suffixes were turned into prefixes (a chang