FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134  
135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>   >|  
es the initial _T_ becomes _R_ (_Ru-_, _Ro-_) or _L_ (_Lu-_, _Lo-_) or even _Y_ (_Yo-_), the concord following the fortunes of the prefix. The 13th prefix (_Ka-_) is sometimes confused with the 7th (_Ki_) and merged into it and vice versa. _Ka-_ very often takes the 8th prefix as a plural, more commonly the 12th, sometimes the 14th. This prefix (_Ka-_) entirely disappears in the north-western section of the Bantu languages. Bleek thought that it persisted in the attenuated form of _E-_ so characteristic of the Cameroon and northern Congo languages, but later investigations show this _E-_ to be a reduction of _Ki-_ (_Ke-_) the 7th prefix. The 14th prefix _Bu-_ is very persistent, but frequently loses its initial letter _B_, which is either softened into _V_ or _W_, or disappears altogether, the prefix becoming _U-_ or _O-_ or _Ow-_. Sometimes this prefix becomes palatized into _By-_ or even _T[vs]-_ (_C-_). The concord follows suit. The 15th prefix, _Ku-_, occasionally loses its initial _K_ or softens into _Hu_ or [Greek: chu] or strengthens into _Gu_. Its concord under these circumstances sometimes remains in the form of _Ku-_. The 16th, _Pa-_, prefix is one of the most puzzling in its distribution and its phonetic changes. A very large number of the Bantu languages in the north, east and west have a dislike to the consonant P, which they frequently transmute into an aspirate (_H_), or soften into _V_, _W_, or _F_, or simply drop out. There is too much evidence in favour of this prefix having been originally _Pa-_ or _Mpa-pa_ to enable us to give it any other form in reconstructing the Bantu mother-tongue. Yet in the most archaic Bantu dialects to the north of the Victoria Nyanza it is nowhere found in the form of _Pa-_. It is either _Ha-_ (and _Ha-_ changes eastward into _Sa-_!) or _Wa-_.[15] But for its existence in this shape in the language of Uganda one might almost be led to think that the 16th locative prefix began as _Ha-_, and by some process without a parallel changed in the east and south to the form of _Pa-_. There are, however, a good many place names in the northern part of the Uganda protectorate, in the region now occupied by Nilotic negroes, which begin with _Pa-_. These place names would seem to be of ancient Bantu origin in a [v.03 p.0362] land from which the Bantu negroes were subsequently driven by Nilotic invaders from the north. They may be relics therefore of a time before the _Pa-_ prefix of those
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134  
135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
prefix
 

languages

 

concord

 

initial

 

disappears

 
northern
 
frequently
 

Uganda

 
Nilotic
 

negroes


archaic

 

tongue

 
dialects
 

mother

 
relics
 

reconstructing

 
Victoria
 
Nyanza
 

eastward

 

evidence


favour

 

originally

 

enable

 

changed

 

region

 

process

 

parallel

 

simply

 

ancient

 

protectorate


origin

 
occupied
 

language

 

existence

 

invaders

 
driven
 

locative

 
subsequently
 

thought

 
persisted

attenuated
 

section

 
western
 
characteristic
 

Cameroon

 

persistent

 
letter
 

reduction

 
investigations
 

commonly