Bushman Languages

BUSHMAN LANGUAGES. The Bushmen of S. Africa (v. S. AFRICA, General Ethnology) are divided into many tribal groups, each speaking a different language or dialect , which are all so clearly related that they must be regarded as belonging to the same language family. Owing to certain variations in phonet ics, grammatical structure and vocabulary they are now generally classified into three main groups, the Southern, Northern and Central Groups, according to their relative geographical distri bution. The Southern Group' occurs mainly in the central and western districts of the region roughly S. of the Tropic of Capri corn. It includes the languages of seven tribes, six of which are still in existence, though much broken up, while the seventh is now extinct. Of these tribes, by far the best known, both ethno logically and linguistically, is the !K'e (commonly called Kharn) in the north-west of the Cape Province. The Northern Group is found chiefly in South West Africa and Angola, and in cludes three large well-known tribes—the I I kau ! en (or Auen), the !Ku (Kung) and the Hei-!Kum (Heikum)—together with several smaller ones. The Central Group comprises more than a dozen tribes whose territory forms a sort of wedge between the Southern and Northern Groups, and who are met with mainly in the Central and Northern Kalahari desert. The two best known of these are the Hiechware (Masarwa) of the Tati District of S. Rhodesia and the Naron or !aikwe close to the S.W. border of Bechuanaland Protectorate.

The Hottentot languages are on the whole strongly akin to those of the Bushmen, but at the same time differ from them in certain features which show an affinity with the Hamitic lan guages. They have therefore generally been looked upon as Hamitic languages which have been greatly modified by Bush man influence. Fundamentally, however, the Hottentot languages have far more in common with the Bushman than with the Ham itic languages, and must accordingly be included in the same language family, of which they constitute a fourth distinct group.' Four Hottentot languages have been differentiated : Nana, still spoken by the Naman in South West Africa and by their neigh bours the Bergdama, a negro people whom they have subjugated; !Kora, almost extinct, spoken between the Vaal and Caledon Rivers, and along the Orange River towards Namaqualand ; the original Cape Hottentot, now quite extinct; and !Gona of the Eastern Province of the Cape, also extinct.

in the case of Kung and Nama no detailed studies have been made of the phonetic systems of Bush man or Hottentot languages. Certain characteristic features are readily observable, however. Diphthongs and nasalization of vowels are of frequent occurrence; while all the languages abound in click sounds and ejectives (consonants produced with simultaneous closure of the glottis), as well as in alveolar and velar consonants. In none of them do the labio-dentals f and v or the semi-vowel l occur. The famous "clicks" (q.v.) are in reality implosive consonants produced by rarefying the air between 'Detailed lists of the Bushman tribes and their distribution are given by Miss D. F. Bleek, "The Distribution of Bushman Languages in S. Africa," in Festschrift Meinhof (1927), PP. ; and I. Schapera, "The Tribal Divisions of the Bushmen," Man, vol. xxvii. (1927), pp. 68-73.

F. Bleek, Comparative Vocabularies of the Bushman Languages (ms.) ; I. Schapera, "The Relationship between the Bushmen and the Hottentots," S. Afr. Journal of Science, vol. xxiii. (1926), pp. f.

C. M. Doke, "The Phonetics of the Language of the Chu Bush men," Bantu Studies, vol. II. No. 3 (1925) pp. 129-165; C. Meinhof, Lehrbuch der Nama-sprache (1909) pp. 1-44.

some outer closure point of tongue articulation) and an inner closure formed either at the velum or the glottis, and then releasing the outer closure so that the air is sucked in. The posi tion of the outer closure varies with the different types of click. Four different positional types of click are used in all the lan guages—dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar (sometimes called cere bral), and lateral—each of which may be pronounced unvoiced, voiced or nasal, and in various combinations with other conso nants. The same four types of click are also found in Sandawe, a language spoken in Tanganyika, which has other marked re semblances to the Bushman-Hottentot family (v. Sandawe). In the Southern Bushman Group there is further a bilabial un voiced velaric click, not met with elsewhere, while Kung also has a fifth type of click, the retroflex.

The grouping of sounds and the character of the syllable fol low the same principles throughout. Syllables generally end in vowels or syllabic nasals, single vowels, diphthongs and nasal clicks alone of ten forming complete syllables and whole words. Very many syllables commence with a click, and their quick suc cession in speech is an outstanding feature of all the languages.

In all the languages the variation of the musical pitch of the syllable is also a most important feature. Many words, phoneti cally alike, but bearing different meanings, are differentiated tonic ally, the tone distinction being their only distinguishing feature in speech. Five species of tone are employed—high level, mid level, low level, falling and rising.

Grammatical Processes.

Grammatical categories and syn tactic relationships are expressed in various ways, some common to all the languages, others found in only a few of them. The radical elements of words are to a very large extent monosyllabic, and any additional elements can usually be shown to have a functional significance. All the languages are characterized by the total absence of prefixes and by a paucity of infixes. The chief modification of the actual form of the root itself to express new denotative concepts lies in the employment of suffixes. Ac tive suffixes are employed in all the languages with substantives and verbs, as well as in other parts of speech. In substantives they indicate such concepts as plurality, diminution, sex (in Nama and Naron only), and negation; while in verbs they denote dura tion, mood, reflection, reciprocation, etc. It is only in exceptional cases (as in Kham and Hiechware) that they are used for tense. This extensive use of suffixes is one of the most characteristic features of these languages, and the number of different suffixes and of the uses to which they are put is extremely great.

Reduplication of the root of a word is of frequent occurrence. As an active grammatical process its use is most marked in the Southern Group of languages, especially in Kham, where it is the principal means of forming the plural of substantives and is only used with verbs to denote causality or to give them a transitive meaning. In the Northern, Central and Hottentot languages its chief function is to give the verb a causative significance; it is hardly ever used for forming the plural. In all the languages, however, many words occur in a reduplicated form where no apparent significance attaches to the reduplication.

Composition (the uniting into a single word of two different roots) is also common. Its most usual form of occurrence is verb plus verb, the function of the second verbal root being to modify the meaning of the first in some way, usually to indicate some sort of direction.

The extensive use of particles is another characteristic feature. They are used mainly to modify the significance of the verbal root, and two classes may be distinguished, according to their mode of occurrence and function. The verbal root is as a rule unaltered, save when, as already mentioned, suffixes are added to denote duration, mood, reciprocation, etc. Tense, however, is generally denoted by particles which precede the verbal root and which can never be used alone—they always precede the root of the verb and their function always is to indicate tense. Particles of the second class always follow the words whose significance they qualify. Their main function is to indicate direction. As a mechanism particles are frequently employed, and much of the difficulty in translating these languages is created by them.

Word order as a grammatical process is more marked in some languages than in others. In the Southern and Northern Groups, and to some extent in Hiechware, where, e.g., there is no formal distinction between substantives and verbs or between cases, word order is of great importance in the structure of the sentence. In Naron and Nama, where there is such a distinction, the order of words is in no way rigid.

Grammatical Categories.

Distinction of sex is formally recognized and expressed only in Name and Naron, where there are three grammatical genders, masculine, feminine and common, with different suffix endings. In the other languages, when such a distinction is desired, it is effected by qualifying the substantive with the words for "man" or "woman." In most of the languages there is also a classification of objects according to quality or size, substantives denoting objects which are large, strong, wide, etc., falling into one class, while those denoting small, weak or thin objects fall into another. In Nana and Naron this distinc tion is expressed by means of the suffixes indicating gender, the first class taking the masculine, the second the feminine, ending. In the other languages the words for "man" and "woman" re spectively are used with the same significance. The principle is the same in both cases, although the mechanism for indicating it differs.

The diminutive is always formed by the addition to the sub stantive of a special suffix or, in certain languages, of a word meaning "child." Plurality is indicated in all the languages ex cept Kham by the use of special suffixes; in Kham, suffixes are not unknown, but the most usual process is reduplication. In all the languages two numbers (singular and plural) are recognized; Nama and Naron are exceptional in having also a dual number. Three classes of persons are recognized in all the languages, but in Kham and Name there are both inclusive and exclusive forms of the first person plural, while in Hiechware there is a slightly different distinction, an exclusive form being used to denote men only, and an inclusive form to denote both men and women. The other languages have apparently no such differentiation.

The genitive relationship is expressed by opposition, the pos sessor invariably preceding the possessed ; in the Southern Group, in Naron and in Nama connecting particles are used, elsewhere they are not. The position of the adjective varies—in Kham it follows, in Central and Northern Bushman it precedes, the sub stantive ; but it never alters in form to correspond with the num ber of the substantive it qualifies. In Nama two usages are found. In one the adjective, as in the Central and Northern Groups, precedes the substantive and does not alter in form to correspond with it in number or sex. In the other it follows the substantive, and then takes the corresponding endings for num ber and sex. Demonstrative pronouns and adjectives as a rule precede the substantives they qualify, although in Nama the demonstrative adjective may also follow the substantive, in which case it takes the corresponding endings for number and sex.

Tense is formed chiefly by the use of auxiliary particles which precede the verb. The verbal root as a rule is unmodified ; but in both Kham and Nama there are also a few verbal suffixes of tense, while in Hiechware there is what appears to be is distinction between incomplete and completed action, indicated by the addi tion of a suffix to the verb in the latter case. Negation is ex pressed by the use of a special auxiliary word in all the languages. Direction is indicated in both Name and Kham by the compound ing of verbal roots, the second element of the compound verb modifying the meaning of the first.

The copula is distinguished from the adjective by word order, which is invariably : substantive, auxiliaries, attribute. The same order of words is found in the relation of subject and predicate. The accusative case is in all the Bushman languages determined chiefly by its position after the verb; in Nama, however, there is a special suffix ending for this case. The vocative is expressed by the addition of a suffix to the substantive. The passive voice is not indicated in the Southern and Northern Groups; in Hiech ware and Nama it is formed by the addition of a suffix to the verbal root. Reciprocity is in Kung and Nama expressed by the use of a special suffix added to the verbal root. Finally, an important feature in all the Ianguages is that there is never any modification of the verbal root to correspond with the number and person of the subject, i.e., there is no conjugation.

Numerals.

The numeral systems vary somewhat. That of the Southern Group is essentially binary in principle. The lan guages of this group have words for numbers up to three, but are more apt to speak of "two and one" than "three." For anything above three they generally make use of the word "many." But in some cases such formations are found as 4=2 2, 5=2 2 I, and so on up to I o. In the Northern and Central Groups the same sort of system is found, e.g. in Kung, but occasionally modifica tions occur suggestive of a quinary system. Thus in Naron the words for "four" mean "two fingers and two fingers," but "five"= "hand" (occasionally, however, "2 2 I fingers"), "six"="one hand and one," "ten"= "both hands," "fifteen"= "both hands, one foot"; and the same system occurs in Auen. In the Hottentot lan guages, on the other hand, there is a fully developed decimal sys tem, with separate words for the numbers from one to ten, from which all terms for higher number are derived. Thus "twenty"= "two tens," "thirty"="three tens" etc., while "one hundred"= "large ten," and "one thousand" = "full ten." Vocabulary.—The vocabularies of these languages are neces sarily very restricted along certain lines. Terms for abstract ideas are rare, and terms are of course lacking to indicate the many things not connected with the mode of life of the people. But in terms dealing with veld lore, wild animals and birds, trees, herbs and roots, the chase and all the wealth of description which that entails, the languages are rich. A comparison of the vocabu laries of the different languages shows that they have many words in common, and that even Nama shares a very large number of roots with one or other of the Bushman languages. Its greatest resemblances are with Naron and Hiechware, but many of its words occur in other Bushman languages also, sometimes in one, sometimes in another, even in the language spoken by the Lake Chrissie Bushmen of the Eastern Transvaal. There are many words in Name which cannot be found in any of the other lan guages, just as there are words in Kung or Kham which are pecu liar to these languages. Frequently synonyms are found in Nama of which one word is also found in the Bushman languages, while another is not. If the languages are arranged according to similar ity of roots the Central Group shows most affinity with Nama, the Northern Group has less resemblance and the Southern Group still less. There is, however, no sharp division. The lan guages of the Kakia Masarwa and the !nu' e:n both of which belong to the Southern Group, have more in common with the Northern Group than has Kham, and Hiechware is a definite link between the Northern Group and Naron, which again is a step nearer Nama.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-W. Planert, "'Ober die Sprache der Hottentotten and Bibliography.-W. Planert, "'Ober die Sprache der Hottentotten and Buschmanner," Mitt. Sem. Orient. Spr. (Berlin), vol. viii. (19o5). Abt. 3, pp. 104-176 (comparative grammar; bibl.) ; W. H. I. Bleek and L. C. Lloyd, Specimens of Bushman Folklore (1911; invaluable collection of Kham texts) ; S. S. Dornan, "The Tati Bushmen (Masar was) and their Language," J. Roy. Anthr. Inst., vol. xlvii. (1917) pp. 37-112 (Hiechware grammar and vocabulary) ; H. Vedder, "Gram matik der Buschmansprache der 'Ku-Buschmanner," Zeits. f. Kol-Spr., vol. i. (191o), pp. 5-24, 106-117; K. Meinhof, Lehrbuch der Name Sprache 0909; standard work, bibl.) ; W. Planert, "Die Schnalz sprachen," Bibliotheca Africana, vol. ii. (1927) pp. 296-315 (recent bibl.) . See also works of D. F. Bleek and I. Schapera referred to in the footnotes. (I. S.)