Both tribes, Hottentots as well as Bushmen, have a sense of personal dignity, and they have become civilized only where they have been respectfully treated. The Bushmen are livelier than the Hottentots, but both are equally harmless. They all enjoy social entertainments, dan cing, and singing. Their filth is indeed repulsive, and the fragmentary tribes especially have sunk into the grossest barbarity.
Considering their treatment by the Europeans, nothing else could have been expected. Their country was taken from them, they themselves were made slaves, the Bushmen were hunted like wild animals by the Dutch and English, the missionaries were kept from them by force or hindered and injured in every possible manner; and it is indeed more surprising that we still find Hottentots and Bushmen than that we meet with vagabonds and drunkards among them. The missionaries were not able to penetrate everywhere, owing to the rascality of the other Europeans, but where they did establish themselves they gradually pro duced good results.
linguistic conditions of this South-African race are remarkable. The languages of the Hottentots and Bushmen are indeed related, but, according to Bleek, not more closely than the Latin and the English. The dialects of the Bushmen are less developed than the Hot tentot idioms, the latter being very numerous. The relationship of both these languages is seen, first, in the uniformity of the peculiar clucking sounds which we have already mentioned (p. 291); second, in the number of common verbal roots, in which of course whatever is merely borrowed is not included (Bleek); thirdly, in the numerous similarities in gram matical details; and, finally, in the uniformity of their fundamental con struction.
The roots are monosyllabic; the relations of words are indicated by certain suffixes, many of which are alike in both languages. There is a precise distinction of form between the noun and the verb; no verbal root can be used as a noun, and it can become one only by means of suffixes. Uniformities are also seen in the formation of pronouns: both languages form an exclusive and an inclusive plural; both have many pronominal roots in common; and both employ them in the formation of suffixes.
It is remarkable that the Hottentot language preserves throughout three genders, which are entirely absent in the Bushman dialects. The latter indicate the distinctions between animate and inanimate objects, and in this respect have remained on an earlier grade of culture; the Hot tentot tongue also exhibits this conception. This is indeed a decisive dif ference, which is of greatest influence on the rest of the language, on the formation of pronouns, etc. But, as in other languages, the grammatical
gender has developed only at a late period, and only from the conception of animate and inanimate things; and as this latter distinction is still shown decisively in the Hottentot language, we are justified (though there are many undeniable relations between the two families of languages) in looking upon the grammatical gender of the tongue of the Hottentots as having originated at a later period, after their separation from the Bushmen, and in considering the different expressions for animate and inanimate objects as having been original and common to both languages. The following is another evidence: The Bushman tongue, besides various suffixes, applies reduplication in various manners for the formation of plurals, here also retaining the most ancient form. For although this manner of forming the plural is not now used in the Hottentot language, still the form koi koi-b, for instance, is, in spite of the singular suffix, of similar formation.
THE IlAx•ru PEOPLES.
languages of all the peoples whom we comprise under the name of Bailin are remarkable and easily recognized. Bleck calls them "prefix-pronominal languages," and in that characterizes them accurately. Everything must accord with the noun or principal idea. The substantives are divided into various classes, all designated by cer tain prefixes of pronominal origin: thus, in Otshi-herero, the prefix mu signifies a single person, a number of persons; another prefix signifies plants, still another animals, utensils, etc. Next, a concordance exists between the attribute and predicate and the prefix of the principal substantive, all taking a similar prefix; thus, according to Bleek, in the Zulu tongue, is, "'Our 'great 'kingdom 'appears, we 'love it." Mt signi fies abstract words; and in order to indicate that the pronoun "our," au, relates to this word, it takes the like prefix, Lulu is large, but in relation to a word with the prefix hit it becomes in which ease the o as well as the u in is an article-like prefix; in the same manner the syllable hit is placed before the adjective verb, bu-ya-bonakahr, " is appearing;" and in the next word hu takes the place of the noun in an objective form. Moods and tenses of the verb arc formed by prefixes or by suffixes; there is no distinct difference between verbal and nominal roots, at least not everywhere.