It is noteworthy that the nouns are divided into classes by means of suffixes, and this division is made according to their meaning: the suffix um distinguishes objects, o persons, it places where something is enacted, am liquids, etc. ; for instance, thing;" "thief;" dsang place for reading," '' school;" ndiam, "water;" nebbam," inched butter." This similarity between the languages of the Filial' and of the Bantu becomes the more surprising from a kind of concordance between the noun and the adjective; adjectives relating to persons end in a,. if they relate to an animal, the termination is s u or da ; if to a liquid, they end in dam: redo isomdo, " the quick man;" fildszt lsongu," the fast horse;" rufiyam guidon'," warm water." Though the effort for a similarity of sound may have contributed to this concordance or have been its cause (Barth), nevertheless language has formed of it a grammatical principle, as is evident from the fact that in the adjectives sonic of the suffixes may become prefixes; nedo the timid man;" pills!! " the fleet horse." Time plural of the nouns has countless suffixes, with which the adjectives must always agree; here the endeavor to mark the plural by a change in the first sound is perceptible, just as in the Bantu languages the first letter as well as the prefixes is changed; denzmo-wo, plural ; plural The Fulah exhibits the same principles of construction as the Bantu languages, but in the manner of the Soudan, not in the initial sound, but in the suffix, the really formative clement of the Negro languages, although we here meet with the tendency to employ also the first sound, as we have found it more developed in the other Negro languages. That the Fulah is entirely a Negro language is apparent from its close relation to the tongue of the Yolofs. This relation, if the various dialects of the Fulah and the idioms related to the Volof language be taken into consideration, extends not only to the inner structure, but also to a large portion of the vocabu lary, which is not borrowed. Consequently, the Fulah are a Negro people.
We also find in the Fulah numerous points of contact with the eastern languages; for instance, the Galla. The formation of the passive voice is, with the exception of the suffix, alike in both languages; indeed, all Negro languages are very much like the Galla in the formation of this voice. The verbs and nouns, in the Galla as well as in all Negro lan guages, arc so little separated that many of the roots can serve for both. In the use, and even in the form, of the pronoun many points of agree ment are found; yet the Galla belongs to those languages which bear a plain relation to the Semitic. We therefore repeat this important state ment: a precise delimitation of the Negro languages in any direction is not possible. It may be added that these languages make frequent and often odd use of reduplication, and that a negative verb is everywhere found.
After these remarks we can draw a closer boundary around those peo ples whom we call Negroes, and at the same time class the Negro tribes in groups. We have already drawn the southern boundary (p. 324). In the north the boundary coincides as far as the thirtieth degree of longi tude with the border of the desert, to which the Negroes were forced to retreat by,the Berber tribes. The latitude of about Timbuctoo, and a line from the south-eastern curve of the Niger to Lake Chad, separate the main mass of the Negroes from the North-African peoples. North
of this line there extends a broad tract inhabited by mixed tribes about whose original nationality little can be decided. East of the thirtieth degree the country of the Tibbus begins, extending as far as Fezzan, and consequently far to the north. It is difficult to determine the eastern boundary. Darfur and Kordofan are still occupied by Negroes, who reach the Blue Nile at Seunaar, and thence extend as far as Lakes Mwutan (Albert Nyanza) and Ukerewe (Victoria Nyanza). A line drawn from here to Calabar separates them from the Bantu tribes, but on no side can a distinct boundary be drawn.
Groufis.—Among the Negro peoples individual groups can be dis tinguished, which we shall arrange principally with reference to their language, retaining as much as possible the names given by Koelle: (r.) The Allanlic Groufi, which comprises the north-western coast inhabitants, the nations of the coast of Guinea, and the tribes of the Niger Delta. Among the north-western peoples the following are the principal: The Sarrars (Sereres) on Cape Verde; on the lower Gambia the Fe/oo,bs (Aiamat); south of these, to the Rio Grande, the Eilham and Riafadas (Teholas); the Pafids (Maniagoes) on the Bissagos Islands; the fia/antes in the interior, east of the Tcholas; on the coast south of the Rio Grande the iValas, the Tiapis, and the remnants of the Banyuns, who lived on the Gambia two hundred years ago; and filially, on the Sierra Leone, the Bulloms and the Thnnes.
Of the tribes on the Guinea coast, the most important are the Krus on the Pepper Coast, the Avekvoms and the Grebos, the tribes speaking the Odshi language, the Ashanlees, the Faith's, the Akras (using the Glut language), and others; the tribes speaking the Ehwe language, the Dahomans with their divers dialects and tribes; and, finally, the Yoruba tribes, the Aku dr Docile, to whom belong the Igaras south of the conflu ence of the Benue, the AV,' (Nuffi) on the north, and perhaps also the Thos of the Niger Delta, but these are more distantly related; also the Yalas, Alan, Bimbias, and others at the same place. In the languages of all these tribes the characteristic trait of the grammatical structure is the change of the prefixes.
(2.) The Peoples of the Eastern Plateau of Soudan, who dwell north of the Dahomey and Yoruba, extending to the right bank of the Niger, are, as far as the vocabulary of their language is considered, related to the Vorubas. But as the structure of their languages (they seem to employ the suffixes for the grammatical formation of speech) is too little known, it will be well to treat of them at present as an independent group, whose chief tribes are the rumbas (Tombo), the Moses, the Gurmas to the cast as far as the Niger, and south of these the Leg bas and Kiambas. The Tumbos border on (3.) The Peoples of the 1Veslern Plateau of Soudan, the Mandingoes (Mandengas, Mande peoples), to whom belong the Sarakules (Screchules, Serrakolets), the Alandingoes proper with their various divisions, the Pambarras on the upper Niger, the Bambukis on the upper Senegal, the Kurankos and Susits, and finally, more to the west than the last-named tribes, and dwelling on the coast between the Krus and the Billion), the who moved thither from the interior plateau.