In the plural: Mbeta asi sili syangu, nginisijasika, syenu ’sila sijasiche. The plural prefix corresponding to lu is izim (isim), or izin, and p following this prefix changes to b; hence (isi)mbeta is the plural of lupeta.
There are very few adjectives in the Bantu languages; their place may be supplied by a noun preceded by the possessive particle corresponding to the word ‘of’: thus chiko chabwino is literally ‘a gourd of goodness.’ There are a good many verbs which can be used where we should use adjectives, as ku ipa, ‘to be bad’ (ku is the sign of the infinitive); ku uma, ‘to be dry,’ etc.
Verbs can express, by means of changes in the stem, a number of modifications in their meaning which we have to convey by separate words. These modifications are usually called ‘forms,’ but are really extensions of the principle of ‘voice.’ We have to be content with two voices—the active and passive, with traces of a middle; Hebrew has seven; some Bantu languages have as many as nine or ten; while, counting the secondary and tertiary derivatives, and the compounds, the late W. H. Bentley reckoned out over three hundred forms of one verb, all actually in use, in the language of the Lower Congo.
The aspirate exists neither in Yao nor Nyanja, and when heard in English words is often turned into S; thus the name Hetherwick becomes Salawichi. But the people west of the Shiré use it in words and names borrowed from the Zulus, and seem to find no difficulty with it. L and R are interchangeable, as already stated, or rather it would be more correct to say that the sound intended is really distinct from both and heard by some Europeans as l, by others as r. There are no very difficult sounds, except perhaps ng (pronounced as in ‘sing’) when it comes at the beginning of a word. There are no clicks in any language used in the region under consideration, except the Zulu spoken by some of the Angoni, and in this they tend to disappear. The accent is almost invariably on the penultimate.
The Bantu languages have, of course, no written literature—for we can hardly count the translations, etc., produced by missionaries and their pupils, or even the two or three native newspapers appearing in Cape Colony and Natal. But like most primitive tongues, they are rich in traditional tales, songs, proverbs, etc. Of the folk-stories we shall give some examples in the next chapter. Here are some specimens of Nyanja proverbs:—
‘If you are patient, you will see the eyes of the snail.’
‘Speed in walking in sand is even.’ (‘Bei Nacht sind alle Katzen grau.’)
‘You taste things chopped with an axe, but meat cut up with a knife you don’t get a taste of.’ (The sound of the axe directs passers-by to the place where the food is being prepared—perhaps inside the reed-fence of the kraal—when, of course, they must be asked to partake; had a knife been used, they would have heard nothing, and gone on.)
‘If your neighbour’s beard takes fire, quench it for him’—i.e. you may need a similar service some day.