It has been suggested that the import of the peculiarities in the structure of the Kaffre languages may have been exaggerated; the effect of such an over-valuation being to isolate the class beyond its proper limit. The following facts are corrective to this view:—
1. The Woloff language is at least one other African tongue, which exhibits the phænomenon of an initial change, a process allied to the euphonic concord.
2. The Celtic tongues of Europe do the same.
3. Apparent instances of prefixed syllables, occur in the Howssa, Yarribean, and probably in other African languages.
Now there are many good reasons for believing that although the effect of such and such-like processes is to give the languages in which they occur a very remarkable external appearance—an appearance which, if we classed tongues and nations on the same principles upon which we class minerals, i.e. irrespective of descent and affiliation, would throw them into solitary and independent groups—they by no means denote the necessity of any inordinately long period for the evolution. All that they do denote is the greater intensity of what may be called the euphonic instinct, combined with a tendency to incorporate elements which, elsewhere, would be kept separate.
A doctrine laid down by Mr. Hales in his Philology to the United States Exploring Expedition, indicating a different classification from the present, deserves notice.
That inquirer considers that the line of affinity runs west and east, rather than north and south; so that the Kaffres of Inhambane, Zanzibar, and Mozambique are more closely allied to those of Loango and Angola than the Kosas, Bechuanas and Zulus of the Cape. The published evidence of the proposition is certainly insufficient.
FOOTNOTES:
[174] These are not the real Kaffre prefixes, being merely meant for the sake of illustration, they are arbitrary syllables.