The foregoing is only an attempt to classify the known forms of Bantu speech and to give their approximate geographical limits. The writer is well aware that here and there exist small patches of languages spoken by two or three villages which, though emphatically Bantu, possess isolated characters making them not easily included within any of the above-mentioned groups; but too detailed a reference to these languages would be wearisome and perhaps puzzling. Broadly speaking, the domain of Bantu speech seems to be divided into four great sections:—(a) the languages of the Great Lakes and the East Coast down to and including the Zambezi basin; (b) the South-Central group (Bechuana-Zulu); (c) the languages of the South-West, from the southern part of the Belgian Congo to Damaraland and the Angola-Congo coast; and (d) the Western group, including all the Central and Northern Congo and Cameroon languages, and probably also group No. 2 of the Albert Nyanza and Semliki river.
Common Features.—There is no mistaking a Bantu language, which perhaps is what renders the study of this group so interesting and encouraging. The homogeneity of this family is so striking, as compared with the inexplicable confusion of tongues which reigns in Africa north of the Bantu borderland, that the close relationships of these dialects have perhaps been a little exaggerated by earlier writers.
The phonology of the Western group (d) is akin to that of the Negro languages of Western and West-Central Africa. A small portion of (b) the South-Central group (Zulu) has picked up clicks, perhaps borrowed from the Hottentots and Bushmen. Otherwise, the three groups (a), (b) and (c) are closely related in phonology, and never, except here and there on the borders of the Western group, adopt the peculiar West African combinations of kp and gb, which are so characteristic of African speech between the Upper Nile and the Guinea coast.
The following propositions may be laid down to define the special or peculiar features of the Bantu languages:—
(1) They are agglutinative in their construction, the syntax being formed by adding prefixes principally and also suffixes to the root, but no infixes (that is to say, no mutable syllable incorporated into the middle of the root-word).[[7]] (2) The root excepting its terminal vowel is practically unchanging, though its first or penultimate vowel or consonant may be modified in pronunciation by the preceding prefix, or the last vowel in the same way by the succeeding suffix.
(3) The vowels of the Bantu languages are always of the Italian type, and no true Bantu language includes obscure sounds like ö and ü. Each word must end in a vowel (though in some modern dialects in Eastern Equatorial, West and South Africa the terminal vowel may be elided in rapid pronunciation, or be dropped, or absorbed in the terminal consonant, generally a nasal). No two consonants can come together without an intervening vowel, except in the case of a nasal, labial or sibilant.[[8]] No consonant is doubled. Apparent exceptions occur to this last rule where two nasals, two r's or two d's come together through the elision of a vowel or a labial.
(4) Substantives are divided into classes or genders, indicated by the pronominal particle prefixed to the root. These prefixes are used either in a singular or in a plural sense. With the exception of the "abstract" prefix Bu (No. 14), no singular prefix can be used as a plural nor vice versa. There is a certain degree of correspondence between the singular and plural prefixes (thus No. 2 prefix serves almost invariably as a plural to No. 3; No. 8 corresponds as a plural to No. 7). The number of prefixes common to the whole group is perhaps sixteen. The pronominal particle or prefix of the noun is attached as a prefix to the roots of the adjectives, pronouns, prepositions and verbs of the sentence which are connected with the governing noun; and though in course of time these particles may differ in form from the prefix of the substantive, they were akin in origin. (This system is the "concord" of Dr Bleek.[[9]]) The pronominal particles, whether in nominative or accusative case, must always precede the nominal, pronominal, adjectival and verbal roots, though they often follow the auxiliary prefix-participles used in conjugating verbs,[[10]] and the roots of some prepositions.
(5) The root of the verb is the second person singular of the imperative.
(6) No sexual gender is recognized in the pronouns and concord. Sexual gender may be indicated by a male "prefix" of varying form, often identical with a word meaning "father," while there is a feminine prefix, na or nya, connected with the root meaning "mother," or a suffix ka or kazi, indicating "wife," "female." The 1st and 2nd prefixes invariably indicate living beings and are Usually restricted to humanity.