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Art. III.—The Bushmen and their Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
If this paper were the first on African questions read before the Royal Asiatic Society, I should have to apologize for trespassing, but as our learned Honorary Secretary, Mr. Robert Oust, noticed,1 there is no African Society, and the Royal Asiatic Society has liberally opened its door to those who may bring information about the mysterious continent. For some time Africa has attracted so much attention that the Society in thus acting has been true to its scientific mission, and its Transactions contain already several most important papers on this interesting quarter of the globe.
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References
page 51 note 1 Journal of the R.A.S. Vol. XV. p. 175.Google Scholar
page 53 note 1 The sing. is sa, the plur. common saan or sān.
page 53 note 2 Ba-roa means the people of roa. There is a Bantu population of the same name.
page 53 note 3 It seems to mean ‘small man’; other etymologies have however been given, and it has been stated that this word designates the ‘tablier egyptien,’ adopted as the racial name because it exhibits the most marked characteristic.
page 54 note 1 For the anthropological questions I follow principally Dr. Fritsch, who has published a valuable paper on the Bushman in the Transactions of the German Ethnographical Society, 1879, p. 320.Google Scholar See also Johnston, H. H. in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xiii. p. 452;Google ScholarSirFrere, Bartle, same publication, vol. xi. p. 327;Google ScholarHolub, E., in the same publication, vol. x. p. 5,Google Scholar and in his work, ‘Seven Years in South Africa.’ Waitz, in his Introduction to Anthropology, has gathered an enormous quantity of facts reported by travellers, but unfortunately the Hottentot and the Bushman are often confounded, so that it is difficult to draw conclusions from them.
page 55 note 1 In French grèle.
page 55 note 2 Another distinguishing characteristic, according to some, is that the Hottentot emits an intolerable odour, while the Bushman is free from it. (Waitz, , Introduction to Anthropology, English edition, 1863, p. 103.)Google Scholar
page 57 note 1 I have seen myself the facsimiles of the paintings, and was struck by their execution. See Hutchinson, Mark, “Notes on a collection of fac-simile of Bushman drawings,” Journ. of the Anthr. Inst., vol. xii. p. 464;Google Scholar and Holub, E., ‘Seven Years in South Africa,’ vol. ii. p. 438.Google Scholar
page 58 note 1 Arbousset, T. et Daumas, F., Relation d'un voyage d'exploration au Nord-Est de la Colimie du Cap, Paris, 1842.Google Scholar
page 58 note 2 Lichtenstein, , Travel in Southern Africa, English translation, London, 1812, vol. ii. app. ii.Google Scholar The same author says that he has published his “Abhandlung über Sprachen der Südafricanischen wilden Völkerstamme in Bertuchs und Vaters ethnographisch-lmguistiscben Archiv.” But I was not able to obtain this publication anywhere.
page 58 note 3 In the collective work The Cape and its People.
page 58 note 4 Jahresbericht des Vereins für Er kunde zu Dresden, Dresden, 1870.Google Scholar
page 58 note 5 Grundriss der Sprache, Wissenschaft, vol. i. part ii. pp. 25–27.Google Scholar
page 58 note 6 In his Catalogue of Sir G. Grey's Library Bleek gives only bibliographic notes, but he distinguishes the Bushman's language from the Hottentot, and notes the existence of two dialects at least.
page 58 note 7 The same was said of the Hottentots and of the inhabitants of Terra-del-Fuego, but since then the Bible has been translated and these people converted without losing their language.
page 59 note 1 Cust, R. N., The Modern Languages of Africa, p. 443.Google Scholar
page 61 note 1 There may be still other consonants in the numerous words unknown to us.
page 63 note 1 For this reason it would be advisable to have two different signs, in order to distinguish them accurately.
page 69 note 1 Bleek gives ‘man’ (vir) !kui goui, ‘woman’ !kui |ayi, which seem to be formed with the word !kui ‘a human being,’ and an adjective.
page 70 note 1 Second report, “A Short Account of Bushman Folklore, Cape Town, 1875.”
page 71 note 1 The consonant which is introduced before the suffix may be a remnant of the suffix of the genitive, and the suffix en may be a decayed form meaning ‘many.’ If this supposition is right, the plural kokobo-k-en would be literally ‘boy boy's many,’ i.e. ‘ several boys.’
page 73 note 1 But I am inclined to believe that it means ‘land,’ or ‘soil’: the Hottentot being generally agriculturist, the Bushmen looked on him as the man of the soil.
page 75 note 1 In Se-roa the suffix ai seems to form diminutives: gnu ‘a gnu,’ ngai ‘the little one of a gnu.’
page 76 note 1 From the words for ‘one’ and ‘two’ !oai and !u in Khuai and Ṇoa and Ṇu in Se-roa, it would seem that the click ! changes regularly in gutturo-nasal Ṇ from one dialect to the other.
page 78 note 1 In his excellent paper quoted above.
page 79 note 1 See Prof. Flower, W. H., On the osteology and affinities of the natives of the Andaman Islands in Journ. of the Anthrop. Inst. vol. ix. p. 108Google Scholar; Presidential Address, vol. xiv. p. 383;Google ScholarMann, E. A., same publication, vol. xii. p. 74et seq.Google Scholar
page 79 note 2 Some early Spanish maps of Africa, however, give the name of Bushmen to populations in the central part of the Continent. Are they the same as our Bushmen? We cannot say. Some utterances of Dr. Livingstone might, however, make us believe that it was so.
page 80 note 1 This is the simplest explanation of the Egyptian tradition preserved in the classics, that, formerly, the sun used to rise at the right and set at the left; there are, besides, other evidences of the Austral origin of the Egyptians.