towards civilisation than the Bushmen, though a stranger at first sight might not have seen much difference in personal appearance between the two. A little observation, however, would have shown that the Bushmen were not only smaller and uglier, but that their faces were broader, their eyes not nearly as full and bright, their lobeless ears rounder in shape, and their chins less prominent. Their wild expression also was not observed in the Hottentot face.
The investigations of the late Dr. Bleek have shown that the languages of the two races were not only different in the words, except in such as were adopted by Hottentots from captive Bushman girls, but that they varied in construction. That of the Hottentots was of a high order, being of the same class as our own, and following grammatical rules as strictly as English does. Its vocabulary, however, was of a low type, as three-fourths of the syllabic elements began with clicks, though these sounds were not so extensively used as by Bushmen and did not vary so much, being only four in number. Further it was almost free of deep guttural or croaking sounds, except where there had been a large infusion of Bushman blood. Some words were composites, but most were monosyllables, as were all the roots, which invariably ended with a vowel. The sound of the liquid consonant l was wanting. In many instances the same word had different significations, according as it was pronounced. Thus ǃkaib pronounced in the lowest tone meant obscurity, pronounced in a medium tone meant a district or locality, and pronounced in the highest tone meant a particular article of clothing.[1]
- ↑ I am personally entirely unacquainted with the Hottentot language, and have taken the information upon it given here from Dr. Bleek's Comparative Grammar of South African Languages, Eléments de la Grammaire Hottentote by H. de Charencey, and A Grammar and Vocabulary of the Namaqua-Hottentot Language by the reverend Henry Tindall, Wesleyan missionary, a demi octavo volume published at Capetown in 1857. The first chapter of Dr. Theophilus Hahn's Tsuni-ǁGoam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi, is exceedingly interesting in this respect, and his conclusions drawn from the structure of the language and its vocabulary fit in most accurately with the origin of the race and its migration from North-Eastern Africa as given in the preceding pages.
