Chapter IX

Language.

The hypothesis I have met with, I think in Parsons’s Remains of Japhet, that the confusion of languages at Babel was a visitation on the family of Ham only, which spread itself over Africa, is certainly supported (considering the radical affinities which have been traced between the Arabic the Russ and the Greek, the Persian and the German, the Qquichua, or language of the Incas, and the Sanscrit, and many others[111]) by the variety of languages in Africa which cannot be assimilated in the least degree to each other, and which would, I think, resist the laborious ingenuity of the philologist.

I have heard about half a dozen words in the Fantee, which might be said to be not unlike the same nouns in the Welsh language; and this is the only affinity which has been imagined. Two words only in the Accra language have struck me as assimilating to those of any other, the conjunction “kay” (and), which with a broader sound would answer the corresponding Greek conjunction και; and fai (to do,) pronounced as the perfect participle of the same verb in French, and which is spelled fai in the old songs of Richard the first, and the troubadour Faydit. The Fantee word umpa (true, indeed,) may be imagined to resemble the Greek εμπας, which has the same meaning; but it is a solitary instance.

From Apollonia or Amănăheä to the Volta, about 300 miles, six languages are spoken: the Amanaheä, Ahanta, Fantee, Affoottoo, Accra, and the Adampë. The numerals of which will appear, collaterally with others hitherto unknown, at the end of this chapter.

The Ashantee, in comparison with the Fantee, Warsaw, &c. &c. from its refinement of idiom, oratory being so much more cultivated, may be considered as the Attic amongst the dialects of the Greek, but it owes its superior euphony, striking to any ear, to the characteristics of the Ionic, an abundance of vowel sounds, and a rejection of aspirates:

Fantee. Ashantee.

Key Sāfie Saphwooa.

Lock Karradacoo Karradoo.

Night Adayfwa Adagio.

Day Aweeabil Aweeabillee.

Gun Etoorh Oteuh.

Vocabularies of these languages would not be interesting to the public, especially as no affinity can be traced; and I know not how to acquit myself of every thing like indifference to the curiosity at home, (without the dulness of the subject proving more irksome than a disappointment,) unless I endeavour to give an idea of the philosophy of the languages,[112] and submit their progress, collaterally with that of the arts and manners. The genius of the Accra language differing the most essentially from that of the Ashantee or Fantee, examples from both will be instanced for illustration. I have principally consulted two gentlemen, natives of the country, but educated in Europe: the one resident between forty and fifty years; the other, who has a respectable knowledge of the grammar of the English and French languages, returned from England about ten years back, and both are as fluent as the Negroes in the Fantee and Accra, the latter being their vernacular tongue.

Impressed with the ingenious hypothesis of the learned author of the Diversions of Purley, my first care has been to investigate the particles of the Fantee and Accra, considering the languages of uncivilised people, to be least advanced or removed from the primeval simplicity, to which Mr. Horne Tooke’s system refers. I found, however, both the Accra and Fantee languages more complete than I expected in conjunctions, and seldom using verbs instead of them, which I presumed they might do. Yet I have no doubt, their half dozen of conjunctions, if examined etymologically by a person thoroughly conversant in the languages, might be traced, and shewn to be the contracted imperatives of the most recurrent verbs, as Mr. Tooke has proved those of our own language to be. Neither the Accra or Fantee have conjunctions answering to each of ours; the distinction between many is neither comprehensible or necessary to them. I will submit their conjunctions, with those investigated in the first volume of the Diversions of Purley.

Fantee. Accra.

Onee and Kay

Sey if Kedgee

unless

Emphee still Shee

but

Interah because Nooyĕwon

since Nunnë

Namoo notwithstanding Nemoolay

though

Anna otherwise Noollay

or

There are no adverbs in either language. There are but two in our own which may not be expressed by a verb or an adnoun, still and since; and these they express by the conjunctions but and because. “I intreated, but (still) he would not,” “because (since) it is so,” as the Latins frequently used prepositions for the Greek adverbs. Indeed since is expressible by a verb, being derived according to Mr. Tooke from the Saxon sithan, seeing that. They express the adverb much by the adjective many; ago by a verb, “it passes ten years;” almost by the verb it wants, “it wants to rain;” and when by a noun, “the time I was there,” coincident with Jones’s derivation of ὁτε.[113] Nooyĕwon, (because) in Accra, is literally, “for the sake of.” Intērah, the corresponding word in Fantee, “on the head of,” (tirree is head) thus, they would say, “I do this on your head,” or because you told me. Lest, which is considered by Mr. Horne Tooke to be the past participle of the Saxon verb leyan, to dismiss, is not to be found either in the Accra or Fantee: in the former they would say, “Menkaw hauh ebbēbărădi,” “do not go there, you fall down;” and in the latter, “Kaiheah djai nee oheäbwayshee,” “do not go there, and (or for) you fall down.” The use of the noun for the adverb is frequent in Demosthenes, (“εϛι δικαιος εχειν,” “he justly deserves”) and can only be accounted for in a prose writer, who does not need poetical licenses, as an archaism, disused generally, through invention or refinement. The term adverb is not a just indication of the origin of that part of speech, for, although they are derived from verbs as well as nouns, yet, in our own language, as well as in the Greek, following Mr. Horne Tooke, the greater number are derived from nouns: and those (of which there are some in the Greek) which may be indifferently derived from a noun, or a verb, may be referred to the former; because, many of the adnouns from which adverbs are derived in the Greek, have been pointed out as disused; and therefore the verbs from which adverbs are exclusively derived, are likely to be derived themselves from obsolete adnouns, which cannot be recalled; for it has been philosophically advanced, that originally there could have been but one sort of words, that is, nouns, or the names of the objects of our sensations and ideas.[114]

I consider the absence of adverbs, participles, and prepositions, certainly the least indispensible parts of speech, and favouring copiousness rather than energy, to be a proof of the almost genuine, or primeval simplicity of the Accra and Fantee languages, which have not advanced or altered, even in the small degree of their arts or manners; for these have only been ameliorated by commercial intercourse with strangers, who not understanding their language could not have suggested improvements, and from whose languages, they being equally unintelligible, amendments could not have been copied. We find Portuguese nouns, and nouns only, adopted in the Fantee; and that, of necessity, as Saxon nouns were adopted in the Welsh or Celtic, because they had no words to designate novelties they had never before seen or heard of; and, therefore, they called them as those did who introduced them. These primitive languages being, nevertheless, thoroughly adequate to oratory as well as the commoner purposes of speech, is a strong proof that language was revealed, as Johnson, Blair, Warburton, and others have maintained, and that it was not the fruit of human invention or industry, as Lucretius, Horace, and most of the antients imagined.

Neither the Accra or Fantee distinguish genders, the name of the person, or the context, is the only explication; they have not even a third person feminine, but one pronoun serves for he, she, it.

The Accra has a definite and indefinite article, but both are affixed to the noun, as “minna nooleh,” I saw the man; “minna nookoo,” I saw a man. The indefinite article “koo” is the contraction of numeral one, “ekoo,” so that I saw a man, is literally “I saw man one.” An is simply another form of the numeral one, still used in North Britain under the form ane; and in the French, the numeral and the article corresponding to one, are the same. The Fantee, like the Greek, has no indefinite article, or according to Mr. Harris’s expression, on which Mr. Horne Tooke is so pleasant, “supplies it by a negation of the definite,” which is “noo,” affixed, as “mehoon nimpanoo,” I saw the man.[115]

In the Accra, the plural is formed by inflection, epenthesis, paragoge, and apocope: these changes are almost peculiar in every noun; the more frequent inflections are, ai, ay, and ee.

Singular. Plural.

A woman yeo yeay.

A box adikka adikkai.

A stone teh tai.

Ground shepong shepongee.

A hyæna krang krangee.

A father tchay tchaymë.

A liar amallalo amallaloi.

A gun toon tween.

A vessel lelen ledgenë.

A man noon nhal.

A house tchoon tchuë.

In the Fantee the plural number is distinguished by the prefix en, though generally, if they can, (in a glance whilst speaking) discover the number of objects, they use a numeral with the noun singular; or, if they cannot be so precise in the instant, they substitute many to mark an indefinite number. The Chinese also, are said to drop their plural adjunct “min,” when there is another word of plurality attached to the noun.

Neither language has prepositions, and of course peraphrasis is generally resorted to: conjunctions are sometimes substituted, as and for with; occasionally verbs, as “the King to give his captain,” for to his captain; and, sometimes, they are presumed from the tone or the context. Mr. Horne Tooke, who values prepositions very much, has traced all but five, of our own language, to nouns and verbs; and of these five, three have since been traced to nouns and a numeral; so that out and off, only, are unaccounted for. Jones, in his Greek Grammar, writes, “the roots of prepositions are nouns and verbs,” and, accordingly, he derives απο from the Hebrew, ab, a stem, περι from the Arabic pera, eminence, υπερ from the Hebrew aber, sky, or the Persian ober, a cloud: the inseparable prepositions had been traced to nouns and verbs long before.

Degrees of comparison are not expressed by adjectives or adverbs, in either language: but, for he is richer than he, the Accras would say, “eh phay leh ne;” the Fantees, “aw tchen adee,” he passes him (in) things: neither language has an adjective answering to rich or wealthy, but “ne,” and “adee,” in both, correspond exactly in meaning and use with the res of the Latins: the superlative would be expressed by “he passes all.” The antient idiom of comparison, antecedent to the general use of inflections or adverbs, was probably similar, judging from the following, and many other sentences in the Greek, “Παῥ ἑαυτὸν μηδένα ἐπιτὴδειον ἡγεῖτο, he thought no body fitter than himself;” “πλείονος δοξης παρὰ Μωσῆν ἠξίωται, Heb. xiii. he was counted of more glory, or more glorious than Moses.” Here παρα, so frequently expressing comparison, being derived from the verb περαω, to pass, is identical with the Accra and Fantee expression.

I observed before that the Accra and Fantee have no adjective answering to rich, they are also deficient in many others, which they supply by a second substantive in the same manner. This idiom is found in the Greek, “Το σωμα της ταπεινωσεως ἠμων, our humiliated body, the body of our humiliation; Αιρεσεις απωλειας. destructive heresies, &c. &c.” and it is said to be both a Hebrew and Celtic idiom; primeval languages, and the latter, I presume, as rude as those we are investigating.

In the Accra, the personal pronouns are

I me

thou boh

he, she, it lheh

we whah

you nnheay

they amăy

Me is generally reduplicate before verbs, as “me me yay” I eat. Boh before verbs generally suffers aphæresis as “oh yay,” thou eatest, but sometimes not, as “boh fai,” thou doest: this is also the case with lheh as “heh yay, lheh fai.” Me is added, as met in Latin, to make these pronouns compound. In Fantee the personal pronouns are

I me

thou awaw

he, she, it narra

we yarra

you awoo

they warra;

the latter is used as a possessive pronoun also; woodde is affixed to make them compound; they are irregularly contracted before verbs. Considering these barbarous languages of primitive simplicity, and recollecting the original and philosophical deduction of pronouns from verbs, by the Greek professor of Glasgow, as εγω or εγων (which is the more ancient) from λεγων, ipse from επω, I particularly enquired for verbs resembling their pronouns; but, after a long and diligent recollection, neither of my authorities could furnish me with any to the point. It is curious to observe, that the me represents the pronoun I, in both these rude languages,[116] as it does, though not in the nominative case, in most other primitive languages, and in the modern ones derived from them: it would seem to be the natural and involuntary expression for that pronoun.

There is only an active voice in the Accra or Fantee; the passive is expressed by a circumlocution, as he loves, or they love me, for I am loved, &c.[117] It appears erroneous to consider the infinitive mood as the root of the verb, when it has a separable or distinguishing termination, and mong is as distinctly the verbalizing adjunct in the Accra language, as ere or are in the Latin, ειν in Greek, or an in the Anglo-Saxon. If we consider the imperative as the divested fundamental form of the verb, it is still difficult in these languages to get at the root, for the use of the infinitive for the imperative, occasional in the Greek, is, in the Accra, so general, that for some time I thought it unexceptionable, and that it had not the two moods.

The Accra has the neuter verb to be in the present, perfect, and future tenses, but in the perfect, it is irregular.

I am I have been I shall be

meyeh metay mahyeh

The Fantee only has it in the present, “oh yea, he is.” It is remarkable that even the linguists of our forts, who speak English fluently, never understand or use our neuter verb to be, but substitute live for it, and that, whether they speak of animate or inanimate things; a servant would say, “your keys live in your pocket.”

The imperative mood has a present tense complete in each language.

They express the potential mood by adding auxiliary verbs, such as our can, may, &c., have been shewn to be derived from.

The termination of the infinitive in the Accra is generally mong, which is rejected in conjugating. In the Fantee it is not distinguished from the first person present, or root. The use of the infinitive mood, even in Accra, is very circumscribed, for it is not found even in the most natural case when two verbs come together, as I want to eat, for which they say, “metōn meyay,” I want I eat. The infinitive is generally used for the imperative in the Accra, but, otherwise, it only occurs in an idiom almost peculiar to that language, for instance, for are you walking now, they say,

“Neomong oh neo neh,”

“To walk are you walking now.”

For I am straightening it,

“Jadjumong me jadjio leh.”

“To straighten I am straightening it.”

Verbs are invariably used thus, interrogatively, and, generally, in replies. I said almost peculiar, because I think this pleonasm is identified in the Greek idiom, “Ουχι μενον σοι εμενε. Remaining, did it not remain to thee.”

The Accra has the present, imperfect, perfect, and future tenses: the imperfect and future being distinguished by the prefixes bleh and ah, the one before, the other after the pronoun.

“me yāyne. bleh me yayne. me yăy. m’ahye.”

I eat it. I was eating it. I eat. I will eat.

But the imperfect tense is never used, unless a sentence precedes it, as

“Bennay heh bă bleh me yay.”

“When he came I was eating.”

Otherwise, they use the perfect for the imperfect, never replying to a question even, in the latter. The perfect is only distinguished from the present by being pronounced short. These explicative particles, bleh and ah, would, no doubt, be found to be remnants of verbs of appropriate signification, as the ai of the French future is derived from avoir, were any philologist sufficiently acquainted with the languages to investigate them. Ne, signifying it or thing, is adjoined to many verbs, frequently in the present tense only, like the explicative particle en conjugated with “aller.”

The Fantee has a present, perfect, and pluperfect: as “me dedee,” I eat, “me adee,” I have eaten, “me waya dedee,” I had eat. It has no future, yet the time is marked precisely, by adding soon, to-morrow, &c. to the present.

Neither language has participles; for, I see him coming, the Accras would say, according to their idiom,

“Minnā eh ba’lheh.”

“I see his coming.”

Ba being a noun, with the definite article lheh affixed. The Fantees would say,

“Mehoon deh orraba.”

“I see that he comes.”

Many verbs in the Accra language are conjugated like reflectives, though they are not so in their nature, as

“Me nakoo me fai lheh

I not I did it, for I did not do it.

In the Accra, ko, the contraction of nakoo, (not,) is added to verbs as a negative, as “meyayko,” I did not eat; yet, in some instances, they have distinct verbs to express the negative of the action, as “mahttay,” I will go, “meyang,” I will not go.

The Fantee prefixes neën, not, as “me dedee,” I eat, “me neën dedee,” I do not eat; and they have also, apparently, distinct negative verbs, as “me becko,” I go, “me’nkoko,” I do not go.

The Accra resembles the Greek in the nice distinctions of some of its verbs and nouns.

Gnăghmong To salute in the morning.

Cotaghmong To roll up.

Balbaghtoomong To draw towards

Tehtemong To gather up

Kakow The tooth ache (nanyong a tooth)

Kodjomong To talk a palaver

Song To work as a smith neechoomong to work

Ghnāmong mechanic

Ninnamong To separate weeds from earth

The Accra and Fantee interjections are generally parts of sentences, as, Mr. Horne Tooke has shewn most of our own to be: “minnannako,” what do I see now, “me ä whoo!” I die, “màdja!” oh my father, equally responsive to grief, joy, or surprise; and used as involuntarily, and as frequently as the two syllables boh, hah, which answer to our oh, and ah, and which, of course, cannot be called words. An Ashantee striking his foot against a stone, or any thing in his way, exclaims “the thing is mad.”

I was surprised to find little, or no inversion in the Accra or Fantee prose[118]; the substantive precedes the adjective, but there is scarcely any other trace of it: yet, it is one of their poetical licenses, as may be instanced in the following line of a Fantee song;

“Abirrikirri croom ogah odum.”

Foreign town fire put in,

for “the foreign town is set on fire.” In addition to this inversion, so many peculiar additives, (generally vowels,) and inflexions are allowed, as well as the figures Synæresis, Diæresis, Metathesis, and Anastrophe, in their poetry, and in their poetry only, (making it unintelligible even to those who can converse fluently with them) that both languages may be said to have a Prosody. From the following song, I imagined the Fantees (for the Accra’s are said to possess none but fetish hymns in their own language) to have some idea of rhyme, considering the inversion of the first line as forced, and expressly accommodated to the metre,

Abirrikirri croom ogah odum,

Ocoontinkiï bonoo fum,

Cooroompun,

Coom agwun,

but I have not met with any other instance.

The Ashantees generally use much and vehement gesture, and speak in recitative: their action is exuberant, but graceful; and from the infancy of the language,[119] nouns and verbs are constantly repeated, for force, and distinction, as one one, for, one by one, or, each; one tokoo one tokoo, for, one tokoo a-piece. They frequently are obliged to vary the tone, in pronouncing a word which has more than one meaning, as the Chinese do. They have no expression short of you are a liar, and the king was surprised, when I told him we made a great difference between a mistake and a lie; he said the truth was not spoken in either case, and, therefore, it was the same thing; they did not consider the motive but only the fact.

Like the American languages, those of this part of Africa, are full of figures, hyperbolical and picturesque.[120] One of the kings of the interior, whose territories the Ashantees had long talked of invading, sent forty pots of palm oil to Coomassie, with the message, that, “he feared they could not find their way, so he sent the oil to light them.” The Accras instead of good night, say “wooäu d’tcherrimong,” sleep till the lighting of the world: one of their imprecations against their enemies, is, “may their hiding place be our flute,” that is, “our plaything:” when they speak of a man imposing on them, they say, “he turned the backs of our heads into our mouths.” Having occasion, whilst at Coomassie, to protest against the conduct of an individual, the king replied, through Adoosee, “The horse comes from the bush, and is a fool, but the man who rides him knows sense, and by and by makes him do what he wishes; you, by yourself, made the horse, who was a fool, do better the other day, therefore, three of you ought to teach a man, who is not born a fool, and does not come from the bush, to do what you know to be right by and by, though I see he does wrong now.” Other instances will appear in their songs.

I shall transfer the imperfect Vocabularies which I formed, and the incidental observations, to the Appendix; as they may not be indulged with so much attention by the generality of readers, as the investigation of the structure.