Note 124 — CHAP. XIV.

This circumstance explains a curious fact in Mr. Koelle’s Polyglotta Africana, a work of the greatest merit, but in which, on account of the immense ground over which it extends, some errors must be expected. One of the most unfortunate examples in this respect are his specimens of a language called Kándín (xii. C.). Now the name Kándín is quite inadmissible in ethnography, being a name given to the Imóshagh or Tawárek only by the Kanúri people, to say nothing of the very odd geographical blunder involved in the expression “Absen, a town of Egades.” But the specimens of the language which Mr. Koelle gives under this head are a curious mixture of Targíye, Háusa, and even some Kanúri terms; and his informant, Abárshi (a very common name in Ásben), was most probably a slave by origin, at least not a free man, even before he was enslaved by the Kanúri. But these specimens are not uninteresting, giving a fair idea of the state of things in the country, although any respectable native would be ashamed to mix Háusa and Berber terms in this way; and moreover the latter as given here are mostly corrupted from the very beginning, for “one” is not díyen, but íyen, and the d is only added in composition, as meráw d’íyen, meráw d’esín—“eleven,” “twelve,” &c.