Note 29 — Chapter V · GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL.

Foreigners—Arab, Persian, and Indian,—call them Sawáhili. They call themselves Msawahíli in the singular, and Wasawahíli in the plural, always accenting the penultimate syllable. In the Zangian tongues a prefixed M is evidently an abbreviation of Mti, a tree, e. g. Názi, a cocoa-nut, Mnázi, a cocoa-nut tree, or of Mtu, a man. Before a vowel it is euphoniously exchanged to Mu, e. g. Muarábu, an Arab. The plural form is Wa, a contraction of Watu, men. ‘Wá’ also is the sign of the personal, or rather of the rational animate plural opposed to ‘Má,’ and must not be confounded with the possessive pronoun ‘Wá,’ of. Mr Cooley (Memoir of the Lake Regions, &c., Reviewed, Stanford, 1864), asserts that ‘Wa mtu,’ ‘of a man,’ becomes by rejection of the singular prefix, ‘Watu,’ ‘men‘men (des hommes):’ consequently it is an error to call the coast people Wamrima and the mountaineers Wakilima. If so, it is an error made by every Kisawahili-speaking man. There are, however, tribes, for instance the Rabai and the Doruma, that do not prefix the normal ‘Wá,’ to form a plural. A prefixed ‘Ki,’ possibly contracted from ‘kitu,’ a thing, denotes the language, e. g. Kisawahili: it also acts diminutive, e. g. Kigito, a little mto, or river; and it appears to have at times an adjectival sense. Opposed to it is ‘Ji,’ an augmentative form, e. g. Jito, a big mto. U, possibly derived from an obsolete root which survives in the Kinyika ‘Uatu’ (a place), denotes the country, e. g. Uzaramo, Usagara, and Uzungu—Europe the land of the Wazungu. Some names arbitrarily refuse this locative, for instance, Khutu, Karagwah, Sanga, Bondei, and others: we never hear Ukhutu, and so forth. ‘U’ is also a sign of abstract words, e. g. Mzuri, a handsome man; Uzuri, beauty; Mtajíri, a merchant; Utajíri, merchandise; Refu, long; Urefu, length. I may here remark that Captain Speke’s analysis of Uzaramo and Usagara into U-za-ramo and U-sagara, the country of Ramo and Gara, making them ‘obviously triple words,’ is wholly inadmissible. The root of national and tribal names, whatever it may be, is used only exceptionally amongst the Zangian races. Upon this point I shall presently offer a few observations.