The demonstratives wa, ta, wi, ti, may take the possessive suffixes and express le mien, &c.1

2

155. The adjective is included within the verb, being expressed by a participle, and having no forms for degrees of comparison. It agrees with its noun in gender and number, except that in the plural it has only one form for both genders.3

The subject affixes of the verb are:

The verbal stem with these person elements is an indefinite tense which expresses the fact thought as completed without defining the time. It is sufficiently analogous to the Syro-Arabian perfect to be called the perfect.

It is changed into an actual present in certain verbs, generally those which have more than two radicals, by a before the last radical, which becomes i when negatived; in others a derived form expressive of habit gives duration to it.5

It is put in the past by being preceded by kelad, which, followed by actual present, expresses imperfect, and by perfect a pluperfect; and it is put in the future by having ad prefixed, or to make it stronger ha or ra.6

The second singular imperative is the stem of the verb; the second plural is -t masculine, -met feminine.7

156. Verbs having one or two radical consonants often begin with a vowel which appears, from its changeableness, not to be radical. When this vowel is a in the imperative and future, it is generally u in the perfect; in a few instances it is i in the imperative and future, and u in the perfect.8

A very great number of verbs having one or two radical consonants take i at the end of the root in the first and second singular, and a in all the other persons; which, however, generally changes to i when the verb is negatived, and often, when in the third singular or first plural, it takes an object suffix of the third singular, sometimes also with that of third plural, the t of the suffix being then dropped; the vowels a, e, following in the imperative a doubled radical, sometimes change to u in the tenses.10

157. A participle is formed by subjoining, for the masculine singular, n to the third singular masculine of the perfect, for the feminine singular, t to the third singular feminine of the perfect; a plural for both genders is formed by adding to the masculine singular the termination of the plural as in substantives. This participle thus formed

1 Hanoteau, p. 33.

• Ibid. p. 55.

7 Ibid. p. 56.

2 Ibid. p. 50.
5 Ibid. pp. 57, 58.
8 Ibid. pp. 60, 61.
10 Ibid. p. 63.

Ibid. p. 50-54. 6 Ibid. pp. 58, 60. 9 Ibid. pp. 61, 62.

from the perfect is past, when similarly formed from present or future it is present or future.1

158. The verb has several derived forms with elements prefixed or suffixed to the verbal root.

1, 8, causative; 2, tu-, passive; 3, m-, reciprocal when used with causative, passive, neuter; 4, nm-, nim-, reciprocal; 5, -t, become ; 6, t, habitual; 7, second radical doubled, habitual; 8, a before last radical, habitual, used generally with causatives and passives; 9, u before the last radical, habitual, used with causatives; 10, -a, -i, -u, habitual, used with causatives and with combinations of 1, 2, and 3.2

There are the following combinations of these forms, 2, 1; 1, 4; 3, 1; 8, 1; 9, 1; 8, 2; 6, 3; 6, 4; 6, 5; 10, 2, 1; 10, 1, 4; 6, 3, 1, 8.3 The conjugation of the derived forms differs in nothing from that of the simple verb.4

The habitual forms express the frequentative, the continued.5

The second form and the sixth do not generally admit the vowel changes of 156.6

In the third form a changeable a (156) becomes i after m, and the other vowel changes of 156 generally take place.7

159. With a negative the future is expressed by an habitual perfect, and the imperative by an habitual imperative.8

The reflexive verbal idea is expressed by the verb, followed by iman, soul, person, with the proper possessive suffix.o

There is a verb emus, a copula, and a verb el, to have.10

An interrogation is expressed with mir after the verb, whether immediately or not."1

A verb is negatived by being preceded by our or ou, and a in the last syllable then becomes i 12 (155, 156).

A future past (shall have) may be expressed by the future of emus, followed by the perfect of the verb, each with its person. But such relative tenses are little used. 13

The verbal infinitive is generally expressed by the future, and the nominal infinitive by the verbal noun.'

14

160. When personal suffixes are employed both for the direct object and the indirect, the indirect precedes the direct; and when the verb is affected also with the adverbial d (here, hereupon), this follows the object suffixes.15

Any particle affecting a verb attracts to itself from the verb an object suffix, the adverbial suffix d here, hereupon, or the subjoined n which forms the participle. 15

The particles a, as, ra, ha, before a verb strengthen the assertion, a and as being used before the past, ra and ha before the future; they seem each to involve a demonstrative element. 16

161. Verbal nouns of the action are formed from the verbal stem

as follows: 1, a-; 2, a-, with a between the radicals; 3, a-, with u before the last radical; 4, t -t; 5, t -aut; 6, ti. The first formation is used with causatives and with some passives and reciprocals; some nouns of this formation end in i. The second formation belongs to verbs of three radicals, and these verbs have generally at the same time nouns of action of the third and fifth forms. The sixth form is the most frequent, its t is generally followed by i, and a changeable a (156) becomes u.1

Nouns of the agent are formed by prefixing a to the verbal stem, and inserting a before its last radical, or by prefixing an, am, or anm, often also with insertion of a before the last radical.2

162. "The number of the particles which correspond to our prepositions, adverbs, and conjunction is restricted enough in Tamachek; and each of them may be translated into French by many different words, according to the sense of the phrase. The prepositive, adverbial, and conjunctive expressions are formed either by means of verbs or by pronouns and particles, or by the help of substantives verbal for the most part and denoting a state or manner of being.'

"3

The prepositions in accordance with their nominal nature take the possessive suffixes.

This deficient sense of relation is accompanied by a remarkable tendency to connect related objects by means of pronominal elements; he said to him to father his of young man

thus inna has i· ti s n'abarad, he said to the father of the young man.

It is also probably the reason that any particle preceding a verb as relative to it attracts to itself from the verb any element suffixed to the latter; for owing to the deficient sense of relation the mind fails to think a relative element transitionally, and tends to take up into it the consequent, omitting the transition. When an element is relative to a fact it tends to take up what the verb passes to in the conception of fact, omitting the transition, that is, the verb itself.

163. There is in this language a singular mixture of African and Syro-Arabian characteristics. And the African characteristics are different from those which show themselves in Ethiopic and Amharic.

In the latter languages there is evidence of a tendency to contract the act of thought by limitation of its object (123, 146), and also of a tendency to detach from the verbal stem the process of being or doing (125, 145), both which characterise African speech. But in Tamachek the principal African feature is the tendency which distinguishes the Kafir languages to express as a prefix the substance of the noun and the subject person of the verb. The rules given in 152 in reference to the initial letters of nouns are strikingly suggestive of the structure of Kafir nouns, or rather of this in its reduced form as it appears in West Africa in Oti, Bullom, and Woloff, and the tendency to put the person before the verb led to the application to the perfect of the personal prefixes which in Syro-Arabian belonged to the imperfect, so as to abolish the distinction between these two tenses. Such a part of the verb, indefinite as to position in time, is found generally in 1 Hanoteau, pp. 101, 102. 2 Ibid. p. 105. 3 Ibid. p. 108. 4 Ibid. p. 36.

African languages. It is the action of African influence on a SyroArabian language which seems to be indicated in the Tamachek formations. Indeed, it is remarkable that these retain so much of that essentially Syro-Arabian feature, internal vowel change, not only in the verbal formations, but also in the plural nouns. The grammatical elements also are to a great extent Syro-Arabian; t for the feminine gender and for the nomen unitatis; the nasal for the plural, the broad vowel a for the plural (130), the elements of the personal pronouns, the elements of the derived forms of the verb; a expressive of the stronger process of being or doing, differently applied, however, in Tamachek, in which often it expresses an actual present or a future, and absorbed by the first and second singular, so as to be reduced to i, while it has to be supplied with the other more objective persons, changed into i also in the last syllable after a negative, as in the present tense of Kafir verbs.

lion with panther with

with jackal past abeggi kelad

164. Example: Awaqqas dahar et tahuri d be 3d pl. pl. comrade pl. day one hunt 3d pl. find 3d pl. sheep kill 3d pl. emusen imidawen; ahel iien geddelen egrawen tehali enřa · n her 3d sing. speak lion 3d sing. say to them who to us 3d sing. divide tet; i siul awaggas part. pl. meat pl. these

i

say 3d pl.

en isa n wider; ennan

nna ha jackal he abeggi enta

us

sen, maha ner i zzun. that 3d sing. be little part. among wa i nderr en de

3d sing. divide jackal pl. meat pl. 3d sing. make four

ner; i zzun abeggi isa

n

i

fem. parts 3d sing. ga okkozet teful; i

say to them come; 2d pl. imper. each one fut. 3d sing. take part of it nna hasen aiau

say to him to jackal which of all

nna ha S i·abeggi ma n'eket say to him jackal be like 3d pl. fem.take one nna has abeggi ula net etkel iie lion not

fem. that to thee 3d sing. fem. pleasing becomes 3d sing. say to him

et; i nna has awaqqas ur

iuit t

2d pers. know sing. division 2d sing. strike him 3d sing. kill him when 3d sing. die i nrat; as i • mmut jackal seek 3d pl. that fut. 3d. sing. divide part. meat pl. 3d sing. fem. say abeggi egmi en wa ha

I dem. fut. 3d sing. divide part. 3d. sing. fem. mix meat pl. of sen tahuri nekk u ha i zzun en eserti isan n' jackal with meat pl. of sheep 3d sing. fem. begin division 3d sing. fem. make abeggi disa・n en tehali t ules tazzunt t

six fem. parts they three of them when 3d sing. see lion that 3d sing. sediset teful entenid kerad· esen; as say to 3d sing. obj. we three of us nna ha Ꭶ nekkenid kerad'ener them fem. be part. 3d sing. fem. say to him t enna ha s tahuri

these fem. six fem. who ti· der sedis et ma' this of lion

this

ta rer n'awaqqas, ta'rer

of chief of us that of three fem. of eye pl. dem. pl. fem. 3d pers. be red part. n'ameqqar'ne'ner ta·skerad et en titt awin ti

pl. fem. 3d sing. fem. say 3d sing. obj. lion who 2d pers. pron. fem. 3d sing. caus. i

panther and tahuri and jackal were comrades; one day they hunted, they found a sheep, they killed her; lion spoke, and said to them, Who is to divide to us these meats? they said, Jackal, he that is least of us. Jackal divided the meats; he made four parts; he said to them, Come, each one shall take a part of it; hereupon lion came, said to him, to jackal, Which of all is my part among them? jackal said to him, They are alike, take one that is pleasing to thee; lion said to him, Thou knowest not division; he struck him, he killed him. When jackal died they sought (one) that would divide the meats; tahuri said to them, Here am I to divide; she mixed meats of jackal with meats of sheep; she began division; she made six parts, they (being) three; when lion saw that, he said to her, We (are) three, these six parts, who owns them? tahuri said to him, This for lion, this for our chief, the third for the eyes that are red; lion said to her, Who taught thee this division? she said to him, The stroke that killed jackal, it taught me this division; imidawen is masculine plural of amidi,2 the feminine plural is timidawin; mahaner, the interrogative and relative pronouns, are amongst those particles which, preceding a verb, attract suffixes belonging to the verb, though not the participial-n (160, 162); a relative or interrogative pronoun is followed by a participle; teful is the plural of tafult; aiaut is imperative of an obsolete verb;5 egrazet seems to be a derived verb of the fifth form (158); tittawin is plural of tit; a personal pronoun as subject attracts the object suffixes from the verb, thus entat hi.

4

HAUSSA.

3

3

165. The Haussa language, which borders on Tamachek to the south, shows traces of affinity to it, and through it to the SyroArabian, but so faint and uncertain that one might say that SyroArabian features vanish in Haussa.

Its consonants are h, k, g, n, y, tʻ, t, d, t', s, z, r, l, n, f, w, b, m; gb is a double consonant, characteristic of these parts of Africa; kw also occurs. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u; the diphthongs are ei and oi; other concurrent vowels get each its full sound; n becomes m before b.6

166. Abstract nouns of action or quality are formed by -ta; nouns of the agent by ma-, mai- singular, masu- plural; diminutives by dahsingular, yaya- plural.7

Nouns have two numbers, singular and plural. The plural is formed so variously as to be scarcely reducible to rule; sometimes by -una, -ua substituted for last vowel; sometimes by -i, or by -i preceded by the same consonant as that which begins the last syllable, changing also the final vowel into uo or o or a; sometimes by inserting a before the last syllable.8

There are two genders, masculine and feminine, which, however, seem to be principally sexual; the termination - belongs chiefly to the masculine, a to the feminine."

1 Hanoteau, p. 133.

4 Ibid. p. 64.

7 Ibid. p. 4.

2 Ibid. p. 23.
Ibid. p. 126.

8 Ibid. p. 5.

3 Ibid. p. 24.

6 Schön, Gram. Haussa, p. 1-3.

9 Ibid. p. 6.